My eyes opened, and suddenly, all sorts of smells assaulted my heavily blocked nose. The coppery scent of dried blood, a mixture of feces, urine, and all other sorts of excreta, combined to form an unholy abomination of a smell that threatened to knock me out cold. It had done so before, but I had already started getting used to it.

I felt I was sitting on some warm, wet, and squishy substance. Luckily, I was able to force my mind from trying to imagine what it might be. Wave after wave of nausea and pain assailed me, finally settling after I puked, leaving me with a terrible headache and pains.

I tried moving, but it proved to be futile, as always. I felt myself trapped in what I could only imagine to be a straitjacket, with a heavy chain wrapping around it, tying me to a cold, uncomfortable metal chair. I sighed through the animal restraining mask that covered my face, causing pain to spark up in my already strained throat.

"I'm dreaming again," I thought to myself.

I had what I assumed to be a rare condition of only being lucid in dreams. I rarely remembered much from reality. I couldn't even remember why I found myself screaming when I came to in my dream. But that wasn't necessary, after all it was always the same.

I sighed as I waited for what was to come. If my dreams were still as I left them, then it was about time for the nurse to come and feed me that strange chunky slop. I prayed they gave me some of the red ones today; the other colors always made me puke. With that, I stared emptily into the dark void while waiting for her, doing my favorite lucid pastime: trying to remember reality or how I ended up in this place. As always, I got nothing.

I listened to the light sound of some sort of liquid dripping in the distance. That was when I heard it - light footfalls on some sort of metal. It should have meant the nurse, but that couldn't be right; the nurse's footfalls were always heavy. The only person with such light steps could be... the doctor. I shivered at the thought, suddenly trying even harder to shift from my position, but all my efforts were met with futility. I eventually gave up.

In the end, it wasn't like the doctor beat me any more than the nurses did. He just said strange words that made me feel like tearing my brain out.

They probably already considered me mad, but I never felt crazy. It was only when he said those strange words that I felt so. To be honest, I didn't even know why...

"Why what?"

I pondered. I couldn't seem to recall. I had forgotten again. My body shivered at that thought; it seemed my forgetful reality had started invading my dreams too. It wasn't all bad news, however. At least maybe it'd make it easier to forget my beatings.

I couldn't continue my line of thought, however, as a bright crack appeared in the darkness I was used to. Suddenly, the whole world turned bright as my eyes burned, and the world seemed to be shaking. After what had to have been a while, my eyes finally adjusted to the light as a new figure stood in front of me.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

A man with a hunching back, dressed in a pair of trousers, a shirt, and an unblemished white lab coat, watched me carefully through his rimless spectacles. His graying hair and deeply wrinkled face spoke clearly of his years, as he finally spoke in an aged, distorted voice that came through the special-grade nose mask he wore.

"Good morning, Mr. Galen."

I didn't reply; I already knew how this went. The doctor just comes in, asks questions, I don't reply, and he records the whole conversation before finally leaving. Of course, I had tried replying before. That only rewarded me with a beating from the nurses and straining my already damaged throat. If he was in a particularly bad mood, he'd just say one of those strange words that always made me run mad. After that, I'd rarely dream, which was quite a bonus in my opinion. I considered that option now, but he didn't look to be in a bad mood, so I could only drop it. Instead, I heard an oddly solemn tone emanating from his voice.

"You don't have to worry about the usual routines today."

He raised his hands, showing that he wasn't carrying a recorder with him. I still kept silent; I wasn't going to take such a chance. After all, the people here weren't exactly saints. There was a high chance of him lying. Seeing my silence, the man dragged a nearby chair that the nurses used when they sat in front of me.

"You don't want to talk? That's fine too."

He tried stretching his poor back on the metal chair before whipping out a tablet from his side.

"You've been with us for ##$$% years now."

I tried smashing my head on something, anything, to not hear that strange word ever again, but the chains and the straitjacket held me in place, preventing me from doing anything.

It took a while before I finally calmed down, realizing the doctor was spewing nonsense. I was dreaming; it was obviously impossible to spend years dreaming. Seeing the disbelief that just occurred, a strange look passed through the doctor's eyes.

"You're still in denial, aren't you?"

"Denying what?"

My throat made sure I paid harshliy for trying to use it. I Ignored it regardless.

My body shivered heavily, and even though he didn't say any of those strange words, I felt like scraping my ears shut and stabbing my eyes out. Deny what? What did I have to deny? I had nothing to deny; he was lying. They always lied.

I could see from his eyes that he was smirking.

"Of course, you're denying @##&+@ @&@π ÷&@π-` . It was certainly @-#ππ##××. Even for a cold-hearted man like me, I'd offer my…"

His voice was immediately cut off by my screaming. I found a way for the metal chair to still harm me through my padded straitjacket. So, I screamed, hitting my skull on that point of the chair, trying to cave it in and shut out the strange lying words that kept trying to enter it.

The man's eyes widened when he saw blood. He rushed to the side, carrying a brownish pillow and placing it between my now bloodied head and the chair. It was only after I finally calmed down that he dropped down on his chair.

"Fuck, you've bloody lost it."

He let out an aggrieved sigh. A smile played on my face as I watched him. I could feel myself becoming lightheaded fast as blood dripped down from my head; I would soon wake up. He looked at my smile before shaking his head. He spoke as if reading my mind.

"Don't count on it. The nurses are going to patch you up, so you're not getting anywhere with that wound."

That didn't matter however, I had already stopped paying him attention by now, my mind slowly becoming numb.

He watched as he finally regained his former composure. He spoke, this time careful not to use those strange words.

"It doesn't even matter what you believe. All that matters is that the people that brought you here don't want you to die,"

The man paused for a moment, looking at me from top to bottom.

"But, looking at your current state, the most i'd give you is half year of life and when you die, I die."

He rubbed his face,

"I should have known when they handed you over, I'm still as foolish as always. I don't know what could have given me away, they had to have been plotting long enough to have found such a discreet way of eliminating me."

He stood up from his chair walking towards me,

"As I said, none of that matters now though."

He pulled out a black and brown pistol from his side pocket, resting its cold barrel on my head.

"I'll just kill you here and break their plans, it shouldn't be too hard to hide from the..."

I couldn't pay attention to him for much longer as everything around me slowly faded into white, I was sure to faint soon.

" No…har… fe… mercy… kil.."

That was all I heard before a sudden sharp pain pierced through my skull, followed by a muffled bang. I felt my head hit the floor, then it all faded to black.