Vengeful Memories

Prologue

Time lost its meaning long ago, the sun and moon became obsolete.

Dates and weeks became weeds in the garden; beautiful flowers of yellow and white, a beautiful idea but poisonous to its environment.

I close my eyes to the luminescent bulb that swings before my face, feeling it's heat radiating on the precipice of my nose.

The light lances through my eyelids and deep into my brain, forcing my body to stay conscious, pushing it to break.

As I feel my eyes flutter and body droop, I twist my hands to activate the electrocution mechanism.

A wave of electricity flows through my body as it arches and stiffens, locking into place until the automatic mechanism shuts off after its 4 second burst.

Just a little longer...

The air becomes thickly coated, it begins to be too hard to breathe as if the air is made of gelatine.

My body gently sways as it dangles from thick chains bolted to the ceiling. The thin and papery feel of my skin has me believe that my nerve endings have been cut down to and exposed.

I stare at the grit covered floors in an attempt to abate the silence within my mind. 1,2,3,4 ... 27 tiles form a lane from the tips of my toes to the base of the open door.

If only...

Dread fills me as the light bulb shuts off and the screams begin.

Her tiny voice echoes through my mind, grating against my ears, filling my lungs with sand.

I force my eyelids to open, will my body to become my own again, to listen to me.

I can't! I'm sorry!

I'm just so tired.

The shrill cackle of a woman intertwine with the pleas of the girl.

I'm so sorry I'm falling asleep; I can't help it! I'm trying to open my eyes, to keep them open...

I just can't.

I open my mouth, jaw cracking, tongue lolling out in disuse. I swallow the grit that covers my throat, trying to summon saliva to my mouth.

"Please..." I breathe out, breathless.

"Please."

"Don't hurt her," I'm panting now in sharp, shallow breaths. "I'm awake, just stop hurting her."

I twitch my finger, hoping it will be enough to enforce the mechanism.

My body doesn't spasm after what felt like hours, instead I garner the energy and force my hand to twist within its cuff.

Why isn't it working?

A deep voice interrupts my attempts to jerk my body awake, to just open my damn eyes.

"We know you use the electrocution lock to wake yourself up, so we disabled it." The speaker clicks off. My stomach drops at the little hope I had left of saving that little girl. The static the speaker makes screeches, "Keep yourself awake." The man chuckles. 

I dry wretch without anything in my stomach. 

I've failed her.

My eyes fly open in an adrenaline fuelled panic and the screams cease instantaneously.

"Eight days. I'm impressed. I believe we have calculated at least four total hours of unconsciousness over that period. I wonder how long you will last without food and water."

I fight against my chains, wanting to wrap my arms around the poor soul that has to endure all that pain when I fall out of consciousness.

"I know I'm supposed to feed you every four days and provide water once every two days. But this is such an exciting experiment. Pushing your body to its limits, watching you fight the battle no regular human can. Oh my pretty little thing, it is thrilling!"

I thrash around in my chains in frustration and disgust, my wrist begins to twist at an odd angle.

The pain never comes when I hear the snap. 

Pain has become an archaic method of feeling, completely obsolete.

The freshly healed scars and seeping wounds can attest to my newly built pain tolerance.

Once they realised my body has conformed to their methods, they attacked my mind.