held herself hostage

She is the prisoner of her own mind — the matrix, the processor of her system. The system she runs, runs on her.

It accepts inputs based on the tests it ran. She mistakes herself for being the one chairing the control centre, building her own code and entering it. But she is far away, standing still on the other side of the glass pane, seeing someone else click 'enter'.

The code defines her, but also confines her. It sends her signals that she calls thoughts. Her own thoughts. Thoughts that become actions.

But she was being directed in a language that wasn't even her mother tongue.

The language is foreign, the beneficiaries are anyone but her. She is a tiny figment within a larger project — set up to fulfil the goals of someone she never knew.

She never questioned it because that's all she had ever seen — other women doing the exact same thing. If it was only her, it could be a glitch. But a whole network running the same controls? This was never a glitch. This was the design.

This system gets updated with her new 'choices' — the places she visits, the friends she makes, the moments she ruminates and the prayers she repeats. She rewrites her future while living the present.

She tries to step out. Just to see if she can.

But all she sees is red laser beams and hears loud warning sirens.

Now she searches for a crack in the glass pane. She has been searching for a while.