The Selected

Chapter Four

The walls are closing in on me. I cower in a corner, blinking against them, trying to balance on the line of imagination and reality. They get closer, threatening to crush me, and I know that I scream from time to time.

How long have I been here now? Four days? Six months? Feels more like six months. It’s suffocating in here, the light never changing, always the same dimness and never giving insight on when it is daylight or when it is dark. That makes it worse, not knowing.

Then there is the silence. I have to continually make noises to reassure myself. Silence can only mean bad things. Silence sends people mad, it is the place where monsters live, where they lie and wait for the kill. I hear my breathing, my screams that die to whimpers, and soon I even think I can hear my heart beating.

Perhaps isolation wouldn’t have been this bad a few years ago, when death and violence wasn’t occurring on a regular basis. It used to take weeks to break down the sane in these conditions, but now it can only take days depending on the state of the mind. My mind is not strong. I keep seeing the girl with blue eyes, blood pooling from her head. If I am not listening to my screaming, I am hear the yelling of my parents. I am damaged, and I have been damaged for a long time. Beyond the walls I have build in my head, I am nothing but a cowering girl begging for release.

I hate it here. I can’t escape my head. Everything it much clearer in this confinement, and it is agonizing. Each image becomes crisp; the dead girl had added features such as mangled limbs and bone sticking through flesh, or Jake appears, gun pointed at me, only when he pulls the trigger I watch the bullet approach the spot between my eyebrows. Marcus even makes an appearance, but instead of telling me to sleep he is telling me how I am going to die in a million different ways.

They taunt me.

They won’t leave me alone.

I sleep.

***

I smell something. It smells foul, and then I realise it is me. My teeth are covered in grime when I rub my teeth over them, causing me to shudder. I run my hands through my thick hair to try and soothe myself, but they only come away with a greasy texture.

I am on my side now, the matt offering no comfort for my body. My throat is sore from screaming, which has now stopped. Won’t do much good anyway. No one is going to help me in here.

The hatch in the door slides open, and I scramble towards it to take the food. A tray of bread and soup greet me, and I am too hungry to care. I only get one or two meals a day, but I have lost count of how many I have had. Instead I just devour what has been offered, gorging on the bread and drinking the soup from the bowl like a child. I toss the plastic bowl and tray in the corner with the others and return to my place on the floor.

How are the others coping, I wonder? Are they as disorientated as I am, or pulling through with flying colours? I can’t find it in me to care. I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling, before spotting the camera in the corner. They’re watching me. I’d been aware of that camera since I was locked in here, but I now take close attention to it.

What are they looking for? Strength? Maybe not. They are probably trying to identify the weak in order to push them harder once this is over. Yes, that seems logical.

I smile, and wave at the camera.

***

If I listen hard enough, I’m pretty sure I can hear some of the others screaming. I press my ear to the wall that connects to the other cell, straining to hear some kind of sound. Yes, I hear it. Someone screaming, begging to be released, their voice strangled and desperate.