EVELYN (ON HOLD)

1 ~ Another Human

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." --- Dr Seuss

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It's my birthday today. 

It's my birthday, and nobody knows or cares. I don't think I care either. I don't know what a birthday's like. I don't know if it's an important event, if it's good or bad, if its special or cursed.

 I just don't know.

What I do know, is that I wish I was never born. There isn't any reason for me to be here on this Earth. I've never done anything for it. All I've done my whole life is stay in this precinct place every single day of my life, eating, drinking, sleeping, reading, trying to stay clean and I don't even know why I bother.

What is even the point?

What is the point of staying clean like someone's going to appreciate my appearance? What is the point of studying like there's going to be a test? Like I'm ever going to go to university.

This isn't a metaphorical prison. This is an actual prison. Where everyone has their own cell. The only thing I know about the other prisoners is that they're insane.

If they're not crazy when they get here, they go crazy after the experiments. And it drives me crazy wondering why they haven't chosen me yet. Why they haven't experimented on me yet. Why I'm still here.

Maybe, I sometimes wonder, maybe I did something really bad, and maybe I don't remember it. Maybe that's why I'm here. And they're saving me for an experiment so harsh that I'll surely die. 

And sometimes I wish that were true. Because then they'd be doing me a favor. 

Yet sometimes I don't even know if I'm alive. Three times a day, a tray of food slides in through the opening in the cage-like door. At the same time, each day. 

All I see is darkness, because there's no light here. It's bright enough early in the morning to read some books by my cell door, which is made of bars unlike the rest of my cell, which is just cold stone. 

All I hear are screams of agony, pain, guilt, torture, regret. The people here, I've never seen them. It's been so, so many years since I last saw a real human being. But I know they exist from the cries they make. The shouts and screams are so regular that I'm so used to them. I don't think they even remember their language at all.

Everything here happens on time. Nothing out of the ordinary happens at all and it feels like I'm repeating the same day over and over and over again. 

Only the growth of my nails prove that I am, indeed, alive. So I cut them every week when we're taken for a shower, just to help me believe that I'm still alive and breathing.

And when I go for a shower, there's a sort of machine that comes in through the gap in my door and it blindfolds me. It ties my hands up and ties one of my legs to itself, and no matter how much I try, I cannot be released from those binds. Then it drags me out not too far from my cell to another room that smells like blood and urine and disinfectant.

And only then does the little machine take my blindfold and binds off and by that time, I'm in a small, tiled bathroom with just a shower and a chair. And the water, it's cold. It comes only for 3 minutes, and then it stops. 

If I try to open the door of the bathroom to escape, it won't work. It won't work because only the little machine can open the door.

My last shower was 2 days ago.

It's my birthday, but I don't know how old I am. I was only told the date and I've repeated that date over and over and over in my mind.

18 December.

18 December.

18 December.

I place my feet on the ground, off my single bed, and rub my eyes warily as I sit up and yawn. I'm so tired. So, so tired.

I look around my room and see grey grey grey and a shiver of light. I lunge forward, off my bed and towards  the door. The door that's the only thing that's not stone. It's a wide, bar door that 's made of metal and it's colder than the stone room. There's a window in the hallway outside and sunlight pours through, and I soak it in as much as I can. I can only see that the floor of the hall is also stone, but I cannot see inside another cell. I pull over one of the many books they've given me and read.

It's a book about Geography, and it's my favorite. It helps me see the world that I never have, and it sounds beautiful and horrible at the same time.

Oh, how I ache to be seen, to be heard. To see, to listen. More than this.

The screaming never stops. It's there when I'm awake and when I sleep. Echoes and echoes of sound that's in so much pain and sometimes I just want to comfort them, to hug them.

A hug.

What does it feel like? To be hugged?

I wouldn't know.

I look over at my pile of books. There's one of each.

Math, English, History, Science, Geography, Technology, Dictionary, Politics, Social studies. That's it.

And the number of times I've read them all is uncountable. Too many times.

I flip open my geography book and go right to the end where there's a map of the world. It looks so small. I wonder what size it is in real life.

I wonder and wonder and wonder about so many things.

I hear a beep over the cries of agony and I move back quickly to allow a tray to slide through. A tray double the size of my pale, thin hands.

It's the same food every day.

A slice of bread, a cup of water, a slice of cheese, 10 round blue tablets in a mini container and a piece of chicken the size of my thumb.

I was told years ago that the pills were vitamins to keep me healthy.

I don't feel healthy at all.

I finish the food. I don't taste it anymore. I used to, but it's so bland, and I'm not sure I've ever tried anything flavorful. I do know such things exist, of course, from the books I've read.

Just then, while I'm sitting with my back to wall half-asleep and counting counting counting my breaths, I hear footsteps and I see bouncing light coming closer and closer.

And my cell door opens. 

And it's the strangest sensation, because I'm not tied up and blindfolded this time. Like I have the permission to see what I haven't seen before.

I try to stay awake even though I'm so achingly tired. Like one of the pills I ate was a sleeping pill, even though they weren't.

And what I see is the most amazing sight.

The outline of a human other than me.

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