A Dreamer's Sleep

An Ally

She wakes up on a cold table, tied down again. Her eyes are closed, but She can still tell that a bright light is above her head. She keeps her eyes closed so She doesn't get a headache. She hears two people talking. One of them sounds like The Nice Lady.
"And how long will the effects last?"
"Long enough to get answers. We need to find out what she knows."
"I'll stay here, you have other things to do."
"Ok. Page me if she gets dangerous."P
Footsteps leave the room. Lighter footsteps approach her as soft hands begin to unclasp the binds. She sits up and opens her eyes to see The Nice Lady smiling at her.
"So you got out last night?"
She nods, wondering if The Nice Lady is someone She can trust.
"Assumed so. I saw your stash of pills. Anyway, I was supposed to give you this truth serum, but..." The Nice Lady trails off. "I'm on your side. I will help you, but you have to keep it secret. They'll kill both of us. Is there anything you want to know?"
"What's my name?"
"Your name is Poppy Silver. And I'm Ami."
Poppy nods, processing this information. She has an ally. She has a name. She's on the road to having a life. Ami gives her a small white circle called a pocket watch. She says it will help Poppy know the time. For the next half a pocket watch, Ami and Poppy make plans on how best to escape. They decide that whenever they are in Poppy's room, which has no security cameras, Ami will tell Poppy everything she knows. Just as they finish finalizing their plans, a guard walks in.
"Did she know anything?"
"No, the pills kept her from remembering anything she saw. It was purely by accident,"
Ami leaves, and the guard brings Poppy to her room. She should sleep, but right now, sleep seems like a distant memory. It would be impossible to force her racing mind to shut off.
Morning rolls around, and Poppy is already sitting by the door, waiting for Ami. She walks in, glancing behind her as she closes the door.
"First things first," she smiles as she pulls a small square out of her pocket. It doesn't have one specific color. "This is a mirror. You can look at yourself in it!" She hands the mirror to Poppy, who excitedly takes it. The person in the mirror has long, light brown hair and bright blue eyes. Small dots cover her nose and cheeks. "Freckles" Ami calls them. This is the first time Poppy has ever really paid attention to the way people look. She begins to study Ami as well. She has dark hair that stops right below her chin, and deep brown eyes. No freckles. Poppy hands back the mirror, and Ami begins to fill in her background.
Ami is twenty years old. She started working at Hazytree last year. She hadn't wanted to. She had been visiting her sister, who was recovering from anorexia. She accidentally wandered into the wrong side of the building. The side where people go, not to recover, but to be held, for the safety of themselves and others. That's what they had said. But clearly it was more than that, if the only two options for Ami after seeing it were working and living at the institution until retirement, or death. Understandably, she had chosen the former. They told her all the details about their horrific plan. Then she was assigned to be Poppy's primary caretaker.
"And what about my story?" Poppy asks. Ami takes a deep breath and pauses for a few moments before speaking.
Poppy is nineteen years old. When she was eight, her parents had taken her to a doctor because she was sleepwalking. They did a test on her that showed that she wasn't just sleepwalking, she was acting out every motion that she was dreaming. Meaning that if she dreamt that she was running, she would stand up from her bed and start running. They had taken her here, to try and learn more about it, but apparently they thought she would be useful. The head of the institution had told Ami when she was assigned to Poppy that the goal was to try and control her dreams, so they could use her as a weapon against the government. Their goal was to kidnap the president and take over. If they could figure out how to control dreams, they could find other people like Poppy and have an army of ordinary looking people, who the government would not be suspicious of, who could fight and gather information. They told her parents that it was a rare psychological disorder and she would have to stay at the institution for a while. No visitors were allowed. They had kept her here ever since, ignoring all of her parents concerns. She started to fight back when she was around 13, and that was when they started giving her the pills.
Poppy stares at the wall, tears welling in her eyes. Her entire existence for the past eleven years has been because she is a useful weapon. They could kill her at any point, simply because they find a better way to take over.
"I understand you're going to need a while to process this," Ami says. "I'll leave your breakfast here. You can give me all the pills you didn't take, I'll get rid of them."
~922 words~