Touch

Chapter 27| A Little Dream of Me

I sat in the damp, cold cell, my only companion being the steady drip-drop of rainwater that slipped through the cracks of the crumbling ceiling above me.

I had long since lost track of how long I had been stuck in this makeshift dungeon. Whether it was days, weeks, or months, I had no idea.

It was getting harder, being here.

You'd probably think me crazy if I told you that this solitude was more crippling than the poking, and the prodding, and all those tests. It was exhausting in the beginning, painful no doubt, but I'd take that pain over this torture any day.

Times like these were when I would think about the companions I was fortunate to have since I've been here. We never got the chance to get to know each other, but I suppose being held against your will and tortured sun up to sun down creates a special bond no normal person can quite understand.

The strength of those bonds-formed through desperation and turmoil, formed through that human need for comfort, for warmth-is all I can remember, all I can feel really. They're long gone, and yet I feel them,  but I can't remember their names, their faces.

He keeps taking them from me. I try so hard to remember, but he's done something that ensures that I can't, not entirely anyway.

I wonder how long he'll let me keep Meelah though, she's been with me the longest, our bond has grown the strongest, and the stronger it grows the more I come to fear that our time together is running out.

At first, he'd take her for a while, then she'd return, but now she is gone for hours on end, perhaps even days, I had no way of telling. All I know is that I have emptied the bucket of water six times since they came for her.

Every time she comes back with a little less of herself, but I help her because that is what friends do for each other. I guide her back from the dark, and she gains pieces of herself back, but the longer she stays, the more I fear he'll take.

And with each piece he takes of her, I fade right alongside her. I think he understands, this bond that we share, that I can almost feel the things that they do to her, the pain they cause her.

It's all a test, you see. A sick twisted game.

"Just as a weapon is forged in fire you shall be too," he says.

Except my fire is loss, my fire is solitude.

"Pain. It all hurts just the same," he says.

I was beginning to think he was right; the one solace that fire provided is that eventually, it consumes you. Freedom comes in the form of death, but this, this was cruel.

There was no death with this fire; his fire burned within, it's goal to disintegrate whatever humanity I had in me. 

"No weapon was ever made with a tender hand. You shall be my greatest creation, a true knight of the order, " he would say, "After all, there's only one way to fight fire."

With fire.

~~~~

I woke with a racing heart, startled from a dream that felt more like reality, but I didn't have time to think about that as my apprehension grew at the realization that I didn't know where the hell I was.

As soon as I shot up from the couch, dizziness overtook me, sending me crashing to the ground.

"Oh, you're up!" Chrisette said all too cheery as she appeared in the doorway of the living room with a warm cup of tea in hand.