The screaming started before dawn. At first, I thought it was another fight in the block. Then I sat up on my bunk and felt the wrongness in my own skin. My chest—flat where it hadn’t been. My hands—bigger, rougher. My voice—deep when I cursed out loud.

The Event didn’t care about walls. It had reached us too.

By the time the guards rushed in, the entire cell block was chaos. Hardened men were clutching their faces, sobbing in high voices. The women’s wing across the yard shouted like a storm, their voices lower now, rattling the air. Uniforms hung loose on bodies they weren’t cut for.

And just like that, the balance of power cracked.

I used to run this place. Back when I was six-foot-four and built like a battering ram, no one dared touch me. But now? I was five-six, lean, my muscles gone like they’d been stolen in the night. The ones I used to control looked at me different. Predatory. Hungry.

The guards weren’t any better. Men who had swaggered down these halls were now stumbling in skirts and blouses. Women who once drew catcalls barked orders in voices that carried new weight. The hierarchy flipped, twisted, burned.

That’s when I knew—I had one shot.

The yard gates were unmanned, the confusion spreading faster than the guards could contain it. I rallied two of my old crew—both transformed, both panicking. “We move now,” I told them. My voice cracked, higher than before, but they listened. Survival has no gender.

We hit the yard. A fight broke out near the watchtower—guards trying to hold back a mob with tear gas, but the canisters rolled back against their boots. The whole prison stank of panic and smoke. I grabbed a dropped keyring, fumbled with hands that didn’t feel like mine, and we slipped through a maintenance door.

Sirens wailed. Somewhere, a riot gun fired. The lights flickered. My heart pounded so loud I thought it would give us away.

We burst into the cold outside, sprinting across fields we were never meant to see. I stumbled once, unused to this body, but kept running. My legs burned differently, shorter stride, but desperation pushed me forward.

Behind us, the prison roared like a wounded beast.

I didn’t know what freedom meant anymore, not in this body, not in this world. But as the gates shrank behind us and the night swallowed our breaths, I knew one thing for certain:

The Event hadn’t just broken the world.
It had broken the cage.