goodnight

I stared bleary eyed into my half empty coffee mug. It had gone cold but I nursed it all the same.

Drinking cold coffee was nothing out of the ordinary for me anymore and I had refilled the cup so many times in succession now that the grounds had formed an inch thick layer of sediment at the bottom. I spat the last sip back in when I felt them on my tongue and gums and decided it was finally time to rinse it out before starting on a fresh pot.

I was tired; more so than I had been in a long time. The urge to sleep was always there and it was getting harder to deny its advances. It nagged at my every fibre. 

My vision was unfocused, and I frequently saw shadows move from the corners of my eyes. Every time I saw one the worry that I may have a mouse crossed my mind again. I had looked for signs though and I knew it wasn't the case. The half eaten remains of a pizza were still untouched where I left them in their open box on the floor to prove it to myself. I didn't have the mental capacity remaining to remember that fact each time it happened though.

I was at a stage of exhaustion that had rendered my fingers too slow and clumsy to be much use to me any longer. I had to abandon the cross word I had been working on because writing was now beyond me.

My mind was clear. It was curious just how closely I found I was able to relate to my every thought. I was nearly having full blown and in depth discussions within myself and it was a very calm and peaceful state. I understood myself on a new level and I was comfortable with my own company as I suffered the waves of exhaustion.

The internal conversations were slowing down every part of me. At one stage my nose itched and it took me probably five full minutes to discuss with myself that I felt an itch, that scratching would most likely help it to cease, that my left hand would most likely be the better hand to use to do the job since the itch was also on my left side, and then to also convince the muscles to complete the action. 

My mind started to go off on tangents as to what had caused the itch and trying to get my mind back under control to actually resolve the issue was becoming the main difficulty. The slowness of movement I could handle, but the idle time spent wondering about the reasons and deeper meanings of things when a simple action could solve them was getting worse instead of better.

I pushed myself hard to get up and make coffee, trying hard not to think about it. I stood in front of the kettle knowing I would need to put water in it and flip a switch but unable to perform either action without having first thought about each one in turn.

I slammed my hands down on the counter as hard as I could. The jolt of pain was muted but the unexpectedness of having done something without having to think about it woke me up slightly. 

I was losing the ability to surprise myself with these little actions and I knew I couldn't manage this for much longer as I took advantage of the sudden ability to move with slightly less mental restrictions. 

Once I got the coffee on I would be okay again. It would buy me the time I needed to get control back again and I would just need to get the next pot after this one on a little faster next time. This had been a close call. The fuzz of my brain nearly had me and if I hadn't stolen back control for the one second it took to slam my arms and cause myself unexpected physical pain, I would have slipped into the ether.

My eye lids hadn't threatened to perform the long blink in quite some time. Early into my forced wakefulness I had a few issues with that. I would blink and my eyelids wouldn't open again without a real fight. I would be so comfortable with them shut, my brain sending out all the chemicals it had in it's arsenal to reassure me that just a few seconds of keeping my eyes closed was safe, and not only that but it made me exceptionally happy every single time I did it.

I was waging war against myself. I had been sitting and discussing the need to stay awake inside of my own mind from the start, but the internal conversation was falling on the deaf ears of my body who was in very severe disagreement with the parts of me that knew better. 

I was approaching my fiftieth hour of being awake. That doesn't sound like much until you take into consideration that before the fifty hours had started, I had managed two hours of sleep after a forty-two hour stint of being awake. 

In the last month I had slept for about an hour per day on average. It was the very definition of hell. My mind was slipping. The slothfulness of my body was frightening to me, where even the most mundane task might as well have been lifting a car over my head for the reluctance of my muscles to make it happen.

At the start I had fueled myself with carbohydrates. I had plenty of energy to keep awake. Then the act of chewing suddenly started to feel like more energy was being expended than saved as a result. Meals would take me longer to eat. They were always well beyond cold by the time I could finish them. 

In time making food was far to much energy to waste. I was living off of my bodies reserves now and I didn't feel hunger at all. Feeling things was also something my body had decided to save energy by no longer doing.

I had a feeling that was what had led to my being so in touch within myself, where I was talking to myself just for something to do. I felt nothing anymore. Not even tired. That sort of clarity was truly a wonder to behold.

I realised I was still standing in the kitchen. The kettle had boiled and then proceeded to cool down again already by the time I had managed to escape myself and observe the world around me again. This simply wouldn't do. I was losing the battle.

I quickly flipped the switch to make it boil again and held onto the sides of it with both hands so that the warmth that was nearly hot enough to burn my flesh but not quite so hot as to be dangerous would help keep me alert.

It felt like it took forever and the kettle rumbled under my hands all the while before finally ceasing. I went to pour the boiling water into the coffee grounds but caught a glimpse of my palm before I could. It was bright red and small white spots were showing on it. I had burned myself and rather badly from the look of it.

I brought my other palm up and saw that both were as bad as the other. I hadn't felt anything more than the rumbling of the kettle and some warmth. I didn't feel burned, not even now when it was obvious that I should.

Before my mind could start contemplating the reasons for this at length I poured the water, being careful with how I grasped the kettle despite not being able to feel the pain from it at all. The urge to be in less agony when I could feel again was still there, self preservation, so it would seem, was with you even when you were doing things that were killing you slowly intentionally to save yourself from other greater evils.

I took the coffee back to the seat I had been occupying earlier, before giving up on the crossword which still sat neatly folded on the table. I sipped at the hot contents of my mug cautiously. It was far too strong and I knew it but I was desperate.

The fade had started. I was crashing. My eyes though open were no longer seeing things properly. It was at times as though I had my eyes closed even though I sat there with them wide and unblinking.

I drank deeply at the coffee and hoped that it would pull me out before it was too late. I couldn't fall asleep. I knew I would have to eventually but I wasn't ready for it yet. I knew I could hold on for a little longer, I had to.

I took a few more caffeine pills and washed them down with the last of the coffee in my mug. I immediately poured another one to replace it. That was the last of the pill form of wakefulness. I had been saving them for this moment and hoped they would work in time.

My heart had started palpitating in my chest, more from the fear that was possessing every part of me than the caffeine could ever hope to manage. I was afraid to sleep and with good reason. 

For months I had been aware of it. As it got more intense I started to sleep less. I simply couldn't face it any longer though and that was why I had moved on to such drastic measures. Now I slept when I absolutely could not stay awake any longer. I woke as quickly as I could once I was aware of having fallen asleep.

It was her. I was sure of it. I had caught glimpses of her from the corners of my eyes when I slept, just like the shadows I mistook for mice when I was awake. Her green eyes would flash in the light for just that one millisecond before her long black hair would block my view as she slipped out of my field of vision.

She was behind me, always. The most I ever got was a tiny glance, just enough to show me she was still there. To show me that she knew and that was how she had planned to extract her revenge. 

I was breathing heavily. Blinking my eyes hard many times in a row, I realised I was able to see a bit more again. Colour had returned to the room. I had beaten the fade for now. I had escaped, but it was inevitable that I would be pulled down by it's undertow eventually. I couldn't run from her forever.

I busied myself with thinking about her. Trying to use logic while I still possessed it. Trying to think clearly while I still could; before fear would again take over every part of me making me reactionary and vulnerable.

Her name was Melissa. We had met for the first time early in the summer through a seminar for work. She smiled at me from across the table and there was something about the look in her eyes when she did. 

It reassured me. It made me bold where I normally wouldn't have been able to be. It told me that it was okay, but at the same time it challenged me to do it. I asked her out for dinner before she could leave that afternoon.

She had accepted just as her emerald eyes had reassured me that she would. I didn't know anything about her, not even her name at the time, so conversation was easy. Everything with her was easy. Her eyes told me everything I needed to know. 

If she would only face me now. If I wasn't trying to avoid her at all cost when she would haunt me in my slumber, staying behind me at all times so that I couldn't get a single clue from their fascinating depths.

Melissa's soul communicated with me through those eyes. It told me what she wanted, and it told me she wanted it badly. 

She mocked me when I fell asleep. I could hear her calling to me. I could hear her whispers of how badly she wanted me. I had wanted her too. When her eyes told me to take her I did as they commanded.

It was the last time I had slept soundly that I woke up realising just what her eyes had commanded. It was that final night's sleep that she taunted me with when I slept now.

I had only intended to see her to her room and ensure that she got in safe. Her eyes invited me in though. That liquid hypnotic green surrounded by those full black lashes, they told me that she wanted me to come in and I obeyed them. I was helpless against them.

I threw her down on the bed and she stared back at me. He eyes were screaming with pleasure, telling me to continue my advance. I was under their spell.

When I woke up the next morning after I had my final night of proper sleep, before she began to prevent me from sleeping soundly ever again, I didn't realise at first what had happened.

There she lay with her back to me. Her long black hair was fanned out behind her. I rolled closer, cuddling up against her and putting my arms around her naked chest above where the sheet lay across her waist.

Her skin was cold to the touch and I held her closer, admiring how pale her perfect skin was in contrast to her hair.

She didn't respond though. 

I rubbed my hands on her hoping to create warmth through friction, and perhaps get some sort of a response from her.

Nothing.

Now I panicked and got out of bed, ignoring that I was naked. Something wasn't right. I needed to look into her eyes. I needed their amazing unreal green to tell me what to do.

I looked down at her face from the side of the bed where I stood and dropped to my knees at once.

There looking back at me was her milky white face, surrounded by her pitch black hair. Her perfect lips were shut in a line of discontent. Her small nose had a tiny trickle of dried blood that had flowed from it and onto the bed before drying.

Her eyes though, they were the thing that made me fall to my knees. I couldn't look away from them. The beautiful orbs that had commanded me completely the night before, that had told me what she wanted and how badly she wanted it... 

They weren't there.

Two empty sockets stared back from the gorgeous face of Melissa where she lay semi exposed on the bed. I kneeled in front of her staring at the place where her eyes should have been for a very long time. There was no blood, there was no sign that anything had been done to her, but her lifeless face was clearly without them and I could not figure out why.

I tried in vain to remember what had happened the night before. The last thing was pushing her into the bed after a coy smile played across her lips and those eyes of hers flashed with green fiery passion that had commanded me to do just as I had done.

Everything after that moment was a blank. 

I was scared. She was very obviously dead and I didn't know why. I looked over myself and couldn't see a single drop of blood or a mark of any sort. Why couldn't I remember what had happened then?

I was afraid and the fear pushed me to run. I got dressed in a hurry and took one last look at her where she lay still in the bed. One of her hands lay flat in front of her face. I hadn't remembered it being there before but it didn't matter. She was dead and I was going to be accused of killing her. I had to get home.

I drove like a maniac until I was outside of my own front door. All the way I went over the possibilities. Maybe someone broke in and killed her in the middle of the night. Maybe she had a partner and they were jealous when they found us in bed together. 

I ran inside and got into the shower. Why would they kill her and leave me alone only to wake up next to her corpse? It simply didn't make sense. Had I been drugged? Was it a set up?

I scrubbed every inch of my body several times until the water went cold. I was sure there hadn't been any signs that I'd been involved in her death in any way. I checked in the mirror, turning and searching for a clue, for anything.

I felt like I was seconds away from a nervous breakdown so I took myself to my bedroom. I pulled the curtains shut, locked the door, and lay down under the covers. I pulled them over my head.

The exhaustion of panic overtook me and I fell into a light sleep filled with vivid nightmares at once. 

I heard Melissa. I heard her screaming out. I heard her begging for someone to stop. 

Then I heard her giggle with that laugh that sounded like tinkling chimes. I heard snippets of our dinner conversation. I even heard her say my name.

Then she was screaming again. I knew she was behind me but every time I turned to see her she would stay there. She was behind me no matter how much I turned. I made myself dizzy in the dream just trying to see her.

I got my first peripheral glance at her in that dream. It's how I knew she was there behind me, screaming for help. Begging for someone to stop hurting her.

I yelled back and woke up completely soaked in my own sweat. Fifteen minutes had passed and I swore I felt like she was still there, still behind me. 

I made my way to the kitchen intent on a stiff drink and still I couldn't shake the feeling. She was back there, I knew it. I'd turn around and see nothing. I caught myself checking my reflection in surfaces, and I never saw anyone behind me. But I felt her presence very much.

Every time I fell asleep after that day the exact same dreams would haunt me. I tried to talk to her. I offered her help. I begged her to forgive me if I had anything to do with it.

None of my offers were ever answered. She never showed herself for more than a second. 

I slept less and less often. I was paranoid in my waking life that it was only a matter of time before I heard about her death on the news and police took me in for questioning. 

I didn't now what I'd tell them. The story was too crazy to be real. I didn't want to go to jail and I didn't want to be locked up in some sort of asylum, but how could I make them believe that I didn't do anything to the best of my knowledge? Would they believe me about her torturing me in my dreams and being able to feel her behind me even when I was awake.

The coffee pot was empty and I came to realise I had slumped forward. My face was balanced on top of my folded hands. My head leaned slightly so that one of my cheeks was mere centimeters from the cold surface of the table top.

I needed to get more coffee but I couldn't move. I saw movement from the corner of my eye and thought again of mice. The bright flash of green that I knew had been there for just a second stopped the thought dead in it's tracks.

I could see the red burns on the side of my hand below my face. I was awake.

She was behind me.

I am now a NaNoWriMo Winner

It was incredibly difficult but I have done it. 

I had a lot of things happen in my life over this one short month that made me think many times that I wouldn't be able to make it. However, I am a force to be reckoned with when I put my mind to something and I can stand in the face of adversity and kick it firmly between it's legs while it's busy staring back at me.

I wrote a novel in 28 days, 4 hours and 20 minutes despite it all. Not only that but I wrote a novel that has a lot of potential. It is going to require editing and the other usual pre-publisher preparations but this is something special and it is glaringly obvious. 

I want to take a moment to thank the person that mattered most of all in making this happen... The person who didn't let me down. Who had to suffer through the good days and the bad days. The only one who can fully understand just how much went into the story and who was there to wipe away my tears of frustration and pain as needed, and helped pick me up and get me back to it again when I wanted to give up and curl up and die. I would like to thank...

Myself. 

That had to be recognised... 

I would also like to thank two very good friends of mine that assisted in research and some very difficult fact checking. D and N thank you because I was really struggling and it made a work of fiction that much more factual and you made it happen and got me the answers I needed when I needed them and also gave me some valuable criticisms on specifics that I could have easily missed otherwise.

I would also like that thank a very good friend of mine who also is named D but I refer to more often as B, for the hours of discussions around right and wrong and helping me to pick the correct one in the end. I may walk the line but I am confident I did the right thing and wouldn't have without you.

And everyone else that has had to listen to me going on about this story for absolutely ages I'd like to thank you for putting up with having to hear about it. I hope this won't be the last time you hear about it though!

It is now nearly 5 am on a Sunday morning and I haven't slept more than a few hours in several days (read weeks) so I am going to reward myself and finally be able to sleep deeply knowing that things are finally okay. I have been successful. I have made something happen. I have earned it. I have won. 

Dream I had mere moments ago

I was standing in a kitchen. It wasn't my kitchen, but someone's and I'm not even sure I know whose. It may have been a combination of a few different kitchens that are familiar to me now that I think about it. Regardless, it was a kitchen and I was standing at the back window of a house as I stood inside of it.

There were trees in the back garden and I was watching birds land in branches mere inches from the glass. There were a lot of plain brown birds that I recognised to be finches and sparrows, but soon a majestic kingfisher landed to the right of them on the branch. His glittering green and blue feathers really caught my eye and I wanted to get a photo of him very badly. 

I raised my camera to the window and held it just centimeters from the glass. The bird looked at me knowingly and seemed to be allowing me to operate in such close quarters because he knew I only wanted a photo. And that is when I was interrupted by a little boy.

I snapped a photo and could see nothing but the two flesh coloured swirls that were our reflections on the glass in the kitchen window. Angrily, and without having considered that first of all I always look for reflections in glass before taking a photo, and also that turning the kitchen light off most likely would have rectified the problem, I turned to the little boy so that I could still try to get the photo I wanted.

He asked me what I was doing. In a hushed whisper I told him I was trying to get a picture of the rare bird that was in the tree. In a shout he asked me if he could see. In a hiss I asked him to be quiet and to leave for a moment so that I could get the photo before it flew away, and in the worst case scenario he would be able to see the bird in the photo if I managed to take it before it was too late.

He ignored me completely and began to climb feebly onto the kitchen counters beside me. I was still trying to position the camera and I watched as the bird nervously looked over at him and became jumpy about his chaotic advance.

Furious I grabbed the boy by his shoulder and turned him to face me. The whites of his eyes were luminous yellow. A black and red snake tongue flicked from between his lips. There were dark bags under his eyes. It wasn't the child who had come into the room at all. Movement from the corner of my eye informed me that the kingfisher had flown away.

He glared at me before putting his own hand on mine. I tried to pull away but it was too late. The little boy had me and I heard the words "Let me free" in a very deep and demonic voice, as I struggled against him.

Suddenly I was outside in a small walled garden with others. It was evening and the sun was just about to set. I was with several friends, though on looking back I don't know who any of them are. I suspect they were all male and I suspect they are old friends as opposed to new ones.

There was a gravel path and all of us were standing on it. I had noticed that the trees were all wrong but truly beautiful. I pointed this fact out to the others and showed them a tree to my left that had Royal Blue leaves as an example. "Trees don't grow blue leaves in nature do they?" One of friends had finally spoken.

As soon as their words had left their mouth the sky began to pulse between yellow and red. The Royal Blue leaves changed to a light purple, and then to pink. It was all done in one sweeping motion as opposed to things changing out of sync. It reminded me of changing the hue of a photograph in that the entire picture changes at once as opposed to a single part of it changing out of sync from the rest. 

The world around us was changing as one and it was painful for us. I covered my ears and winced as the world spun around me with ever morphing colours coming to the sky and the trees.

All of the sudden I saw that I had been whisked away and was laying in my bed... well my bed about 23 years ago at least. Something was wrong about this fact and I wasn't sure what. I got up to get out of the bed despite feeling utterly exhausted. I walked to the door and reached for the handle.

And suddenly I saw that I had been whisked away and was laying in my bed... Well this time it was the last bed I had slept in since my own. Something was wrong about this fact but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. I got up on the opposite side and walked in a different direction to the door. I reached out for the handle.

And then I was in a friends bed. Probably the third previous bed that was not my own that I had slept in recently. Something wasn't right about this though and I was desperate to know what. I was so utterly exhausted that I nearly fell back asleep. I forced myself to get up, again the angle of the bed meant another side to climb out of it and another different direction to go in order to reach the door. I reached out for the handle.

By now I was starting to have vague recollections that every single time I reached for the door I ended up in another bedroom. It scared me. I still wasn't sure what my bedroom looked like or where it was, but I needed to find it or I would be stuck in this cycle forever.

I woke up in the house I grew up in and decided I needed help to get out of this dream; I had realised it was a nightmare by now but I was so tired that I couldn't just put a simple stop to it. As I was in my childhood home I tried screaming out for my mother. Bearing in mind that I didn't know how old I was, where I was, or who I was at this stage in the dream or in real life, it made some sort of sense that in this childhood room, screaming for her was the correct course of action.

No one answered. 

I tried to scream for my sisters and I faintly heard one of their voices in the room next door to mine. I screamed for them to come to my room and to help me... "I can't." I heard clearly as the response. 

My panic was rising so I shrieked as loudly as I could, only my voice failed me. Even in the dream it sounded like a feeble scream. I tried again, desperate to put more force behind it. If my family weren't going to help me then I would scream until someone else would, or until I woke myself up.

My feeble shrieks came in short bursts. I kept trying to make them stronger and louder but they all sounded the same; barely audible and weak.

I tossed and turned in a montage of beds. Each time I opened my eyes I was in a different one, but all of them were beds I had known at some point in my life. I was so tired and I could not get out of this cycle of beds no matter what I did. 

And then I was pinned down by my wrists. I was tied up in my blankets. Some invisible presence was there with me and it was the cause of all of this. I screamed and struggled but nothing worked. I was being forced to stay in the dream by this malevolent spirit. I felt it press my head down against the pillow. I felt it's hands on my back and then on my leg.

I fought with it, kicking and thrashing and screaming to beat hell. I was still so tired but I wasn't about to let this thing get me. 

When I woke up in my actual bed I was actually screaming. I was fighting the covers. I did not feel alone in the slightest... I wondered why no one came and realised that in real life I was home alone. There was no one to come.

Cautiously, and filled with dread I climbed out of bed and reached for the door...

Dream sequence from my other work in progress

I dreamt that I was walking along a narrow path beside a stagnant body of water. It was long, like a stream, but the water didn't flow at all. Old dead trees broke the surface of the water periodically and there was an orange scum at the edges of the water. I walked along and I was looking for something but I wasn't sure what, but it was important that I find it and quickly. I slipped on the muddy bank and fell into the water. It was immediately very deep but I was able to tread water. Then an intense fear struck me that there were enormous fish circling me in the water. At that exact moment a fish that looked prehistoric swam past my legs. I could see it's jagged dorsal fin just below the surface of the water. I could see others now, some resembling coy only mutated to somehow be bigger than I was. I swam as hard as I could, and as with all dreams like this I could barely move despite all of my struggling. I finally managed to reach a big dead tree that was standing in the water and I climbed up it's branches. Without warning all of the fish went belly up and I didn't know what had happened but I felt bad that they were all dying and I wanted to do something to help them. I held onto the branches, mourning the fish and debating getting back into the water to try to help them.

Next I was treated to a slide show. The first showed me my old Manager, holding out a beer for me with a half smile and a sparkle in his eyes. Next I saw an old television with static on the screen. That gave way to a house that was engulfed in flames against a night sky. A masquerade ball with elaborate costumes came next, followed by a car crash. A woman struggling to swim against a strong current came next, and finally a man lying in a hole in the ground with coins over his eyes and soil on his chest.

The last dream I had involved me laying in a bed in a dark room. I opened my eyes and saw a man standing at the foot of my bed. He had white makeup on his face and around his eyes and lips were painted black. He appeared to be wearing a court jester's outfit, and though the dream was black and white I was sure that his outfit would have been green and yellow. He stood at the foot of the bed with a big toothy smile. The black lipstick was smeared across his teeth, and he was looking at me. Then he was suddenly a hair closer and his expression had changed to one of extreme anger. A moment later he was closer still, smiling again but his eyes were too big for his face and distorted it. He continued to progress slowly toward me, his face changing each time and becoming more far fetched. One moment his mouth taking up his entire face, the next his head tilted at an impossible angle, then he had one eye so large that it took up half of the circumference of his head. Each change of his face brought another extreme expression; fury, euphoria, despair, malice. This went on forever but he was getting closer to me. Finally when his face was nearly touching mine because he had come so close, I screamed a blood curdling shriek, squeezing my eyes shut and pulling myself away from him as much as I could.

I woke up to the sound of my own pathetic tiny moaning noises that had been blood curdling screams only a seconds before in my nightmare. I was breathing heavily but relieved to have escaped intact. Nightmares were a common occurrence for me but like this assortment, they never went together or seemed to say anything. Since I had no knowledge of my past I had of course consulted dream dictionaries on my never ending quest for any clue as to what had happened to me, however I hadn't been able to get anything useful out of them. Dream dictionaries always seemed to tell people the obvious connotations of possible meanings combined with the probability that you were pregnant.

The urge to sleep was long gone now.

NaNoWriMo sample

It never got dark and it was never quiet. The florescent bulbs overhead were always casting their harsh sickly-yellow light. Their incessant hum was barely audible, drowned out by the pounding machinery, the rattling of chains, and the cries of the inhabitants of the cells. 

Sleeping wasn’t really possible. It got to the stage that you just lost yourself in the noise and closed your eyes, trying to forget your discomfort; but you weren’t really asleep. You were always listening out for the whistling of The Overseer. He came everyday, sometimes several times a day, and it was never pleasant.

I had just been startled into total consciousness from the light meditation that passed for sleep here. I had heard him. The others had heard him. There were a few frantic cries from the weaker captives. I just laid there. I had no choice as my most recent constraints didn’t allow for any movement. 

No matter what The Overseer had in mind I was completely vulnerable, and it didn’t scare me as much as it should. Such was the level of depression that I found myself in. I couldn’t feel fear any longer. The dark hopeless thoughts had taken me over on this day. It had been happening more frequently since my movements had been further restricted. 

We were confined in tiny cages, each holding a single prisoner. I wasn’t sure just how many of us there were in total but it had to be a lot. The sheer volume of cries that would echo around in our prison made that clear. The smell made it clear as well. 

We had no form of plumbing. There were gaps in the floor and not even enough room to pick a part of our cell to use for answering natures call. Even without the additional confines that I was now held in place with it had been impossible to even turn around. You just went where you stood, or lay in my case. Our waste went between the cement slats that made up the floor of our cells. The smell was terrible. It burned the eyes and nose. We had no choice though.

We were given water. We were fed. We were kept alive. 

None of this was what I would consider living though. We could communicate with each other but there was nothing to discuss really. There was nothing to take our minds off of the current situation that we all found ourselves in. We were prisoners of The Overseer. He kept all of us here against our will. 

Talk of being free someday or of rescue had long since died. It only upset those prisoners that were walking the fine line between acceptance of their current situation and insanity. It was a line that became more narrow with each passing day of our enslavement for more and more of us. 

It hadn’t always been like this. I had memories of better times. Back when I had freedom, before The Overseer had locked me and the others in here. Sometimes I lived in those memories, unable to allow myself another second of grim reality. At other times I found that I couldn’t think of them because it simply made the depression worse; to know that they were only memories and they were in the past. I would never go there again. I would never experience any form of freedom again. The Overseer had me now and I was doomed. We all were.

He shuffled up and down the rows between our cells, whistling all the way. The haunting song echoing around the entire complex and sounding dark and foreboding over the machinery. It was especially disturbing because it had such a cheerful melody, though he whistled it a little too slowly, distorting it and changing it into an evil call for an evil man.

I could see him now from where I lay, pinned to the ground. He had stopped in front of the children’s cell. Their panicked cries as they ran from him to the back wall of the cell were putting everyone on edge. They hadn't yet learned to fear The Overseer but they were about to. 

Their mothers had done what they could to warn them. They tried to teach them what passed for rules of survival in this prison. The rules would not save you but they would make your experience of this hell slightly more bearable. 

Always eat everything you were given was the first and most important rule. To never do anything to cause harm to The Overseer or the men in the green or white uniforms, even if it was a natural reflex or happened by accident; that was second, and no less important. Never draw attention to yourself was the third. 

They were very difficult to follow at times despite sounding very much the contrary. Eating could be nearly impossible at times, both due to what the food consisted of, as well as the mental state that prisoners would regularly find themselves in. They increased the amount of food that you would be expected to eat sometimes for no known reason. That was the hardest time of all for every one of us. You ate it though because the suffering of eating it was far less than the suffering you could expect if you did not.

Causing harm to The Overseer or one of the uniformed men he employed, either the green or the white uniforms was a surefire way to commit a long drawn out and incredibly painful suicide. The uniformed men were known to the prisoners as the ‘Keypairs’ in green and the ‘Ventries’ in white. No one was sure where the names originated or what they meant exactly but both seemed to be just as important as the other in rank and both seemed to do whatever they were told to do by The Overseer; which for the most part involved the systematic torture of prisoners like myself.

I had seen it happen first hand. The Overseer had a very short temper. He had no conscience when it came to his actions toward any of his prisoners. We were nothing to him and he would not think twice before hurting, maiming, and killing any of us. Even if there was no justifiable reason for it.

Drawing attention to yourself was the third rule; basically if you did, you would suffer. You would receive more frequent inspections. Sometimes you would earn yourself additional rations that you would then need to choke down. Trying to be invisible was key. If you were invisible, if you blended into the other prisoners, then you were not truly alone and as a result you couldn't be singled out.

The Overseer never seemed to fear the consequences of his actions. He was either above the law or they must not be aware of what was happening here. He tortured, he enslaved, he murdered, and others witnessed him doing so day in day out, and yet no one ever stopped him. He was bold. He had no fear. He had never suffered any punishment for his actions that any of us were aware of. 

The children continued to cry and move to the back of their communal cell. We couldn’t help them. There was absolutely nothing we could do but watch in horror. We knew what was coming. It wasn’t the first time we had seen this. We could hope it would be the last but it wasn’t likely to be. 

“No not again!” “I can’t watch!” “Unhand them! Monster!” “Please take me instead, don’t hurt my baby!” The cacophony of screams of protest rang out loudly and from all sides.

I wish I could say that I felt especially for their mothers in the other cells. Knowing what was about to befall their children could not have been easy to deal with. The torture we had all been forced to endure made that impossible though. We all had to look out for ourselves more. To get lost in anyone else’s feelings more than your own was too dangerous. It was too much of a burden for anyone to bear. In this prison you learned that you only had a tiny amount of control over what happened to you and you alone. 

Still whistling he reached inside of their cage. The children ran and screamed even more loudly, desperately trying to evade his reach. “Help! Ma!” “No! Get off of me!” They did well at the start but The Overseer had done this many times and was experienced in catching them amidst the confusing scramble of bodies. 

He grabbed one girl by her middle and she cried out in surprise “Help Mama! Please help! He’s hurting me!”. She was the daughter of the prisoner a couple of cells to my right. I had no choice but to listen as she screamed. “Let her go! Please! Don’t hurt my baby!” He lifted her. She was struggling to get away but he held firmly onto her. 

I closed my eyes as she screamed. Her mother called out and cried in vain. I couldn’t bare to watch him mutilate the children again. He whistled all the while as he caught each one of them in turn. They all screamed as he cut them, as he pulled their teeth out. He let them go again in the cell once he was satisfied that every one of them had suffered the pain that he wanted to cause them, the pointless, meaningless, and utterly unjustified pain. He moved through all of them, one after the next until every child was lying on the floor of the cell, shaking, stunned, and crying from their bleeding mouths.

Their mothers cried along with them. No one wanted this for anyone else. No one wanted to have to watch. What could we do though? 

We had all had this sick ritual performed on us, however not all of us as children. I was a fully grown adult when he got me. I knew what it felt like. I had memories of better times though; of freedom. These children wouldn’t know freedom for their entire life. Death was the only freedom they had to look forward to; and I knew that soon they would do just that.

The Overseer had finished with them and was now doing the rounds to inspect and feed the rest of his prisoners. When he got to me he pulled on the chain that bound my neck to ensure it was secure. It hurt, but I was used to it hurting. I was used to The Overseer inflicting pain everywhere he went.

Then he rattled the device that held me in place, lying down on my side. I couldn’t get up from it. I couldn’t roll over. It kept me completely still and immobile. I had been like this for over a week now and my body was in agony. I was desperate to move, if even just to pace the tiny cell. I’d have done anything to just stand up for a moment. 

“Let me go. Please just end my suffering. I cannot take it anymore.” I begged as I did more and more frequently. He went right on ignoring me. The Overseer ignored all prisoners, as did the Ventries and the Keypairs. It was futile but I begged anyway.

Laying down like this I was closer to the stench wafting from between the floor slats. When I rested my neck I had a view of what caused the smell. I couldn’t strain to keep my neck up all of the time so that I could see the other prisoners around me instead. I kept my eyes closed most of the time but it was inevitable that I would spend far too much time gazing into the waste below me. Both my own and that of the other prisoners. It made me sick and the blow to what little dignity I had made me angry as well.

He was content that it was also secure and he settled on putting food in front of me on the ground, so that I would have to contort my body the tiny amount that was possible to enable me to eat it. 

I often debated not eating. If we stopped eating he took us away and we knew that it meant death; but here you learned that death was the only real escape. Was it worthwhile to break the first rule in order to achieve it though? How much suffering could you endure on your way to that final destination? That was the real question. 

The dark and terifying song he whistled continued to echo around as he fed the others. He stopped to inspect each of us in turn. I simply laid there, chewing the scraps he had left and trying not to taste them. Rotten vegetables, leftover table scraps from the canteen of the local hospital, and the gritty powder that had a medicine taste combined with the taste of death. We all suspected the powder was ground bones and drugs, but there was no way to eat around it. Our constrains prohibited us from being picky eaters. 

The smell of effluence and feces that permeated the cells combined with the ghastly taste of rot and death used to put me off from eating. I learned the first rule the hard way. Not eating meant more torture. More frequent inspections. Sometimes The Overseer would bring along the others in their green or white uniforms to assist in the torture if you didn’t eat. The Ventries and the Keypairs could be very convincing when they worked together to make you do something. They worked together to hurt you enough, or punish you enough, or just simply break your spirit enough. You would do as they wanted you to do.

Sometimes, those of us that found we could not eat where taken away and never returned. The last we would hear of them were their final shrieks and struggles, followed by rattling chains and the gurgling last breathes that we could only suspect meant they had escaped into deaths welcoming arms. They had acheived freedom.

No one had suffered that fate today. We had all managed to survive this time. At least once every week somebody went though. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. It was a morbid combination of joy and fear and sorrow that overtook me each time it happened. I always went to the memories of how it was before I came here when he took one of us. It was escape into my imagination that enabled me to deal with it and maintain my sanity.