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57 °C: Surviving Hell Earth
Chapter 16: Alone in the cell

Chapter 16: Alone in the cell

The flickering on and off of that artificial white light illuminating the cell she's in is the only thing marking time for Filomena. However, she's not sure if day and night are real or just a trick of her delirious mind. What is certain is that Filomena is trapped in a prison. How long has it been since she was brought here? They separated her from Saverio, and she has no one to talk to. She's alone with her madness.

She can feel the burning desire to take a pill. She would like to tear her hands apart in craving. She would swallow anything if it would make her feel better.

The Ice withdrawal is playing strange tricks on her mind. The walls seem to be closing in on her, and her body is tormented by shivers and spasms. It's as if shadows are dancing in front of her eyes, offering illusory promises of relief. But Filomena knows well that relief will never come.

That woman. That Katia. That's what they call her. She thinks she's a big shot in this place. The Rinascita guys all seem to be in awe of her. The bitch, Katia, has done nothing but continue to interrogate her.

"Speak, scum. Be grateful we haven't killed you yet. You're consuming oxygen and precious resources that more deserving people could use," she said, looking at her as if she were a rotting carcass.

The interrogations started shortly after they arrived at this underground refuge they call "Rinascita." Those damn sheep who captured her. She remembers their names clearly: Otilia, the blonde bitch who thinks she knows everything, Brina, the whore who thinks she's charming, Milano, the man without balls, and the stupid kid, Michele. She thought she could seduce him, but evidently, he's just a frightened virgin. They captured Filomena and Saverio while they were taking shelter from a sandstorm. Now they want information, and they wouldn't stop at anything to get it. They wanted to know everything: who she was, who her accomplices were, what she knows about Toronto. But Filomena can't say anything.

Betrayal among the Raiders is punished brutally and ruthlessly. It's a sentence that far exceeds death itself. The tortures she endured in the past transformed her from a victim to a executioner, and the scars on her body are a testament to that metamorphosis.

The sleepless nights when she had to witness the agony of the traitors are still vivid in her memories. The sound of their cries, their pleading looks as they begged for death, is an indelible part of her past. The tortures were so cruel that they scarred her soul, turning her into a machine of oppression.

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They are brutal, but they never allow her to die. It's a continuous torture, a macabre dance between life and death. They push her to the limit of her endurance, only to withdraw when it seems she's about to break.

Now, within these oppressive metal walls of Rinascita, Filomena knows that her resilience will be tested. Time is a elusive concept in that place. Days blend into nights, and every moment is an endless nightmare. Her mind is a whirlwind of confusion, with blurred memories and fears that stir like hungry demons. She has lost her sense of time and reality.

And as the drug withdrawal makes her tremble and scream at night, Filomena wonders if there's a way out of this agony. Perhaps, if she spoke, if she revealed what she knows, she could find some peace. But the price of betrayal among the Raiders is too high, and her loyalty to her gang was the only thing she had left. Actually, it's not loyalty. It's terror. Buried traumas begin to resurface.

The Raiders surrounding her tear off her clothes, their greasy hands on her naked body, the smell of sweat and sexual excitement in the air.

Filomena retches but can't reach the toilet and vomits on the floor. She hardly eats, they offered her food, but she can't do it in that situation. Therefore only gastric juices come out.

Filomena continues to struggle, losing more and more of her sanity as the shadows close in around her. She knows her only hope is that someone will come and free her from this prison, or that the Ice withdrawal will take her away before they can get from her what they want.

Will they come to save her? She knows Toronto would come looking for them. However, the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that Toronto would never save them. Toronto would kill them for their incompetence. There is no place for the weak among the Raiders. It's the law of the strongest, and the weak are crushed. Their bodies serve as stepping stones to elevate the strong.

"I want to live," she says through clenched teeth. She would like to cry, but she can't anymore after what she's been through in the past. Just a bit of Ice would make her feel better right away and make her forget everything. Not to think about all the people she has killed. Women, men, and children. Just one pill, and nothing matters anymore. She could sleep soundly.

Suddenly, a voice on the intercom brings her back to the present. "Prisoner, you have a visitor." A visitor? Who could possibly come to see her? Saverio? No, it's not possible; he's a prisoner too. That bitch Katia for another interrogation? No, if that were the case, they would have taken her and brought her directly to the interrogation room. Toronto? No, that would be absurd.

The glass near the door becomes transparent, revealing the outside of the cell. On the other side of the glass, Filomena sees a young boy with brown hair and brown eyes.

Filomena can't believe her eyes, and she can't justify to herself the immense joy that vision brings her. She stands up from the crouched position she was in and shouts, "Mickey!"

The boy on the other side is Michele, and Filomena can't believe that he came to visit her.