DAY 53

Another day.

Autumn had barely spoken with anyone since Emily was slaughtered. They actually had stopped doing the procedure on her entirely for a whole week immediately after her death, leaving Autumn to just lay on the cold floor of her empty cell staring blankly at the wall when she wasn’t sobbing uncontrollably. She didn’t eat, she didn’t speak; she was alone with nothing but the ghost of Emily’s memory to keep her company.

Even now, weeks later, she didn’t eat. Not that it mattered. Every time she went into the machine she was restored, so what is the point of eating? She wasn’t alone anymore though. After a week of nothing but her grieving uncontrollably by herself, they finally moved her to another cell. This one had 3 other girls in it.

By nature of proximity, Autumn had learned a good bit about them, overhearing their own conversations and observing their behaviors, though she almost never spoke to any of them. In different circumstances the other girls might have found Autumn to be creepy, but she was hardly the weirdest thing in their world now. They were mostly just happy to have an extra body to curl up to when shivering in the cold nights.

All three of them were newer than Autumn, all three still reeling at their ordeals and trying to understand the pain being inflicted on them day after day. They would talk about it, they would cry about it, they would comfort each other, and they would speculate on what this place was and why they were there. Autumn usually said nothing and sat alone in the corner, listening but not participating. They reminded her too much of Emily. What’s the point in making friends when they will just be taken from you?

Her dreams had become pure nightmares. The blood and agony incarnate in her sleep, endless suffering, and people dying. She dreamt of Emily’s death many times, reliving the moment in vivid detail. The shocked look on her face as she stared at her own beating heart in her last few moments. The thing that haunted her the most though was her very last look at Autumn, their eyes locking momentarily just as she expired. She had hardly even noticed it in the moment, but her brain had recorded it for her and taunted her with it in her dreams.

And sometimes the pain became rage. This was a side of herself Autumn had never experienced before. She had never been an angry person. Even while being tortured half to death she hadn’t responded in anger, just in fear and anguish and confusion. But something had changed in her after watching Emily’s brutal murder. The fury seethed just below the surface at all times. She started thinking about things that she never would have thought about before. Hurting other people.

She had started to formulate something of a plan, the vaguest beginnings of a plan, in her moments of anger. The image of Dana biting off her own fingers lingered in her mind. She was beginning to realize that her own body was a weapon. She could use it, mold it even, into whatever form she required. She was becoming so used to pain and suffering that the idea of hurting herself hardly even seemed a bother any more. It’s not to say that she wouldn’t feel pain, but it seemed to matter less and less as time went on. After being boiled and flayed and gutted dozens of time, what does a little more matter?

She imagined chewing the flesh off her own arm in the night, revealing the bone, and grinding it into a weapon. A shiv or sword of sorts. She hadn’t really thought it through all too well, but she often fell asleep lately to the thought of her walking the hallways of this facility and stabbing every drone she came across to death with the bones in her own mutilated arm. She wanted to see them suffer the way they inflicted suffering on others. She wanted to throw them into the machine and fill it with acid, their bodies disintegrating and regenerating forever in the hellish bath. Justice was beginning to look more and more like killing and death in her eyes, and she relished the thoughts.

Her murderous meanderings were disturbed by a question. She looked up at the Farica, the girl who was apparently it’s source, and saw her lips moving, words coming in her direction.

“I said, why don’t you ever talk to us? You’ve been in here with us for over a week now and all you ever do is sit there in the corner looking dejected.”

Autumn stared at her with what must have looked like a blank expression, but her mind was a maelstrom of memory. She saw Emily sitting there in Farica’s place looking back at her. These people, they were just another liability. Another form of torture. No. They were the worst form of torture.

“Fuck off.” Autumn said, closing her eyes as she leaned back against the corner wall.

“You fucking bitch. We know you know shit about what is going on here, why the hell won’t you talk to us? We’re hurting just as much as you are but you’re just being an emo shithead. Fucking talk to us!”

Farica was making an annoying face at Autumn. These fucking people.

“Look, I don’t know nearly as much as you all think I do. You all have figured out half of what I know already.”

“Why are they DOING this stuff to us!?” Jamie yelled at her, interrupting whatever it was Farica was about to say. “Is this hell? Are we in hell? Just tell us the truth!”

“I’d imagine you can’t die in hell, so no, we’re probably not in hell.”

“But we can’t die! They fed me into a blender yesterday up to my waist! SHIT! SHIT!” Jamie’s expression made it clear that even the memory of the pain hurt. It was contorted, and she was shedding tears.

“Oh, well, I have seen people die here.”

The statement didn’t have a soothing effect. Fear became evident in all three of their faces. It’s strange how even extreme torture can seem preferable to death as long as you have some thread of hope that you will continue to live and will eventually come out the other side of it ok. When people beg for death, it’s because in the moment it seems better then experiencing whatever THIS is, but once it’s over we cling to life again like an addict clings to a bottle.

“Are… are they going to kill us then?” Amilla asked with a shaky voice from between the other two girls. “Are we going to die here?”

Autumn nearly rolled her eyes. “How should I know? Do you think I run this place or something?”

“But you’ve been here so long. Surely you must have like… heard stuff, right?”

She couldn’t help herself and Autumn literally laughed out loud. “So long?” More awkward laughter. “You all really hadn’t heard yet? We’re going to be here for 50 years. 50 YEARS! A few months doesn’t sound like much now, does it you silly cunt!?”

“50… years….?” Jamie replied teary eyed.

“But, but… oh shit.” Amilla chimed in. “I.. I don’t think I can take this much longer, much less… years of this.” Her eyes, were fixed on the wall, or more likely, on some fit of her imagination.

“Well, maybe they will kill you and you’ll get your escape. I don’t know their rhyme or reason.”

Torn between fear of torment and fear of death, the girls were a huddled mass of confusion and fear. Autumn has the odd thought that she could use a cigarette right about now. She had never smoked a day in her life. Weird thoughts.

“Well, I think today is your turn Jamie, if I’ve been keeping track correctly. So have fun with that.” Autumn offered tauntingly as she collapsed into the corner and closed her eyes. She could hear Jamie start sobbing loudly as Farica and Amilla tried to say worthless words of comfort. They came for Jamie a couple hours later.