Wake up.
I hear them whispering to themselves, but I can't understand a single word through their hushed tones. The one sees me watching and blocks my view with his body. What are they doing over there? What are they going to do with me?
Through a crack in their stout shoulders I see a steel table and a raised hologram emitting from the center. Its cylinder blue orb flickers as the person on the other end moves out of view. I hear my name and one of them looks back at me. I feel my lip quiver and my heart spasm beneath his glare. He shifts closer to the hologram, completely removing my vantage point.
I decide it's speaking to them, relaying or issuing orders and instructions, perhaps. For all I know, they're discussing me, and how to dispose of my body after they're through with me. Whatever that is. I instinctively attempt to rise and flee, but find my wrists bound down with polypropylene straps. Whoever they are, they don't want me leaving.
I try to move, but my body is stiff. I can feel the edges of my skin bubble beneath the large whipping fan overhead. The goose bumps dot my entire naked body in tiny raised bumps. I can feel them scattering, locking hands, and linking my arms with my torso and my feet to my legs, but I can't move them, not a single toe. I can feel the hard metal under my shoulder blades. Feel the bite of the rough edges as they dig into my elbows and pelvic bone. But no matter how hard I try my body won't listen to me.
What did they do to me? I begin to wonder.
The thought shifts my gears and pours the worse possible scenarios through my mind. At least that seems to be working. One of the others glances my way and smiles. I didn't know who he was, but my anger raged wild within me. Just untie me and I'll wipe that smug expression off your face I thought. But he must have seen through my thin facade and straight into the black mist of fear hovering over my limp body. The lump in my throat swelled with the extra flood of blood coursing through my body. I try to breathe through my nose but something is blocking the airway. I hear the wheezing sound like a dying pup and wonder if it's me. I hold my breath and count to three. Yup, it was me.
What is going on? Where am I?
So many questions and all there were for answers were the mysterious men huddled around the triangular table communicating with a hologram. I couldn't remember how I got here, or even where here was.
They had draped my head under a black hood within seconds of barging into my sleeping quarters in the middle of the night. Gagged and bound, they flung me over their shoulders. My ribcage throbbed even now from the incessant bulge from their shoulders having dug into my side with every step. I remember screaming or yelling for help, but my moans and grumbles went unheard beneath the barrage of screams echoing all around me. I remember flashes of bright light, the rush of wind and water against my feet, and then nothing.
They must have drugged me and transported me to a different facility. Ever since the incident in the Harvesting Chamber they had held me in quarantine. Every morning, midday, and evening the sliding metal door would hinge open and a gloved hand would lower in a tray of food. They collected the empty trays at the end of the week or whenever the doctors came for me. Those were the worst parts of solitary confinement. It wasn't the loneliness of it, though that was difficult. It wasn't the fear of wondering where Parker and Roxx were. I had already come to the conclusion that they were both dead, and I was next. I didn't even fear the unknown anymore, or why they kept me in this cell. But rather, the experiments they ran on me every third day. When day three came around, the cell door would swing open and four hazmat suits would come in, strap me to a gurney, and haul me away for the next round of pricking and probing. I never knew how long it lasted, but it sure felt like a lifetime. Then they'd toss me back in my cell, and I'd count down the days until it started all over again.
After awhile I started scraping roman numerals on the stone beneath my cot to mark the time. Except, they didn't constitute time, only the amount of times they put me in the chair and cut me open. My latest chisel in the ground marked Day 113 before I heard the squeak of rusting metal grinding open, which signaled Day 3 had arrived. After the fourth or fifth time, I had quit resisting and walked willingly alongside them. They didn't even have to harness me in after the twentieth procedure. My body had grown accustomed to the pain. I actually welcomed it, longed for it, just to feel something other than the silence and the cold bare floor, and the occasional rattle of the AC unit in the ceiling. Pain had become my friend, my accomplice in this miserable lab experiment they were running. I prayed Roxx and Parker had died before they were ever subjected to the same treatment.
Lying here now broke the 3-day cycle. It had only been two days since the last procedure, but here I was. Had they found something in the last round of tests? Or, were they becoming impatient and moving the process along quicker? Judging from the elevated noise coming from the table, I'd say it was the latter.
I forced a smile when the first of them approached, while the rest dispersed throughout the room. Before the hologram bleeped out, I saw Doctor A's face looking at me. The anger for her was still there, but in its place something else had taken root. Patience.
"Everything okay, doctor?" I asked, as my primary torturer neared me.
His eyes were dark spheres behind the swelling pockets. Looks like the long hours with no results were getting to him. And judging from the strain on Doctor A's face before the hologram blurred, she was feeling it too.
"You should get some sleep, Doc," I said. "You're looking worse than me. And that's saying something."
He didn't smile or even acknowledge me. Instead, he turned to the two assisted to his left and right, and held out his arms. Each of them snapped on arm-length latex gloves over his sleeves, while a third place a mask over his face, and tied back the cap. Alright then I thought. I guess we're doing another round of therapy. Let's get on with it then. I have some important business to attend to back at the cell. I really need to get back.
"What's the plan for today?" I asked. "Lacerations, bleeding, psychological testing. What games do we have to play today?"
"Electro," he said dryly.
Electro? I've never had that before. Oh, goody!
"Looking forward to it, doc," I said, genuinely excited to get on with it.
He finally acknowledged me with his eyes.
"You're not ready for this," he said.
"Doc, you've had me in here 113 times, well 114 counting today. I think I'm quite used to the procedure by now."
"Not this, you're not," he said. "Electroconvulsive therapy is highly invasive."
"And cutting me open, removing my organs for dissection, and then stitching me back up isn't?"
"Believe me," he said. "You'll beg me for the knife before this is over."
One of the assistants handed him a silver tube. He squeezed the cold gel along my temples, neck, shoulders, chest, abdomen, arms, and legs. With each squirt, my body twitched from the sudden chill of the lubricant. They then handed the doctor the first of the many electrodes. He attached the first one just above my left eyebrow. He continued placing the electrodes atop the gel splotches until my entire body was hooked to the machine. I felt a sudden pressure in my left arm and looked in time to see one of the assistants removing the syringe from my arm. The numbness in my limbs only increased until even my eyes felt heavy and motionless.
"Something to keep you still," the Doctor said.
"Since when have I ever tried to escape?" I asked.
My mouth was the only thing that seemed to have mobility.
"I admire your tenacity, Willow," the Doctor said, "but, I can assure you, this will be like nothing you've ever experienced."
"Aw, Doc, you're sweet. I knew you'd come around eventually. Can't resist my charm, eh?"
I winked.
"Not quite," he said, and flipped the switch without notice, sending 10,000 volts of concentrated electricity into my body.
I wish I could say I didn't scream, that I managed to maintain my stoic composure like I had through the several other procedures they had performed on me, that it was easy to resist the urge to bite down on my lips, and clench my fists, but that would be a lie. All I could do was scream while my entire insides were fried. The shock waves tore right through the anesthesia like it was a piece of thin sand. The current of hell lasted ten seconds before he flipped the switch and checked my vitals.
Steam was sizzling off my bare body and I could smell burnt flesh.
"Was that all?" I said, through gulps of air.
For the first time since I met him more than a year ago, I saw him smile. And I immediately wished I hadn't.
"We're just getting started," he said with a wicked hiss. "The fun is yet to come."
My eyes rolled back in my head and my body tensed beyond recognition with the next jolt of electricity. When it finally stopped, I could taste charred iron in my mouth. My insides felt like they had been stretched to the size of the room, then torched with fire. I tried to speak, but only puffs of smoke came out. Then he pressed the switch a third time. I blacked out three seconds later to the sound of my organs rupturing.