The lights are blinding. I stare up from my thin cot I was ordered to lay on and blink at the florescent lights above me. Doctors and nurses scuttle around my cot like nervous crabs, but everything around me is muffled and blurry. Drugs slowly drip into my wrist from a suspended bag. After an hour or so, the doctors pull me up into a sitting position. Nurses quickly take my blood pressure, heart rate, and a blood sample. I try to make eye contact with the nurses, but they slide their gaze over me like I'm only a statue. To them I am only on object to experiment upon. I am no more than a rat in a cage, but I suppose that's what we all are here at Larkhill.

My name is Valerie Page. I was born in Nottingham on May 21st, 1957. I am incarcerated in the Larkhill Resettlement camp for being a lesbian. The love of my life is Ruth Tyler. She is dead.

I repeat these facts to myself as I am led down the hallway to my cell. It's important to remind yourself of these things when in Larkhill. It's too easy to lose them in such a hopeless place. The guards open my cell door and roughly throw me in without a word. I land on my hand and knees, dirt digging into my skin. The door slams behind me and I feel my muscles slowly relax. I sit up and put my legs out in front of me. After weeks without seeing sunlight my skin is pale, almost translucent. The freckles on my legs stand out in contrast to my paper white flesh.

Its summer time. Ruth and I are in the country visiting friends. She pokes my freckles one by one, counting them like they were stars.

I tear up at the memory of Ruth. She was my rock, my soul mate. Tears fall freely down my gaunt cheeks.

It was winter when they took her. We had run out of food, but had no money for more. We were so desperate, Ruth said she was going to go check the dumpsters by the restaurants for scraps. I wanted to go with her, but she insisted I stayed. Her kind deep brown eyes and faint smile are my last images of her. Her goodbye kiss is forever burned on my cheek.

I waited up all night for her to come back. I cried, begged, and prayed to a god I hadn't acknowledged since middle school, anything to bring my love back to me. By the next day, I knew she wasn't coming back.

My reason for living was gone. All that was left was murder, deception, and this bloody war. I wanted to go numb. I wanted to shut out everything from this world, but Ruth would not let me. She had always said that the last inch we have is our integrity. Even in the dark, cold, hungry times we were facing we had to hold on to that last inch of ourselves. We could not give up hope, we could not give up our honor.

I am woken up by a sharp kick to the thigh from a steel toed boot. I am brought back to Dr. Surridge's research wing and told to stand in line with some others. The room is full of people like me; bald, gaunt, and cast out from society. What we had done isn't a crime. The man weeping in the corner is a Negro. The woman next to me is Jewish. We did not fall into the strict parameters set by Norsefire, so we were sent here to die. Where did all of this hate come from? We did nothing but exist in the only ways we knew how. Why are we being persecuted? Even the doctors look like they hate us. Dr. Surridge looks at us like we are ungrateful children.

We have our blood pressure and heart rate checked and recorded. We are led down the hallway back to our cells. I sit against the concrete and stare at the wall when my food is placed on the opening in my door. I glance at it listlessly. I don't want to eat it, it's just thin white gruel and a piece or two of bread, but I know I have to. I have to if I want to survive. I have to live. Ruth wanted me to live, she died because of that desire.

That fact I try to bury deep in my mind, but it always rises to meet me in my dark prison. Ruth was tortured after she was captured. She was forced to say that I had seduced her into homosexual acts. In anyone else's mind, she would have been to blame for my arrest. Oh god, I would never blame her. Ruth was my happiness. She was my light. After all the pain she went through to get that false confession out of her, I could never blame her for what happened to me. But she blamed herself. She believed she gave up that that inch, and she couldn't bear it. She committed suicide in her cell.

I choke down my food and stare at the small hole in my wall where I have hidden a small pencil I smuggled into the prison. I believed I was going to write a letter to Ruth and tell her it wasn't her fault I was arrested. I wanted to tell her I loved her and wanted her to know I was ok. It was too late for that. Now I glower at that pencil like it's mocking me. It's a symbol of what could have been, a symbol of 'what if's.

I lay awake all night in a feverish state. I toss and turn, unable to sleep, yet I feel so weak. The ground lurches underneath me so I feel like I'm at sea. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to hold on. I want so dearly to give in, but I have to stay alive. I can't let Ruth's death be in vain.

When morning's light reaches through my window slit, I hear the familiar tramping of heavy boots. The guard shoves me out into a line of other prisoners. To my right I hear shouts coming from the cell next to mine, cell V. I look to the door in time to see a man thrown out of the cell by two guards. I can't see his face because he's covering a welt received from the guard with one hand. I can see his eyes, though. They are a steely grey with flecks of blue. They have so much rage and hate broiling in them. I look at him with sympathy and understanding. Our eyes meet and he sends out a silent plea for help.

We all arrived with that hate and anger. After living in Larkhill, most give up that anger. They give up or die, but some find salvation. Those few go along with the tests and treatments, but they do so with dignity. They take the beatings and insults from the guards with serene, even sympathetic faces. The government may have taken their families and homes, but they would not take their pride. They kept their inch, no matter what was taken from them.

After the usual rounds of blood samples and tests, we are marched back to our cells. I curl up and shiver on the cold, hard floor and stare at the hole where my secret pencil is hidden. I fall asleep gazing at the sunlight glinting off the graphite. I slip into a dream where I am in my old living room. The sun is streaming through the windows and falls on a vase of Red Carson roses. I smile and pick up the card attached to the vase, "to my love, let our love forever bloom." My smile grows broader. Ruth was always writing corny stuff like that on notes and things she left around the house. It's a joke between us making fun of the writing we've had to put up with in our acting careers. I look about the room and take in the familiar surroundings; my old overstuffed couch in front of an outdated TV, movie posters and awards along the walls, and the familiar smell of spices coming from the window garden.

I sit down on the couch and suddenly Ruth is next to me. I'm not alarmed, it seems like she's supposed to be here. "Honey, what are you doing?" I look at her questioningly. "What do you mean, Rue?" She turns her curly head toward me and looks at me with those brown eyes. "You're giving up." My eyes widen and I place my hand on her shoulder "No! I'm trying so hard! I've been eating and fighting through the effects of the drug, I'm just tired! I'll try harder, I swear." Ruth smiles softly and places her hand over mine. "That's not what I mean. I know you're surviving dear, but are you living? Are you making an effect on those around you?"

I look at her, confused. "What do you feel when you see the prisoners take beatings calmly or hold their heads up high when being berated by insults?"

"Well, I'm proud of them, I guess. They stand up in the face of adversity without fear. They're inspiring."

"Do your actions inspire anyone else?"

I stare down at my hands in my lap. I have been surviving in Larkhill, but I kept out of the spotlight as much as possible. I didn't draw attention to myself. The guards' beatings could be brutal and insinuated by the smallest of glances. I didn't want to die because of cheek. Now that I think about it, I act much like the prisoners I pity.

"I suppose not."

Ruth guides my chin back to face her and she looks me in the eyes. "We both know your time is ending, Valerie. You've always wanted to be remembered, be a role model. Your films are gone. You have to make a new start. But you have you ask yourself, what are you going to do with the time you have left?"

The world round me starts to fade. Tears spring to my eyes. "Please don't go" I say softly. Ruth's fading face smiles and kisses me on the cheek. "See you home soon, honey," she whispers in my ear as the room fades to black.

I wake up in the same position on my cell floor. I glance at the pencil still laying where I hid it. What did Ruth want me to do? How can I influence someone in a place like this? We weren't allowed to speak, let alone speak to each other.

Before I can think of anything, a guard comes in and rips me up into a standing position. I am led down the hallway and back to the research facility. What am I doing here? I had already been checked today. I am placed in a short line of other prisoners who looked equally as confused. The guard steps toward Dr. Surridge. "These are the prisoners you requested, Dr.?" She regards him coolly. "Yes, that'll be all, thank you." The man steps to the side as she came toward us. She inspects each prisoner down the line while consulting charts she had on her clipboard. A nurse steps forward, "Is it as you thought, Dr. Surridge?" "Yes. They have kidney failure." The guard perks up from leaning on the wall looking bored. "We'll have them eradicated for you, Dr." The doctor flashes him a cold look and says, "Tomorrow. Give them a last meal." The man leads us back to our cells and soon our meals arrive.

I'm going to die tomorrow. If my apparent kidney failure doesn't kill me first, that is. How will I make a difference now? My gaze is brought back to the pencil. My eyes flick to the toilet paper roll on the floor and back to the pencil. An idea bursts into color in my mind. I'll tell my story! Ruth and I don't' have to die, our story can live on in someone else!

I rip off my last remaining sheets of toilet paper and begin scribbling like mad. I pour my history, feelings, and love into my words. I want this person to have hope. I want them to know that even in this dark place there is someone who loves them unconditionally. I talk about how that one inch of ourselves is the most important thing in our lives. We can never give it up or throw it away, and we can never let someone take it from us.

When I am finally finished with my work, there is barely any light left to write by. I carefully roll up the delicate paper and place it in the hole where my pencil one resided. It fit nicely, like it was meant to be there.

The next morning, I am brought outside with my line of fellow inmates behind the chemical shed. I no longer walk hunched over, I no longer avert my eyes from the guards. I stand in line with my back to the shed and face several long black muzzles.

I shall die here, every inch of me shall perish.

Except one.