Untangling a Memory

What they take...

Natalia's footsteps seemed to echo loudly as she followed behind Madame B down the winding hallways. Her mind had been slowly emptying of any thoughts since they'd left the stone cellar. The further they walked from the heavily-reinforced steel door, the less she felt emotions had any grip on her at all.

Natalia barely noticed the change in her surroundings as the walls went from damp stone to cold concrete to the wood paneling that surrounded the rooms where she spent most of her days training. But as they walked through a set of locked, frosted glass doors, the ambiance changed dramatically. Where all the halls they'd been walking up until this point had been barely lit and dark, this part of the complex was starkly bright, bathed in white-green fluorescent light. The walls and floor were covered in pastel pink ceramic tiles, the ceilings painted a matching color. The combination, especially coming from the rest of the building, was surprisingly unnerving.

Walking down a long straight hallway, Madame B finally took a right and led Natalia through a stainless steel door that opened up into a large circular room. Lined completely in sickly mint green glazed brick, the distinct smell of disinfectant burned her nostrils as she walked inside. Along half of the walls were metal cabinets with glass windows and in the center of the room was a shiny steel operating table.

"Now. It is time." Madame B's words were dry and plain. "Time for you to become a true servant of your country, to give yourself completely to her."

Madame B gestured to Natalia, who went over to the table to the table in the center of the room, placing her fingertips lightly on the cold surface. None of the girls knew what happened behind the locked, frosted glass doors that were kept far away from where they were trained. Only girls who were seriously injured or asked to see a doctor were brought through them. However, those girls didn't return to share their stories of what they'd encountered.

Madame B walked from the room and Natalia heard the lock click as the door closed. From the only other door within the room, two women entered, dressed head-to-toe in white. The only thing uncovered on them was their eyes.

The women walked over to Natalia and began removing her clothing, tossing the garments haphazardly in a bright red plastic bag. Natalia made no efforts to fight them or even ask a question, accepting whatever inevitable fate awaited her. Once they were finished, Natalia was laid on the operating table, uncovered and bare.

As the women began taking small bottles, instruments, and other medical supplies out of the cabinets and placing them on rolling trays, a man entered the room, also covered completely in white. He walked to one of the women, saying something to her in a low tone before she wheeled a tray with specific supplies next to Natalia, who continued to lay still in the middle of the room.

The man, abruptly and without acknowledging her, took Natalia's right arm and studied the blue lines that ran up and down the skin. When he found one he seemed contented with, he tied a tourniquet around her bicep, before inserting a needle into the vein. He drained multiple vials of blood before handing them to one of the women. Then, the man taped the needle in place before attaching a intravenous line and releasing the tourniquet.

The man added something to the saline fluid that was hung on a stand near Natalia's head and she began to feel her muscles relax. After a couple of minutes, when they were sure the medication had taken effect, the women moved to either side of Natalia, attaching leather restraints around her ankles, wrists, forehead, and shoulders. These seemed unnecessary to Natalia, as all of her extremities felt exceedingly heavy with the weight of the drugs flushed into her system.