The Essence of Water

NEW VERSION Chapter 9

The world is ice. Hard. Cold. Unyielding. It freezes my blood, stiffens my fingers, and numbs my nose. When I breathe it stabs my lungs. I am a corpse. I must be. Everything is dark, I am stiff, and there is no life to be found.

So why is your heart still beating? Don't be dramatic Adie you're still very much alive. You're in too much pain to be dead.

I moan and open my eyes, but there is still no light. I'm still frozen. My body locks and my stomach heaves. I vomit whatever drugs were in my stomach and then crawl away from the sick. The ground is concrete and it scraps my bare calves and bites at my stiff fingers. I shiver and grind my teeth together. My hands hit a wall and I use it to get to my feet. I breathe the cold air through my lungs and wait for my mind to pull away from the fog. My blood rushes down to my feet and a tiny amount of warmth makes its way down my body.

I feel my way along the wall, using it as a guide. My fingers hit a corner so I turn with it. Halfway along this particular wall my fingers hit metal. I feel along the outline. It's a door, a steel door with no handle. I swallow; not liking the conclusions my mind is giving me. I continue to follow the walls. And when I count four corners I know I'm in a concrete box, a box with a metal door that doesn't have a handle. A box that is cold. A box that I can't get out of, a cell.

I try to remember where I got sick, but I'm unlucky and my toes find it before I can try. I step out away from it and move to the opposite corner. My toe knocks against something metal and it tips over, the sudden clattering noise hurts my ears. I bend down and reach out with my hands until I find it.

It's a metal bucket and I know exactly what it's supposed to be used for. I cringe and put it in the corner closest to the sick. Best to keep anything that will smell horrible on the opposite side of the room. I find the door again and sit next to it. I pull my knees up to my chest but the thin smock that they put me in barely covers my knees. When I pull them to my chest it rides up and the cold hits my thighs. I tug it down as best as I can and curl into a ball to conserve my body heat.

I'm a prisoner.

It takes a long time for me to accept what I'm trying to tell myself. My mind and body seem unable to comprehend that I cannot simply stand up and walk into the sunlight. My freedom has been stripped away. I have nothing. No items, no artifacts, nothing to claim that I am a human being, nothing but this pathetic piece of clothing hanging off my shoulders.

I remember the electricity and the way they made my body jerk and shake. I slowly touch my skull where they had the needles and find that my hair is gone. What is left of it is smooth and short, like the hairs of a peach or the freshly shaved coat of a lamb. Thinking of sheep reminds me of Henry, so I don't think of sheep because thinking of Henry makes my heart ache.

I don't have his jacket anymore. I don't have anything that was mine. There is nothing here to help keep me warm. No wool. No fire. Not even another human. Not even Trish's brother. I grind my teeth together again. Not that I would have ever wanted to share body heat with him. I'd rather freeze and die then think of him or see him again.

I clench my hands together. I was ready to die. I think of the ice shard, how it turned to water before hitting my heart. I want to kill that betrayer. He's a Misfit and yet he helps Handlers. What sort of sick minded human being is he that he would attack someone like him?

But then who am I to judge? I fought back when I said I wouldn't. I shiver and remember the power I'd felt. I've never felt that way before. The eight months I spent in the woods playing and experimenting with what I could do I never felt so, overcome. No, that's a lie. There was one other time when I felt that way.