Tainted Skin, Tainted Sin

Chapter 1:

Kyra Winters. Not a name well known to the outside world, but anyone who was part of the coding community knew her. She had made a name for herself at a young age proving she had what it took. She is the mastermind behind a lot of the technology used now and holds the position of Chief Creative Officer at the biggest coding facility in Ricortia: New Age Technology.

She was proud of her accomplishments but also modest. She didn’t try to show them off and she didn’t need to. Everyone there knew exactly who she was and what she was capable of. Most of the time she was busy doing her own projects and helping out the up-and-comers, but she did still have to manage and check in on her department occasionally, though they were really a self-ran department. She also had to give presentations on her latest project and sit in board meetings when required of her, but she loved her job.

Today was one of those days she had to present a new idea to a new client. Kyra walks into her office, her music blaring, nodding hello at her coworkers as she passes them, her arms full of paper diagrams and her tablet. She sets down the diagrams on her desk, already cluttered with papers she had to sort through for the department. She glances over to her computer that she needed to boot up, and makes her way towards it, dancing as she goes about turning it on. Luckily, despite the small design, her computer was quick and allowed for her to efficiently do her work without lag.

She pulls up her presentation on her computer and swipes up on the screen, pushing it up to the presentation room across the hall. She hums to her music as she grabs her things heading across the hall. Her presentation shows up on the glass walls of the presentation room like they needed to be, illuminating the room until she flips the lights on balancing out the lighting, She set the diagrams down again on the glass conference table and moves to the walls to organize what she needed to in order to fully do her presentation right, at least in her opinion. She pauses, checking the time before she actually begins the organization process, seeing she still has 20 minutes before she was set to present.

Plenty of time to reorganize things.

She moves around the room, utilizing only two of the glass walls so she could use the other two to hang her paper diagrams up. They were currently rolled up neatly on the conference table in the center of the room until she needed them. First, she needed to deal with the presentation on the glass walls.

Using her fingers, she gingerly moves things across the giant glass walls, in the order that would work best for her presentation. If she wanted something on the other wall she would just swipe over to the side and it would appear on that one for her to move around when she got to it. There was a lot of back and forth at first until she had what she wanted on both sides and set about organizing one side at a time. After she was satisfied with that, she moves and hangs her diagrams up using magnets specially made to hold on to the glass. She makes sure that as she unrolls them, that none of them are ripped or damaged, and they were displayed in an eye-catching way. She enjoyed the mixture of technology and paper to demonstrate her points, even though most stuck to solely technology.

Once she was done, she felt confident with where she placed things. She had been doing this for years now, and it never failed her before. She knew they would love the idea she had to pitch, even though they didn’t understand her reasoning behind using both paper and technology, they would still get up and look at her diagrams and mess with her mini-project, that she brought as a demo, to see how it functioned and operated.

She pauses in her process of getting ready to walk back over to her office and grabs the ready-to-go cup of tea the intern would leave on the desk, like always, and finally pauses her music. She was ready to present. She composes herself and puts on a big smile, making sure she had her tea before making her way back over to the conference room. Watching and waiting as the new clients, along with her bosses, walk-in.

Some of them were dressed in suits, others with button-up shirts and jeans, and some in casual clothes completely, but they were faced Kyra didn’t bother to remember well beside those of her bosses. New clients were normal, they come and go, she sees them maybe 3 times during the whole process so she doesn’t try to get to know them.

They began to seat themselves as they wait for everyone else to arrive, giving them time to look around the walls if they were curious about what to expect. She specifically asked for them not to get up and wander yet, she wanted them to experience it as a whole together. She knew if some wandered now, that they wouldn’t participate when it comes time to her presentation or that they would tune her out since they saw what she had done before she explained everything. So they mingled amongst themselves as everyone waits, and Kyra remained at the door greeting people, shaking hands, and smiling. Once they all arrive, she begins her talk.

Her presentation lasts about an hour before she is finally shaking their hands as they make their way out. Luckily, the presentation went as she hoped and the new clients were eager to get the final product and were going to provide the funding she needed to make it happen. She takes down her diagrams and re-rolls them up neatly. Once those are done she shuts down the presentation on the walls and heads back to her office, diagrams in arm. She puts them in the corner for her to review later as she starts her write up of the presentation and what her next steps were going to be when there was a soft knock at her office door.

“Come in,” she called out not looking up.

The door opens and a timid intern walks in.

“Well, what do you need?” Kyra demands glancing up over her computer, she was tired and didn’t want to really deal with anyone for a while.

“S-sorry to disturb ma’am but there was a call from your father’s workplace,” the intern says, speaking up slightly, brushing their hair back out of their face.

“And? What did they want?”

“They wouldn’t say, ma’am, just that they needed you down there as soon as you could. It sounded pretty urgent.”

Kyra lets out a long sigh.

“Okay, tell Marge to notify anyone who needs me that I had to leave early for personal reasons.”

The intern nods and backs out of the room, closing the door behind them.

Kyra then begins to shut down and save what she was doing as she packed up her things to take home and continue working on. She didn’t know what exactly they wanted, but she had fixed their equipment in the past and helped them when things were running slow. So she assumed that they were having some kind of technical problem which was never good at the enormous correctional facility that held thousands of inmates, so she moved fast to get over there.

Kyra gets all of her things together and leaves her office. She waves at Marge with a nod of her head and Marge just gives her a thumbs up, letting Kyra know it was okay to dip out. Making her way out to the nearest teleportation portal, Kyra chooses the destination of The Ricortia Capital Correctional Facility, stepping through the swirling lights feeling the rush of air and drop of her stomach as she is transported.

Kyra arrives seconds later at the border of the facility. She takes a second to let herself adjust before glancing around at the massive building. On the outside, it was guarded by multiple guards at the front gate with a fence surrounding the entire building. The building itself appeared like the old prisons, nothing special, but she knew better. Within the building holds some of the highest technology she has seen, higher than she has been allowed to touch. Their prison cells are made out of thick-bulletproof glass, with the high tech glass technology she has become so used to using at her work and home, but here it was set up with so many extra protocols and extra features that opened the cell-doors and made sure only authorized personnel could access it. Inside had less guarding due to the technology doing such a good job, and this is where she was headed. She needed to make sure the technology used there doesn’t fail or malfunction, especially with her dad working there five days a week.

She walks up to the main gate, pulling her key card out of her bag to show the guards. She smiles politely at the guards as she approaches, holding up her key card. They recognized her almost immediately and didn’t need her key card to allow access in, the perks of having come here all her life and knowing the guards and staff. She smiles and nods a small hello as she makes her way to the building.

Approaching the main doors, she pushes it open and steps into the small receptionist area where a skinny man with short blonde curly hair sat at the computer.

He’s new, I don’t recognize him.

She walks up to the desk he was sitting at and he glances up.

“Hello, how may I help you?” He starts off very formally. Cool, concise, and to the point like they were trained to do.

“Hi, I am Kyra Winters. They are expecting me,” Kyra says in the same manner.

His eyes widen slightly as he nods, “Okay Miss Winters, I’ll buzz you in upstairs and call them to let them know you are here. They are in the second conference room.”

Kyra tilts her head partially confused but nods as he releases the door to get upstairs and contacts who he needs to, to tell them she was here.

The conference room? We never meet in there, what is going on?

She opens the door leading upstairs and makes her way to the second conference room. Inside sat two familiar faces: Dave Richardson, the director of the facility, and Micheal Jones, the IT specialist that she normally worked with. They stand and greet her when she walks in.

“Hello Kyra, please have a seat,” Dave states formally but with a hint of there was more to this than she thought.

“Thank you,” Kyra politely replies as they all sit at the dark wood conference table, “So what is this about Dave?”

He sighs and looks around the room, trying to come up with the words. Micheal lightly touches his arm as reassurance, only confusing Kyra more.

“Kyra….” He starts off quietly.

What is going on? They are never like this, did I do something wrong?

“I don’t know how else to say it, but I don’t want it to come off harsh…” Dave pauses, building the courage to speak the words he didn’t want to say, “Kyra…. your dad was killed earlier today…. An inmate attacked him during rotations at lunch… I’m so sorry Kyra….”

The world stops moving. Kyra suddenly found it hard to breathe.

Requested Information:

The title of this work is "Tainted Skin, Tainted Sin" by Kassie Gruel (Me). Target Audience and Age Group would be Young Adult. Genre is a mix of fantasy and cyberpunk. The current word count is 7071 words, due to it being a work in progress.

What makes this story unique is the fact that when people commit a crime, witnessed, they gain a new tattoo that displays the crime committed. Each tattoo cannot be removed, so this society is based on the mindset of staying pure.

My name is Kassie Gruel. I am a 22 year old, soon to be mom, who has always had a love and passion for writing. I grew up reading nonstop, to a point my books were taken away during classes, and as a result I have collected ideas over the years that I want to turn into written works that I can share with others. I ran "Dead Poets' Society Club" in high school where I helped others find expression through writing and different challenges. Along with pursuing writing in my free-time.

I graduated from high school from Lake Stevens High School in 2020 and have not sought out a higher education as of yet. I am still figuring out what I want to do long-term in my life as a career and life path. I found a love and passion for crochet and have worked on a small business selling my crochet products.

I think my story is a good fit because it is unique and eye catching. Mixing fantasy magic with a high tech world with tattooed crimes has never been done like this. I think this story will reach well to Young Adult groups such as series like "A Court of Thorns and Roses".

Summary-

Kyra Winters, a 23 year old woman, lost her father who worked as a correctional officer during one of his shifts when someone attacked him and killed him. He raised her on the belief of remaining blank, which was to never commit a crime, never do anything to earn the tattoos that stain so many people’s skin. In the midst of her grieving, she discovers a note left by her father the night of his death that read, “Not all is as it seems, this is why they had me killed.”

This pushes Kyra to pursue the truth of what really happened to her father, what really happened to her mother and why she was killed when Kyra was 7. She finds her Aunt Rebecca, who disappeared after her mother’s death, and discovers she was part of an underground organization. She was part of the Mystical Gems of the Circus, but she was also part of an illegal secret coven of witches. Witchcraft was the highest crime beside terrorism, and their tattoo stands out the most because it constantly shimmers and moves.

So what does she do when she find out her mom was part of this coven too? That her dad knew about it and never told her? What does this mean for her? Which path would she follow: that of her mother and her aunt or that of her father who raised her into who she was now?