The author is an illiterate caveman. Please critique his writing so that he can learn to speak well, eat meat, and find a wife. Thanks 

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I run my hand down the spine of the book noticing how worn it has become. The pages have tuned a grimy tan and the binder more off than on. It’s my fault, I know. A whole library to choose from and yet I keep coming back to the same one. Of Romulus, to Romulus: The History of Rome. I find the history of this great empire fascinating. Their lives are so colorful and active. There is conquest, love, treachery, hope, despair, and everything in between. Over a thousand years of constant action and reaction. Compare that to me in my white clothes, on my white chair, in this white room. Pitiful.

“Number Two it is time for your medication.” An old man with balding grey hair and oval glasses walked in the room. He wore grey slacks with a matching overcoat and a flimsy piece of laminated paper pinned to his chest that identified him as Hank. Fucking Hank.

“Okay,” I replied and nodded my head.

“Excuse me?” Hank asked sternly with one raised eyebrow. Does he think his eyebrow is intimidating? It looks like a caterpillar leading a revolt from the tyranny of his face.

“Yes, sir.” I corrected carefully keeping my face neutral. I always tried to hide my emotions, the less you showed the less they knew. Marcus Aurelius, one of my favorite emperors, frequently spoke about keeping the rationale mind above the emotional. Further here, in my cage, where my captors are constantly looking for a sign of weakness to latch on to, this rang truer still.

Hank frowned as he handed me two purple pills. “Take them quickly and report to the examination room in two hours.”

I looked at the pills in his hand with trepidation and immediately notice, to my great dismay, that he once again did not bring any water. Most of my handlers do but not Hank. Nope, never that guy. Hank is special you see? Hank is what one might call... an asshole.

“Yes, sir,” I replied once more as I took the pills in my hand.

Hank was staring at me. “Well?” he inquired. The caterpillar seems to have made progress, now ever further up his face. Fight on little buddy, your people will remember this sacrifice!

I popped both pills into my mouth and swallowed with a bitter expression. “May I wash them down with some water from the restroom, sir?”

“No,” he said with great a great pause and emphasis, “you cannot use the restroom Number Two because unlike Trisha and Patrick I know that you are just going to throw the pills up at the first chance you get. I swear you are the worst one,” he finished.

Worst one.

He said it again. That means there are more. Hank is an asshole but his talkative nature gives me more information than the others. “Who is the best one then?” I ask with my expression as innocent as possible, which is, for me, no expression at all. It is in fact, quite similar to my happy expression, and my sad expression, and my nervous expression. Oh, that actor I could have been!

Hank frowns at the awkward twitching of my cheeks. “The ones from before you, I mean,” he recovered. “You are the only criminal we still have at the moment.”

Pills without water are criminal.

“Of course, sir. I was mistaken.” I sat back down on my white chair and picked up the book once more, attempting to dismiss Hank by not looking at him. Ah, Commodus, time for the glorious decline. Woe to the perfect king and imperfect father that was Marcus.

He stared at me, annoyed that I was ignoring him. “Don’t be late Number Two,” he says after a few tens of seconds. The door shuts quietly behind him.

“Oh eat a dick and choke on it, Hank,” I spit quietly under my breath. Somehow even if I am alone, they know what I say if I speak too loudly in this room. Thus I have learned to keep my vitriol low volume, less I step outside and get jumped by Hank’s barbarian enforcers once more.

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I feel a slight burning sensation in my stomach as the pills begin to take effect. This happens almost every time. I look longingly at where my toilet once was before being removed. You served me well porcelain throne. I straighten my posture and breathe slowly, attempting to will away the pain. It was a hot, twisting sensation. Kind of like I had to take a really bad shit. Ah, porcelain throne, I miss you now more than ever.

I considered throwing up again but there was no way to hide it. If I did so I would just be beaten bloody and then given the same pill tomorrow. No, best to just endure the pain and be done with it. All pain has limits and cannot go on indefinitely. I closed my eyes and refocused my center.

The twisting pain was beginning to spread through my body. Slowly it circulated, touching each limb and even spending a long time in my skull, which was an extra special sort of pain. Probably how Hank felt when he choked on dicks. Ow. distracted, don’t get distracted.

After thirty minutes or so the pain began to subside. This was fairly usual. Sometimes the pills had barely any effect, sometimes they temporarily strengthened my body, and sometimes they caused me to become ill. The feeling vanishing after thirty minutes means this one was likely to do nothing. Works for me.

I flipped my book open once more, excited to watch Commodus make his obvious mistakes. The author likes to criticize that Marcus should have killed his son rather than let him inherit the throne but I find that an unjust statement. Would he still be the last “Good Emperor” if he was the kind of man who killed his own son?

But as I had this thought something began to change within my body. For some reason, the pressure that I believed to be gone had come back and was centering itself in my skull. The pain rose steadily like waves on the beach, sets of seven building each more terrible than the last. What did these sick fucks do to me now?

Supposedly I am a criminal. That’s what they tell me at least. I killed a woman and her child but due to my mental state I was not executed; instead, I was brought to this facility where they could cure me. Hah, cure my ass.

The idea that I killed someone does not sit well with me, of course. It bothers me quite a bit in fact. I do not believe myself to be a cruel or hateful person. Sure, I hate Hank but he deserves it. That does not mean I would go around slaughtering women and children. Furthermore, I have no memory of the occurrence which makes it even harder to believe. Would I not remember if I killed someone? Or perhaps, as I have been told, the memory is so painful to me that my brain has found a way to block it out. Dissociate that part of myself from the one I accepted, thus locking away both the bits of memory and personality. In that case, do I not deserve to be here in the land of dick-eating Hanks with their Castro-like eyebrows?

The pressure in my skull increases. It has been an hour and a half now. Only thirty minutes left before the Gauls arrive to drag me from my pristine abode and torture me before their gods. I hope Sydney is not there. She always puts sharp things in places where they don’t belong and I must admit that I am very much a fan of my current size and quantity of orifices.

Twenty minutes left. My brain is struggling to distract itself from the pain that has become nigh unbearable.

I wonder if Hank and Sydney are a couple? If so, I bet Hank is the one who takes it. I believe that it would be too abrupt a change for Sydney otherwise. It is curious though, is she accepting of the fact that “Hank takes dicks in his mouth! Fuck this fucking hurts!” I scream aloud, no longer worried if anyone hears me. Being beaten by the goon patrol would be far better than what I am enduring now.

I kneel on the ground in the fetal position. My knuckles have turned white as my fingers pull mindlessly at my hair. Something is wrong. It is never this bad. I need to stop whatever is happening. I shove my fingers down my throat and in one violent motion barf all over the floor. Pointless, nothing but gastric acid splatters across the cold white concrete. The pill is fully in my system now.

Spitting at the ground between spasms I see a faint red has mixed with my saliva and bile. Is that from my stomach? Am I bleeding internally? No, I can’t taste iron around my gums. So it is my teeth that are bleeding then? Why the fuck is that happening? Ah, I see, I’m simply clenching too hard. I’ll just have to… nope, can’t unclench now. Bleed on my un-pearly whites. If in the afterlife you see my old throne, tell him an old friend says hello.

Five minutes to go. I am on the floor quivering in a putrid pile of what was once my insides. The pain that was once isolated to my skull has spread through my whole body and left me with a tingling sensation. Like the pins and needles feeling from having your foot fall asleep. Except everywhere. And worse.

Thirty seconds.

My vision is fading. I see blackness at the corners of my vision. Where do loser lab rat criminals go to when they die? Heaven? Hell? Or perhaps the Romans had it right and I will have to cross the River Styx to be judged by Jupiter. Ah, I have no way to pay him. I wonder what happens in this instance then? Perhaps someone will bring a bit of extra coin. Does the afterlife have beggars?

Faintly I heard the sound of many footsteps and some guttural voices. Something about a lab, the director, and a communal. What is a communal?

Hands grab me thought I only recognize it from the floor moving farther away. My eyes are closing and the last thing I see are two large caterpillars. Caterpillars? Oh, I see, it’s Hank.

Fucking Hank.