"Kali, it's time to wake up."
"Mom?" I murmur and open my eyes.
But she isn't here; it was all in my head. And I'm still in my room, in this place, in this prison. I sit up and look down at my bare feet, which almost reach the end of my bed. I'm getting too big for it, but I have no way of really knowing how old I am now. I was five when they took me from my parents and brought me to this place, but I can't say how many years it's been since then.
The people who run this place won't tell me. They listen only to the man in charge, the man who has us call him father. Us being the other children that were taken just like I was.
I scrunch the end of my hospital gown, the only thing I'm given to wear every day, and the same thing that all of us have to wear, and I think about how long it's been since I last saw any of the others.
They keep us separated for different reasons: when we are being tested, if we fail a test, if we break a rule. The worst is when they lock us in the dark, so they can break us down. They say that it's to make us stronger, but I know the truth, I can see through the lies they tell us. It's so we don't get too comfortable with them or with this place. We are theirs, but they are not ours.
I can see what is real and what is not, because I have a gift. I have a way of making others see what isn't there; what I only want them to see. But they gave me this gift through violence, by giving me things that hurt both my body and my mind, things that I can and I can't remember. They did this to all of us and said that it was to make us special, and they still hurt us now and say the same thing.
My eyes wander to the underside of my left wrist, which has a small tattoo that simply says 008. It's the number they gave me when I arrived here. All of us have a number; it is our birthmark. And then I feel the top of my head, which has been shaven and which is shaven regularly.
They do this so we do not think of ourselves as anything but belonging to them. We are theirs, but I see through their lies. I know who I am, I know my real name and who I was before they took me.
I hear footsteps approaching outside my room, but I know who it is. I don't stand up as I'm expected to do, and I just wait for the door to be unlocked and opened. The man who expects us to call him father, stands by the door with another man, who will hurt me if I don't go with them. It's happened before, but I will not resist. I'll go with them, because I know today will be different.
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Kali (K8LI) : A STRANGER THINGS Story
Mystery / ThrillerKali Prasad was abducted when she was a child, but now she is grown and so have her gifts. Journey back to the time when Kali was referred to as Subject Eight, in this one shot story about the horrors of Hawkins National Laboratory.
