Child Control

Tell Me A Story

Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday for those that celebrate. Since it is a holiday I am giving you guys this chapter a day early! Enjoy!

I sat there holding her lifeless hand and I didn't know what to do. I felt a strong need to not only comfort her but to comfort myself. So I opened my mouth and out spilled a story.

"Once upon a time, I lived in a cell at the Facility. It was cramped and dark, probably about the size of a closet with only enough room for my cot and a pot to piss in. Somehow whenever the pot was full it was taken and I never know how they did it without me knowing. Looking back they probably just drugged me to do it."

"My existence was lonely and dark. I used to sit in the dark and stare at nothing while I waited for my next meal to come. I had no thoughts of freedom or any imagination, I just wanted to be warm. Not on the outside but on the inside."

"Then one day I heard a voice through the tiny vent near the bottom of the floor. I had never seen the vent before that moment but I could hear and feel the subtle gust of dry air coming from it. The voice was clearly a feminine one, and I thought I was so far gone that I'd started hallucinating so at first I never responded to it. I remember exactly what she said that got me to whisper back. She said 'I know there has to be someone on the other end. Please, I'm so lonely, so if you can hear me respond.' I felt exactly the same way, and so I spoke back."

I glanced at all the machines attached to Torana to make sure they were all still working properly and squeezed her hand. She didn't squeeze back. My shoulders sagged and I continued my story.

"I started talking to her and she was so happy someone was talking back. She told me stories about what she thought it would like outside the Facility and got my imagination going. I looked forward to talking to her every day after lunch. Whenever she wasn't there it felt like the artificial light they turned on sometimes had gone out. I overheard from the guards one day that she had gotten in trouble and was undergoing a procedure. They all laughed and seemed excited about it."

"Every day after lunch I would try to talk to her and she never responded until instead of hearing a voice on the other side I heard a noise. It sounded like a little scratching that was echoing through the vent. I tested it out by saying different things and the scratching always came right after I spoke. It was like she was trying to respond to me but couldn't."

My eyes welled with tears at the memory of the deep sadness I felt when I realized she could no longer speak back to me. I felt more alone then than I had before she started talking to me."

"I kept talking to her because I didn't want her to feel alone and one day, months later, I heard her voice again. It was very weak and scratchy because she hadn't spoken in months but I was overjoyed." That day played in my mind's eye as if I had been pulled into the memory.

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"Hello?" Her voice croaked out through the vent and my heart stopped. I hadn't heard her voice in months and had begun to think that maybe there was a rat in the vent and it wasn't her.

"Yes?" I said back, my whisper voice betraying my excitement. "Is that really you?"

"Yea." She said and coughed. I pressed my face directly on the cold hard grate and hung onto every word she said, praying it was real.

"Are you ok? What happened? I haven't heard from you in almost a year!"

"Well, I've been back for months. That was me scratching on the grate to try to communicate to you that I was still here."

"Oh, that was you! I was trying so hard to believe it was. So what happened?"

"They cut out my tongue."

"I'm sorry what?" I asked, sure I hadn't heard her right.

"I said they cut out my tongue. I am very curious and made a habit of talking to the guards which they didn't like. To "fix" the problem they cut out my tongue so I couldn't talk to them anymore. That's why I was moved to this solitary confinement cell in the first place because I talked to my former roommates too much. I guess they didn't see this grate under my bed in this new cell."

My blood turned to ice for a second at the new information and then burned hotter than lava. They cut out her tongue. They cut out my best friend's tongue because she was curious and wanted to talk to others. How heartless! My hate that had slowly been building for the people who run the Facility for months burst from hot kindling into a roaring flame. I wanted out and I decided at that moment I would do anything to escape.

"What have you been up to?" she asked and snapped me out of my thoughts.

"Oh, nothing much." I lied. While she was gone I had been getting into more and more fights as the seed of my hate for this place was planted and began to grow. I was often in the infirmary, and part of my motivation to get there was the hope I would be able to identify my best friend that I had never seen and get her out. I had become close to one of the nurses there because she always took care of me. She was disappointed that I got myself in there but never said anything. I kinda wanted her too.

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After a couple of seconds snapped back into reality and continued my story. "After that day, I kept fighting. All I wanted was to get out and in the infirmary, one day, the silent nurse who always took care of my whispered in my ear: 'Stop fighting. You will be able to escape soon. Right after your dinner, there is a guard change. Get the key from the guard when they change and get out. Once you opened the door, turn left and go until you meet a man named David, he will know what to do from then on.' I believed what she said because the look in her eyes told me she wasn't lying."

I squeezed Torana's hand again and again got no response.

"Anyways," I said and wiped my eyes, " I followed her instructions and stopped fighting and waited for an opportunity to escape. That opportunity didn't come until years later. On that day I had propped my spoon in the door my food comes in so it didn't fully close. I waited until I heard the guard stood up and slowly edged up the door. When the guard change happened and they handed over the keys he fumbled and dropped them. He didn't attempt to pick them up until the other guard left and for that I'm grateful. When he bent to grab them I snatched the keys and his arm and yanked. He came down with a yelp and I covered his face before turning his head as hard as I could. When I heard a crack and he went limp I unlocked the door and opened it."

"I never looked into his dead eyes when I shoved him in the cell and locked it before running off to where the nurse directed me. When I met David he was with a small group of children and he swiftly got us out and led to here to Freedoa. When I was settled I wandered around and stumbled on Annita's shop. I saw that it was the same nameless nurse who ran the place and went to hug her and she recognized me and returned it. She immediately took me down into the guild and explained everything to me and I joined that same day."

"I built a new family here but was disappointed I never met my best friend from the Facility. Somehow, you remind me of her Torana and this experience reminds me of back then. Please come back to me Torana, come back to us, I can't bear to lose another friend." I pulled up a chair and sat, finally letting go of her cool hand to bury my face in my own hands and let myself cry. I cried not only for Torana but for my young friend and most of all for my young self. For the lonely girl who had warmth for such a short time before it was ripped away and who had to kill someone and destroy her own innocence to be free.

I felt a hand on my head and looked up to see Torana looking at me, her light eyes full of tears.

"Don't cry Yov, I'm ok now."

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