Pain.
That was the only feeling that Liam Reinhardt could comprehend anymore.
He lay strapped down to a metal table, an IV attached to his arm. He couldn't remember how long he had laid there. Hours? Days? Weeks? It all just ran together. He tried turning his head a bit to look around, but he knew that it was useless. Not only was his head strapped in place and the drugs coursing through his veins had made him dizzy, but they had taken his glasses as well. Everything was a big, dark blur.
Not that there was anything worth seeing anyway.
Suddenly, he felt a deep throbbing in his left eye. He hissed through his teeth in pain as he tried to press his hand to his eye, but grunted in annoyance when he remembered he couldn't. Was there something covering his eye? Why hadn't he noticed it before?
'Oh dear, what have they done to me THIS time?' he thought with slight dismay. They had never messed with his eyes before and this made him a bit nervous. He never liked it when they did surprise experiments on him. He would fall asleep one night and when he woke up, he would have some form of new bandage on him and he would be INCREDIBLY light headed. Most likely from the drugs they fed him through his IV while he slept.
He wondered what they had done to him this time. Had they attempted to change his eye color? Did they sew it shut? Or did they just decide to take it out entirely?
His thoughts were interrupted however, when the door burst open and a bright light flooded the room. Liam winced and shut the one eye that wasn't bandaged as tightly as he could. He heard a slam as the door was shut and he slowly opened his eyes again. He yelped in surprise when all he saw was a spectacled man staring at him only a few inches away from his own face. The man didn't flinch a single muscle when his patient yelped and he smirked a bit in response. He quickly stood up straight and with a swish of his coat, he briskly walked over to a nearby table. He picked up a clipboard then, and started writing a few things down.
Liam stared at the man as he walked by; his heart still beating in his ears as he recovered from the previous shock. He had recognized that face. He was one of the many doctors here at the camp and had operated on him before. But that was the extent of his knowledge about the man. There were so many doctors at the camp that he couldn't remember them all. And truthfully, He didn't care.
Liam flinched when he heard the doctor snap on a fresh pair of rubber gloves and heard the ominous "click-click" of his jackboots as he walked back over to him.
"How is your eye feeling?" the doctor asked as he glared at him over his small, round spectacles.
Liam was quiet for a moment, not really knowing what the doctor wanted him to say. Apparently, that moment was too long for the doctor. He suddenly leaned in closer to Liam's face again and yelled, "ANSWER ME, SCHWEINHUND!"
Liam yelped in fear and closed his eye tightly as he tried to curl up into himself, but only managed to pinch a nerve in his wrist where one of his bonds dug sharply into his skin instead. He whimpered in pain and silent tears started to fall from his uncovered eye. He hated this! He didn't want to be here anymore! He wanted to be home with his father, mother, and brother again! But….. that was impossible now, wasn't it? They were all dead. All dead. Killed right in front of his very eyes. He knew it was useless to think about what had happened. Nothing would ever bring them back. He knew thinking about them would only bring that familiar pain back, throbbing harder than ever. Still, he couldn't help himself from thinking about them anyway.
The doctor's lip curled in disgust whenever his patient started whimpering and crying like a baby. 'Stupid traitor' he thought angrily to himself. He didn't understand WHY he and his fellow doctors weren't allowed to kill this pitiful child, and it annoyed him to no end. He had the urge to sharply smack the sniveling young man lying under him, but he didn't want to damage his latest experiment.
"Alright, alright. Stop crying." He reached into his pocket and brought forth a handkerchief which he used to softly wipe away his patients tears. He didn't want salt water getting into the young man's fresh stitches after all!
Liam looked up at the man with a slightly confused expression. Why was he wiping his tears away? And using his OWN handkerchief no less! Liam quitted down after that, giving one last little sniffle.
As the doctor saw he was quieting down, he smiled and said, "Good boy. Now sit still and don't flinch."
He reached for the bandage covering Liam's eye then, and slowly removed it. Liam was worried about what would be under that bandage. He could feel a slight panic creeping into the back of his mind as he started thinking again about all the horrible things they could have done to it.
The doctor leaned in closer and inspected the stitching around his patients eye. He admired his own handiwork and the way the scarring had formed a perfect "X" shape around the eye. 'Beautiful,' he purred in his own thoughts. He loved marking his patients with interesting scars. The "X" shape really hadn't been all that necessary, but no one ever reprimanded him for his actions, so he continued doing his "art" on his patients. "Open your eye," he suddenly instructed.
His damaged eye was throbbing again. He didn't want to open it, but he didn't want the doctor yelling at him again either, so he very slowly opened his eye. 'Oh GOSH that hurts!' he yelled in his mind, but he kept opening his eye all the same. When it was completely open the doctor quickly whipped out a small flashlight and shined it into Liam's eye. "ACH!" Liam yelled loudly, the flashlights sudden brightness stinging his eye terribly. He closed his eye again, but soon found out that that was a mistake, as that sudden movement made his eye sting even more. That, apparently, was also a mistake because this small action made the already impatient doctor even MORE angry.
"Open your eye or I shall take it out PERMANENTLY next time!" the doctor hissed through gritted teeth.
"….What did you do to my eye?" Liam asked faintly, eyes still clamped shut.
The doctor sighed then and said, "All I did was merely take out your eye and replace it with a recently deceased Jew's eye for a while. Then I simply plucked that one back out and put your old eye back in. Satisfied? Now open your eye, dummkopf."
Liam was horrified by what the doctor told him and it showed on his face. "Why would you do such a thing? What is the purpose?" he squeaked softly.
The doctor was quiet for a moment, but then glanced at him over the bridge of his glasses and nonchalantly said, "Because I can."
Liam screamed loudly as he woke from his slumber and quickly sat upright in his bed. He clutched at his old scars over his eye, as they were throbbing painfully again. He was drenched in sweat, his normally puffy hair now matted against his head. He was panting heavily and quickly glanced around his room at RED base. 'Another nightmare' he thought sadly. Would he ever stop having these memory filled nightmares? Suddenly he heard a loud knock on his door. As he was still a bit confused, he didn't say anything at first and just stared at the door. That was too long for the small figure standing outside the door. She burst through the door, shotgun in hand, as she loudly exclaimed, "What's wrong? Are ya' hurt? Why did ya' scream?"
Liam only stared. That's when he realized that it was his one true happiness in this world: his love, Elizabeth Hartley. She had happily bounced up to him his first day at RED base and gave him a big hug. That one small action started a chain of events that eventually led to them being happily in love. As he stared at her now, he gave a slight snicker at her attire. She was dressed in a long nightdress that was covered in tiny pictures of cats. That was so her.
She rushed into the room when she saw that there was no immediate danger and laid her shotgun on the floor next to the bed.
Then, she slowly sat down next to her love and asked quietly, "What's wrong, darlin'?"
He smiled sadly at her and simply said, "Nothing you need to vorry about, mein liebling." He kissed her softly on the forehead.
"Is it your eye? Does it hurt again? Oh my! Why are you cryin'?" she asked in her quick-fire way as she grabbed one of Liam's hankies from his nightstand and softly wiped away his tears.
He had been crying? He hadn't even noticed! He let her wipe away his tears, then he softly kissed her hand. "Danke, liebe."
He had put off telling her about his past in detail up until now, and he planned on keeping it that way if he could. He didn't know if her sweet, little mind could take it. She took his head then and slowly led it down onto her lap and started stroking his hair. She loved his hair. "You don't have ta tell me if ya' don't want to, but I'm here if ya' need to talk, kay?" she offered with a smile.
He smiled then and said, "Danke… Ich liebe dich."
"I love ya' to, darlin'" She kissed his temple then and he sighed with contentment.
Slowly, he was able to drift back to sleep and for the first time in many nights, it was nightmare free.