Discoveries | TMR | Three

4:4

In an empty room, made up of squared foam panels; each of those panels housing rigid wedges, from floor to ceiling and suspended over a grated fence of widely meshed metal, Adeline sits. Curled up in the tightest ball her body can create and trying to block out the sound of her thoughts, her breaths, her heartbeat, the blood coursing through her veins and her very own lungs as they pump.

As her wits gather, she gasps and whips her head up; hearing her own burst air echo and dissolve into the brownness of the room. Immediately, she recognises that she is trapped in a dream; stuck in limbo between the present world and her past. The Chamber, is where she is now; a place in which was used as punishment for the Subjects when they misbehaved. A place that was used to suck every shred of sanity they had left.

Just one of the many ways in which the guards could harm them without leaving a physical mark. Just one of the many ways in which the guards could harm them without being questioned.

A tactic used on the younger Subjects, Adeline recalls, and as she uncurls her arms from her legs and inspects the size of her hands, she realises that she is one of those younger Subjects right now. What she is in here for? She does not know, for she has been in this precise room more times than she would dare to count.

''It's just a dream,'' she whispers, or rather, mouths silently to herself. She must remind herself of this, you see. She must remind herself whenever she finds herself trapped in a dream, so that her imagination does not get skewed with reality.

A reality in which she must return to, but cannot, for whilst it may be her dream, it is her brain that has full control.

The thick and heavy metal door at the opposite side of this absorbent room swings open, and there stands a nurse. Draped heavily in white garments, white shoes, pasty white skin, which the exception being only the thick mane of jet black hair that has been scraped into a bun within an inch of its life.

''Have you learned your lesson?''

Lesson? What lesson? She doesn't even know why she's here!

Adeline nods, nonetheless. It is quick, with a hint of sharp pleading and brutal desperation - not that she can help it. If her dreams have taught her anything, it is that she must do whatever the memory sways her to.

She can remember the woman now, though; Nurse Joanne. A gentle name that clashes entirely with the woman's cruel and callous way of working. One of the only nurses in this place that refuses to show any form of kindness to the Subjects; the one that everyone likes to avoid, and yet, the one that always seemed to seek Adeline out in every possible scenario.

Why is she remembered though? Adeline cannot recall a time when any of her invited memories have clung to more than just the singular situations her brain decides to unveil.

It is... odd, yet incredibly intriguing.

Nurse Joanne, refusing to enter the soul-sucking room herself, pivots to the side and twitches her head towards the hallway on the other side of her; allowing plenty space for Adeline to scurry out.

And scurry, she does. Scrambling to her feet and dashing so briskly that she nearly crashes into the white-panelled wall at the other end. She hears the door slam shut, and can feel Nurse Joanne's lingering glare on the back of her head. Adeline, leant against the wall, turns to look up at the woman, noticing the height difference and realising that she must be but a mere child.

"What do you say?" the nurse asks.

"Sorry for fighting." Ah, so that's why she was in there.

An agitated huff rumbles from the woman's lips. "No," she corrects. "What do you say?"

The crisp annunciation of her sentence forces Adeline's head to hang in shame. "Thank you for reminding me to behave."