Reign Forest

Where I am.

I wake with a jolt to the growling of a pit bull. I bolt upward, my ragged hair flying out of my face, my clothes stiff against my body. It's these first few seconds of the morning that are the best in the world. The space in time in which all my problems are dispelled from existence. The moments where the dreams of sleep and the joys of life are mingled in a few moments of forgetfulness and contentment. Don't get me wrong I'm dead tired just like anyone woken from sleep. But these few seconds are the time when the troubles of life and the trials I face don't haunt me. I do not recall their existence. But then as I turn my head to the pit bull, the memories come crashing down on me, like a door being slammed in my face by some being who haunts me day and night reminding me that I'm human, that life is not perfect, that everyday there is something new and painful to be dealt with.
I am Nicole Greenfield and I am the prisoner of my own people. I don't hate them for it, because I don't really think they know what they're doing. I can see the castle I grew up in from the place I am trapped. My torture chamber is a about a football field in size created from the spare parts of Hades' realm. Basically one wrong move and I'm dead meat. Well, actually there's no way for me to die in here, they want me alive. But everything is meant to make me miserable.
The space is surrounded by a cement wall a foot thick and deep enough into the ground that it would be pointless for me to try to dig a tunnel underneath. The wall is about eight feet tall. Impossible for me to climb over. It wouldn't matter if I found a way out anyway because the wall is guarded 24/7 from the outside on all four sides keeping me in and keeping rescue out. The wall has no door and no holes. It's a solid fence structure built to induce my own insanity.
Within the cement wall the space is divided into four quadrants. Each quadrant is separated by a small chain link fence that is short enough for me climb over fairly easily and equipped with a small door. Each quadrant provides its own torture. Basically my captors offer four choices of what I want to endure.
The first quadrant, the one nearest to the hill on which the castle of my childhood rests, is what I call the "exercise" quadrant. The ground is dense with tree knots and lumpy rocks and little holes. Basically if you want to walk around you have to keep a constant eye on the ground or you'll end up with a twisted ankle, not to mention I'm barefoot. So, why not just go there slowly and sit down to just relax? Because of the spiders. If I'm in that quadrant and I pause for say five seconds to take a break I have two giant hand sized fury tarantulas crawling up my legs and four more on their way.
Onto the second quadrant. I don't know what scientist is behind this quadrant, but the pain is pretty much unbearable. It's the feeling of swimming deep into water.
I remember being really little and going to the castle pool in the basement level. I felt like a world class swimmer every time I touched the bottom in the twelve foot deep section, where my best friend Macy couldn't...Macy....Macy my was best friend...
In that deep part of the pool the pain was tolerable. The pressure on my ears making my head feel like it was going to cave in was worth the glory.
Quadrant two is the same kind of pain, just exaggerated five times. The second I cross over the chain link fence it feels like my head is being cracked in half and my body will implode at any moment.
The third quadrant is, in essence, extreme weather that changes occasionally. When I first got here it felt extremely cold, maybe around 30 degree weather. It went through a rainy phase where I pretty much had to swim around in it. Then a hot phase in which I got sunburned crisp from head to toe. Right now it's really windy. The wind howls practically making me deaf when I'm in that area. Two days ago when I was there the wind literally picked me up and carried me five feet from where I had been standing. I screamed at the top of my lungs, limbs flailing. When the wind dropped me I actually started laughing, it had kind've hurt but that didn't matter. It was probably the only time I'd had any fun since I got here.
If they figure out that the wind doesn't really bother me any more the weather will probably change soon. They want to keep me miserable.
Finally, the quadrant I am in right now, the one I spend most of my time in, the fourth quadrant. The fence keeps in 10 pit bulls trained specifically to hurt but not kill. This is the best quadrant because in the relative center of it is placed a single large rock.
I can climb on top of it quickly now and, although it is relatively uncomfortable, it provides sanctuary from the Pitt Bulls and so many of the troubles this place has set up. I'm not really sure why they leave the rock here. It's quite a luxury for me. I guess they want me healthy enough to give them sane answers. This rock is where I sleep and spend most of my time. Where I would spend all of my time if I didn't want to keep myself from going insane and if I didn't suffer from hunger.
Food is questionable here. At least once a day someone comes by with food. That's how they force me into the different quadrants at least occasionally. The food is dropped in a white parachute out of a hovering helicopter at the end of the various quadrants. And water is dropped off in a different quadrant. So, every day, so long as I want to eat, I have to traverse across pain and annoyance to get the food and bring it back to my rock of refuge. If food comes twice I usually don't go get it the second time, I'm not hungry enough.
the food is terrible but it's a blessing. They keep me skinny but not malnourished.
Sometimes they drop other supplies to get me into the other quadrants. If it's not food, the parachute is red. I never know what is dropped though until I get to it. Once, I got a huge meal with warm steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Another time I got a hygiene kit full of new clothes appropriate for my conditions, deodorant, a toothbrush and a comb. More often than not though, the packages are less than stellar. Once I opened a pack full of live snakes. Another time, the pack was empty. The worst one, I got contained hate mail from my people.
That made my emotions overflow with despair. My heart ached. The people I love and watched over and watched my parents watch over for sixteen years, who I adored and who had adored me as their princess. They hated me now, despised my very being. I didn't hate them for it. They had been brainwashed.
About twice a week an actual person comes. A ladder shoots out from the helicopter and an ugly short man of about thirty years old climbs down. The quadrant he goes to temporarily closes for him. The respective torture item ceases to torture and I'm unable to get into the quadrant. I don't really know what he is doing but usually he walks around for about three hours carrying a clipboard inspecting stuff and taking notes. We never talk but sometimes when he is near me he waves and flashes a pedophilloic smile. He gives me the creeps. He is scrawny with long greasy hair to his shoulders and a giant hooked nose. He always looks like he has a dark secret and like he doesn't care about anyone but himself.
Occasionally, maybe every other week, other people will come to take me away. They bring me to a closed room for who knows how long. Alone, insane. They question me and probe me and try to get the information out of me. I'm told once I tell them what they need I will be made princess again. I will be loved by my people again. I want to believe them but I know this is a sick twisted game. These people don't care about me. They don't care that I am honest and good. If I tell them what they want they will kill me. Kill me just like they killed my parents. Just like they killed the happy kingdom inside the rainforest and turned it into something dark. A city whose citizens do not know themselves, who live in a world of false happiness and peace. Who live under the regime of a con.
And this is where I am. Four quadrants: spiders, pressure, wind, and pit bulls. I spend the hours of my day thinking and replaying over and over in my head the events that led up to this. They tick through my head as I analyze and reanalyze them. I think I'm still sane, but is that what an insane person would still think? When I came here I was seventeen. I think I'm eighteen now but there is no way to be sure. I don't even know who I am anymore.