Step into the fog of Kopeysk, where the air hangs heavy with the scent of damp stone and old misery. For too long, the walls of Colony No. 15 held secrets that would make a seasoned costermonger shudder. But the wheel of fortune has turned, and those who held the keys now feel the cold bite of the shackles upon their own wrists.

Constantine Daibov, Stanislav Malkov, and Artem Ni—men who once walked the corridors as lords of the lash—have been brought before the magistrate. The verdict fell like a guillotine blade: Daibov is condemned to eight years of hard labour, while Malkov and Ni are to spend six years in the bleakest depths of a strict-regime penitentiary. No longer the wardens; they are now mere prisoners, stripped of their badges and their pride.

These three wretches were charged with a most heinous abuse of power, employing violence and threats of brutality against the wretched souls under their watch. Throughout the proceedings—conducted behind closed doors, away from the prying eyes of the public—the defendants played the part of the innocent, denying every scrap of the accusation with a boldness that bordered on insolence.

The game ended in the year of our Lord 2023. It was then that the agents of the FSB and the Investigative Committee descended upon the colony like a sudden storm. They came sniffing for the truth of torture, and they found it. A grim case of official misconduct was opened, shaking the foundations of the establishment.

There were whispers, dark and foul, of crimes of a sexual nature, which would have sent the mob into a frenzy. The inspectors searched every corner and interrogated every shadow, but such accusations, though whispered in the dark, found no legal footing to stand upon. Still, the law has had its day, and the gaolers have been cast into the pit.