Returned to Sender - Scarlett Johansson

Part 3

Sawyer's POV

When I woke up again, the pain in my head was down to a dull throbbing, significantly better than the blinding pain I had been in before, but still uncomfortable.

Feeling better for a brief moment, I allowed myself to relax; at that exact moment, I felt the soft mattress shift under my weight, and I realised that this was most definitely not the tree I had fallen asleep against. Flashes of all the other times I have woken up in an unfamiliar place hit me all at once. Springing up from the bed, breathing heavily, glad that this time I managed to move without emptying my guts onto the floor and passing out. I looked around the room, eyes darting everywhere for any indication of where I was and how I was going to leave. I can not be trapped somewhere again. I can not be back with him. I would rather die than go back to him.

Just as I was realising that this must be a hospital of some kind, the door swung open.

If I can't see them, they can't see me, right?

Flinching, on instinct, I took three giant steps back, backing myself into the corner and trying to make myself invisible the best I could. Unfortunately, this wasn't a Marvel movie; I wish it was, though, so I couldn't actually go invisible. So doing the best I could, I curled up into a tiny little ball; squeezing my eyes shut was going to have to be the next best thing to being invisible. Praying that I was so small in the corner, the intruder would think I had run away and was no longer in the room.

I could hear a gruff voice speaking, filling up the silence in the once-empty room, "Can you move back onto the bed?" Ignoring the voice, which was deep and rough, I started to rock in the corner, squeezing my eyes shut even more, hoping I could disappear altogether. "You need to get back onto the bed," the same voice said a little harsher this time, causing me to flinch at the man's tone; I continued to sway back and forth in the corner, trying my best to tame the raising panic an unfamiliar place and an unknown man's voice brought me in. "One last chance, get back onto the bed now" he was close to yelling at me now; I could tell he had moved closer at this point from the warm breath that hit my arms as he yelled, making the panic increase. He is close. Too close.

Memories started to flash before my eyes, making the hairs on my arms stand as I curled up into an even smaller ball if that was possible. The next thing I knew, rough hands were yanking my arms, and at this point, all hell broke loose.

I lost all sense of where I was; internally, I was back there again, up in that room with him alone.

Kicking blindly, I started to scream; I just wanted them all to leave me alone. I am tired. So tired of all of this.

"Get your hands off of me", I yell over and over, wriggling as much as possible, as if to become liquid and simply melt out of the man's arms. I feel more arms trying to pin me down, and at this point, I don't care what is happening around me and just scream at the top of my lungs, thrashing around like a fish out of water, "Please, please, let me go, I'll be good, I swear! J-just just don't do it to me again. I- I- I can't live through it again. Don't take me upstairs, please!" I was screaming and pleading through broken sobs to get him off of me, but just like always, he didn't listen to me; he just kept on going.

No one ever listens.

Then I heard it. A new voice, yet I feel like I've heard it before. "What are you doing? Let go of her! She's terrified; let her go!" Just like that, the hands were off of me again. Backing up even further into the corner, not that that was possible, I curled back into my little ball, trying my best to calm down before I had another panic attack.

Rocking back and forth and attempting to calm my breathing, blocking out the loud voices of the other people in the room, I started humming to myself. With the odd words slipping through my trance, "We need... sedate her... unstable", "She's terrified.... let me...have you fired...get out!" The last part was the loudest, making me jerk my head up out of instinct. It was that voice again, the one who made the others let me go.