«Where is your brother?»
I do not speak.
His hand, covered in a web of callouses and as wide as my face, comes down and stikes me right on my cheek. The metal chair, to which I am handcuffed, teeters on a single leg, about to topple over by the sheer force of the impact.
For a few seconds, it's dark. When I come to my senses, I can feel in my mouth the acrid, metallic taste of bile mixed with blood. At least I had enough forethought to clench my teeth, and save my tongue for the most part.
A few drops of blood, mixed with saliva dripping from my mouth, stained burgundy the faceless grey of the uniform I am wearing. He's still there, standing before me, legs spread apart and one arm ready to charge another shot. He is a daft mountain in a soldier's uniform, a muscle museum crowned by small, pig-like eyes. From his vantage point he dominates me, hanging over my famished body with all the weight of a sentence already written.
He waits for me to speak, I don't. The hand comes down again, and this time the chair gives in. It topples over, falling against the concrete floor with a clang, and me along with it. I hit my head, almost blank out again.
«Where is your brother?»
Same rhythm, same words. The same, monotonous sequence of syllables I suffer through time after time, for what have to be weeks, now. Or months. Certainly, less than a year. Yes, I am sure of that.
This is only the simplest, of the many tortures I go through, one after the other and never in the same sequence, as they try to pry from me the information they want. It's worse, when they let into the room other men – prisoners like me, judging from their dirty grey uniforms and broken eyes, which I always make the mistake to look into as they obey what I hope are orders. Another favorite is to simply leave me handcuffed to the chair for hours, a whole day; until they rip me out of the cell and drag me under a cold shower, where I can at least wash the smell of piss from between my legs as I shiver under the freezing water.
Today, this time, something is different. The interrogation, if you can call it such, is lasting longer than usual; and there is more urgency in the meat mountain's physical assaults.
Maybe they are growing tired, maybe the end is in sight.
God, I pray between my lips, let it be the end.
The same question, his hand raised again. It stopps above his head. The man's pig-like eyes stare into the distance of the concrete cell, his other hand pressing the earbud clung to his right ear.
He seems dejected when, obeying a mute and invisible voice, he lowers his hand, and leaves the cell without a word.
Alone again, I allow myself to deflate, slumping against the chair for what little the handcuffs allow. Malnourished and sleepless, at times an action as simple as keeping my eyes open becomes a challenge, and resisting their tortures is growing harder and harder.
But I won't speak. Not today, not ever.
The cell's door whines again, and a man I've never seen before enters. He is also muscular, but it's an expensive looking suit, tie and all, that encases his mass. A pair of ice colored eyes gleams against the darkness of his skin; eyes so blue, I suspect they might be contact lenses.
The man grabs the other chair, the only piece of movable furniture in the cell beside the chair I'm sitting in. He doesn't seem to find it comfortable, and struggles for a moment as he adjusts his sitting mass. He settles for crossed legs, hands holding his knee. He looks at me, smiles. He radiates the utter tranquillity of power. I have no doubt, he has to be important around here – wherever “here” is.
«I heard my colleague has crossed the line a bit today. Sorry about that. I'll have a word with him, later.»
I stare right in his eyes, unflinching. I know their tricks, they trained me for this. I could still hear my friends' voices, my brother's voice as they told me to never, ever believe they were on my side.
Still, I have no idea who he was. I have to keep calm, fight the fog clinging to my brain and stay as calm and collected as possible.
«Are they feeding you enough? Doesn't look like it.»
An attempt to distance himself from my torturers, to create a friendly image within an adversarial context. Laughable – which is why I feel a pang of fear when I realize that, in spite of myself, I almost feel something move within me.
So, they were right. It doesn't matter how strong you are; in the end, torture does get to you. I have to exert a physical effort to keep my mouth shut.
His smile grows larger. «You can call me Latimer. You know, they showed me the tapes, the other day. The ones in which you do... well, you know, that thing you can do. One of my men says it takes a lifetime of training. Standing on a pole in Tibet sort of life experiences, Prana-Bindu this or that, Tantra stuff. He says he never saw anyone as young as you – twentyeight, right? – never saw anyone as young as you capable of that sort of control over their consciousness. Is it some sort of deep meditation, some kind of self hypnosis? How do you do that?»
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
I knew this moment would come. They would go through the recordings of my hours of abuse – there is a camera in the cell, upper right corner, in plain sight – and notice the glazed eyes, the limpness in my arms and legs, my utter lack of screams or resistance.
This is what growing up in a commune of survivors does to you. You learn ways to simply make it, manners of becoming untouchable. And my way is self-induced out of body experiences. My teacher – whom I hope has made it – says I'm a natural. That some people can simply hypnotize themselves into another state of consciousness by merely willing it, and breathing the right way for a few instants.
Leave my body behind, and retreat to a place where nothing can touch me. Where I'm not there, while faceless men enter me one after the other. Where pain cannot wring out of me words of betrayal.
Latimer, of whatever his name is, doesn't need to know all this, so I stay silent. He comes closer, his face inches from mine. He smells of mint and expensive tobacco.
«Can you show me?»
My lips, dry and cracked, pucker up. My voice is a growl.
«No.»
The first word I utter in weeks. I clench my teeth, waiting for violence that doesn't come. Latimer stretches on his chair. He pulls a cigarette box from a pocket, he lights it up. He inhales a long gasp of smoke.
«I shouldn't be doing this here. But rules exist only for the idiots who follow them, am I right?»
I don't speak. That single “no” cost me everything. I am pretty sure even leaving my consciousness again would require more energy than I have. One more 'interrogation' would break me, and they must not find out.
Latimer lets out a puff of smoke. His face hardens, almost imperceptibly.
«This could be over. I have the power to make it so. One word, and all of this will be nothing but a bad memory you can wash away in whichever way you like. You could be out of here, under the sun – do you remember, what it feels like, the sun?
I won't lie, I would love to keep you here and have my men... better study this ability of yours, but the few above me have other priorities. Therefore, I am empowered to set you free, if you tell me where your brother is. We need to talk to him, and soon. Time is running out.»
Silence.
«It'll get worse, much worse. More violence, more solitude, more and worse men in your cell. No morning-after pill. No food» Latimer continues, counting on his fingers, waving his cigarette like a wand, «actual physical torture. The sort of stuff where you pick you teeth off the floor, using fingers with no nails. We'll eventually get tired, and find another way to get to your brother. You live only because you're still useful, and it won't be like this forever. Think about it.»
I can feel saliva an blood coagulating in my mouth. My throat gargles, my voice forces its way through chipped, dirty teeth.
«Fuck you.»
Latimer throws the cigarette butt to the ground, doesn't even bother snuffing it out. He stands up, reaches the door and knocks on it. The door opens, before leaving he speaks a few words to invisible presences in the shadows past the threshold. He makes sure he's loud enough for me to hear it.
«We're done with her. To the Memory Hole she goes.»
----
They come to get me. Two uniformed men, both armed, drag me away from the metal slab which is my bed, push me out of the cell. The door slams shut behind us with a cavernous, lonely echo.
Part of me knows I'll never return to it. They have come to get me for the last time.
We walk right past the shower room, and instead continue at breakneck pace along the corridor dimly lit, dilapidated corridor. Rows of doors closed shut, rows of pipes above our heads, the only sound is the echo of our steps breaking otherwise absolute silence.
A door opens before us – it's an elevator. One to my left and one to my right, we descend.
As the elevator clangs its way down, the two men keep their gaze steadily in front of themselves, motionless. I'm handcuffed but, for one foolish second, I wonder whether I could be fast enough to go for the automatic pistol at the left man's belt, and fire at least a couple of shots before they turn me into a pulp. I suspect that a bullet to my head would be a better way to go, than whatever they have planned for me.
I decide otherwise. My legs barely support my weight, I have little doubt that the exhaustion clouding my thoughts would doom me to failure from the start. As I am, I doubt I could even hold a pistol in my hands.
I can do nothing but resign myself to obedience, as the elevator comes to a halt. They push me out, into a corridor entirely like the one before, and the one before that one. I'm barefoot, the rags I'm wearing are weeks old, and my legs are starting to have real trouble keeping the pace. Wherever we're going, however, we are late, and the two men hasten, occasionally prodding me forward with the butt of their guns. The door we eventually enter is identical to all the others we passed by, but it's not a cell we enter.
I can't tell how long it's been, since I've last seen a room this large, or well lit. A concrete cube, bright as day, which could have easily fit my cell twenty times over. It's perfectly empty and featureless, save for an oval shape at its center – it seems to be a shallow, empty pool.
We're not alone for long. From the same door we entered, come more prisoners, each with their own set of guards. Men, women, young and old, all of them rickety and famished just like me. I recognize a few faces, and immediately cast my eyes down. Our guards push us forward, until we all stand by the edge of the pool, one way or the other. Some protest, some collapse.
The scream of a siren cuts through the air. At our feet, inside the pool, from invisible faucets surges a shimmering, cobalt liquid. Dense, iridescent, like molasses. Instinctively I take a step back, only to be held in place by an iron grip.
There are screams around me, but they barely register. Something, in that syrup which now caresses the edge of the pool, demands my undivided attention. It almost seems to try and wrestle control from me. It tries to hypnotize me.
I oppose no resistance, when they push me into it.