The Last of Them All (editing)

Chapter 41: I'm Fine....

The prisoners here were cruel. They were either cruel, dying, both, or simply too upset and brainwashed to even speak. They shouted things at me from their cells. Evil, terrible things about what they had to do and what had been done to them. It hurt me.

Three days. I had been here three days and I had hated every second of it.

Prisoners cycled in and out of the cells around me. No one stayed in the same cell for longer than a day, except for me. I hadn't moved, I hadn't done anything but sit there.

No food, no water. Just enough to keep me alive, but it wasn't much. I guess they didn't want to give me enough strength to blow the place up I guess.

I didn't even know how I had done what I did to the guards. I assumed I had transported my thoughts to them, and they were so painful and so invading that they... no. They hadn't had died, I saw one of them locking up a prisoner just the other day. Or was it this morning? No it was yesterday. Yeah, it was. Was I hallucinating? Nope.

The day was on a schedule. When all I could do was sit there and watch I figured out how things worked pretty fast. The lights turned off at night and everyone was forced to sleep. They came on in the morning and everyone was released to eat for 20 minutes, (I counted). They came back, and the rotations started where they took prisoners out at a time in sets of four. They did that until lunch, another twenty minutes. Then the rotations again until dinner which was another twenty minutes. Then rotations, then the lights would go off again. Everyone was released to go to the bathroom three times a day. I had a bathroom in my cell, and the door to it was unlocked three times a day like everyone else.

I never left. I stayed right here, watching everyone else go through their rotations, dependent on these guards to tell them when to eat, when to sleep, when to do their business.

This wasn't simply a prison. It was a giant brainwashing operation.

Wait was I being brainwashed?

No, I'm fine.

Justin's POV

I worked hard. I needed to train until I was ready. For w wasn't quite sure. Three days had passed since, since we'd been separated and I didn't want to admit that it was my fault. The guilt ate away at me and so I was determined to do something about it.

I woke up every morning at five am to run. I ran for an hour and then lifted weights for another hour. I ate a lot around seven and then studied for another hour before spending the next four or five hours before lunch in the water. The pool was fairly large and I swam lap after lap, simply focusing on my breathing and strokes, getting stronger, faster.

I sat there at the bottom of the pool, twelve feet under just simply feeling the particles around me. I sat there, my watch ticking the time away above. It took a minute not to breathe just out of habit but after a while I sat there not knowing how long until I came up, and realized I had been under for about 40 minutes.

There were times I would just stay in the pool, controlling the water and wouldn't even go to lunch until Andrew and Clara had to literally drag me out and to the cafeteria, and even then the guilt was too consuming to eat most of the time. I knew I had to though, so I did.

After lunch I would work on the fire. I felt like that made me irritable though, so I would do it for as long as it took to keep me from going insane.

This repetition, and not getting anywhere really was making me go insane. I laid awake at night, insomnia seemed like an old friend at this point, and when I did sleep the nightmares came back stronger than ever. I only saw her, but I didn't want to see her in those nightmares.

I was frozen in one spot, I couldn't move, as if some strong invisible bands were holding me back no matter how hard I fought. I stood there watching, as she, as Ali, the girl I loved, as, as she was tortured, beaten, starved, or worse. And I couldn't do anything about it.

So I didn't sleep. But you know nightmares can still reach you even during the day. Those visions hid behind my eyelids every time I closed my eyes, so I kept myself busy to keep them away.

I guess I would just keep it up until I went literally insane.

Am I going insane?

No, I'm fine.

Ali's POV

The whispers crept into my ears, whispers and rumors of things I didn't want to have to deal with. I would push them back for a few more days, at least however long I could go without going insane.

And a few more days it was. Day number six? Or was it seven now? I lost track. I slept so much, but I guess it wasn't so much sleeping as it was going unconscious.

I think I was going crazy.

No I'm not.

I'm not going crazy.

I can't be going crazy I'm too powerful for that right?

I'm going to get out of here.

I'll never get out of here.

I'm gonna die.

I can get through this, I'm strong.

I will never be strong enough what are they thinking?

I'm... fine?

There were days I slept the entire time and woke up to already have the lights off, and then not be able to sleep through the night. I would sit on the cold, hard cot and cry, but no tears would come. There wasn't enough left in me for that.

The only hope was that I knew I was too valuable for them to starve me to death.

Hope?

I laughed.

What is hope?

That's funny. I was going insane was I? Is this what insanity feels like? I wasn't sure, after all I wasn't even aware of what I was doing the majority of the time.

I screamed, I ran around the cell like a wild animal crying and screaming when I got sick of it. When I was sick of all of it, the staring, the comments, the snide remarks, the gaunt gazes of the prisoners, the way I was treated like some exotic species of animal. I guess if that's how I was treated that was how I could act right? I screamed at them and fought back, and then I would pass out from the exhaustion.

I'm fine right? I'm fine.... right?