Obscurity

Chapter 66: Lightning

Sierra

The symbolic click of the lock on the door behind me is sealing my fate. I'm in Secondary. I won't be getting back to my unit any time soon. I accept the fate of my circumstances and decide it's best to cooperate with Chris from here on in. I follow slowly behind him as he makes his way to the nurses station.

"Please escort Miss Roberts to room twelve." He says as two big male nurses in all-white round the desk and come toward me.

"Twelve? Really?" I say as they flank either side of me.

"Yep. Twelve." He affirms as he messes around with some paperwork on the desk.

"Don't touch me." I snap at the nurses. "I'll walk." I say with my head held high.

Tears well in my eyes and fight the urge to let them fall. I know what awaits me in room twelve but I'm going to be brave. I walk unassistedly as the two nurses escort me to the electroshock therapy room.

Chris follows behind us, clicking his pen with his thumb. The clicking is the only sound besides our footsteps as we make our way down the hallway.

"Don't you think zapping me is a little harsh for my infraction?" I ask, trying to make small talk to postpone the inevitable.

"Nope." Chris says from behind me as we reach room twelve.

My breath catches in my throat as one of the nurses open the door and I see the table they are planning to strap me to. My feet falter a little but I remind myself I have to be brave and keep walking no matter what I feel. I feel like running away, but there's nowhere to go. The four of us enter the room, and I take a deep breath.

I stand in the middle of the room, feet away from the table and machines that stand like sentries behind it. My bottom lip quivers a bit but I bite it so it doesn't show.

"You know your role, Sierra." Chris prompts me to get on the table.

My shoulders slump a little as I approach the table. I scoot onto it and lay back, fighting every urge in my body to jump off the table and run. The nurses work to strap my arms and legs down and Chris rounds the table to affix the headgear necessary for the "therapy."

Tears trail down the sides of my face into my ears. There's no such thing as being brave when you know there's about to be an unknown amount of electricity running through your body. Especially when you know the person at the controls is someone who hates you and has absolutely no care for your wellbeing. The thought crosses my mind that I may not make it out of here today.

With that thought, my body shakes uncontrollably. The nurses retreat out of the room once I'm secured and it's just Chris and me.

"How hard would it have been for you to just go with the flow Sierra?" Chris asks as he makes his way over to the controls.

"Go with the flow?" I ask biting back tears and trying to keep my voice even.

"Leave shit alone? Mind your own business?" He asks.

I'm unsure of where his line of questioning is going. I'm confused.

"I don't know what you mean, Chris." I decide to keep talking because maybe if I keep talking, it will postpone his plans a little bit or at least for a small amount of time.

"You had no business in Michelle's former room." He says.

Former? I think to myself.

"Yeah I saw all of her things were gone." I recount my discovery.

"Again, it was none of your business." He scowls.

"I don't see what the big deal is. I assume she went home." I try to keep talking. I worry my shaking voice is betraying my fake confidence. I don't want Chris seeing how afraid I am.

"You don't really believe that." He says as he fires up his machine. The whirring and random beeps of the powered-up machine frighten me, but the sounds aren't nearly as bad as the temporary light-flickering that happens when the electricity from the building is pulled so hard by the machine priming up. More tears fall from my eyes as I frantically look around the room. Staring up at the ceiling, I try to center myself and stay calm.

"It doesn't matter, Chris."

"It does."

"What does?"

"What you believe, does in fact matter." He says calmly.

I hear him flip a switch at the controls, and the whirring gets a bit louder. The involuntary shaking of my body doesn't let up. I probably wouldn't be so afraid if I didn't know what was coming next. If this was my first time, I'd be blissfully unaware of how awful this is going to be.

"No, it doesn't." I protest meekly.

"What do you say we start off on 300?" He asks, a sick grin playing at the corners of his mouth.

I don't respond.

"Okay. Well, maybe we will up it to 500?" He says responding to the silence.

"Do whatever, Chris." I think I quietly gave up moments ago. There's nothing I can say or do to make this any easier. He's getting some weird pleasure out of this, and I'm just along for the ride.

"Oh, I will." I hear another switch flip and whirring gets louder.

I close my eyes tight.

"Shit. I almost forgot." Chris says as he steps out from behind the machine and walks over to the medical drawer near the head of the table. He reaches into it and pulls out a mouth guard.

"Here." He inserts the red plastic in my mouth roughly. It feels like he may have cut my top gums a bit with it but I don't care. I taste blood but it's the least of my worries at this point.

"We can't have you biting off your tongue." He says with a maniacal tone to his voice as he makes his way back over to the machine controls.

There's a giddy bounce to his step as he crosses the room to go back behind the machine.

"Are you ready, Sierra?" He asks.

There's no way to even respond verbally if I wanted to. I squeeze my eyes shut tight again and wait for the course of electric to hit me. Instead of the typical buzzing in my ears, I hear the sound of Chris's pager beeping on his hip. I hear him pressing buttons on it to silent the beeping.

"Not today. You're not getting out of this, Sierra." He says as he quiets the device. The hope that welled up in my chest is immediately crushed when he voices that he's ignoring the page. I let out a choked sob.

"Don't worry, I've only set it to 400 to see how the setting works." He says as if he's trying to calm my fear. "If 400 isn't strong enough, we'll up the dosage of shock."

"On three. One... Two..."

Three doesn't come. He hits the "go" control on the count of two. Lightning rips through me and I can't even count the seconds. I force my eyes open and see the overhead lighting flickering with the pulsing of the electricity running through me. After what feels like an eternity, the lightning stops and I catch my breath. Staring up at the lights, I clench my jaw awaiting the next course, but everything goes black before it hits.