Author's Note: Hi y'all! This is something I had to write for Literature class. They said it was a "creative piece" which was kind of funny cause when I saw the task all I could think was "they want to read and edit my fanfiction". Anyway, I doubt many people will read this because, let's face it, who wants to read fanfiction about 1984? I'll probably only get readers trying to cheat in next years Lit class by nicking someone's work. DON'T DO IT GUYS!

To Risk It All, To Lose It All

"You're killing me, man, when does the good fairy come in?"

"Never. It is a story without hope."

- Salt 2010

Nora Freeman is thirty-one and waiting for death.

She lies in her stark, gleaming cell, her hunched form curled up protectively as tears fall unbidden down the swollen flesh of her cheeks. Her muscles quiver from tension and the force of her exhausted weeping while the frail bones in her skinny body shiver with nervous fatigue. Thin hands are curled on thin knees, bony fingers twisting fretfully.

Nora doesn't know how long she's been imprisoned in the Ministry of Love. In this damned, constant light, time is immeasurable. Days and nights blend and bleed into each other. Perhaps she has been here weeks, perhaps she's been here years. Not knowing is maddening. Meals are served so few and far between that they cannot be used to calculate the passage of time. She's sure she's being starved but, with no way to tell how regularly her dried crusts and tasteless broth is served, all she has to prove it is the sunken flesh between her ribs.

She's not really hungry anymore, the desperate gnawing in her belly has softened to a dull ache. She's been starved beyond the point of hunger. It is the need for water that is unbearable. Her mouth is foul-tasting and her tongue has turned slimy even as her lips have dried and cracked. She'd kill for water.

Everything aches, her bones feel old and brittle and broken and her flesh is split and swollen and bleeding. He has starved her beyond the point of hunger, she hopes that, soon, he will have her beaten beyond the point of pain. She fears there is no such thing, that pain will never fade, that she will never be numb to it. Surely, she thinks with desperate fervour, surely there must be an end to this suffering! Surely the pain must end somewhere!

She slips into a feverous sleep but, even in her dreams and memories, pain follows her.

There's always more pain in this world.

Nora Grayson was twenty-five when her parents told her it was time she got married and "did her duty to the Party". They were even kind enough to secure a match for her with Victor Freeman, a fellow high standing member of the Inner Party who worked in the Ministry of Love as a reform and re-education officer.

The committee didn't approve of marriage between those attracted to each other, but that wasn't a problem for Nora. That's not to say Victor's appearance was displeasing, in fact, she found him quite handsome, with his strong nose and chiselled jaw and broad frame, but Nora felt no attraction to him. Victor was a hulking, domineering man with a brutally handsome face marred by a perpetual scowl and eyes so dark and deep set they seemed to consume all light that touched them. It certainly didn't help that he had an unnerving habit of staring deep into her eyes and through the back of her skull, like he was searching for Thought Crimes, just waiting for her to slip. What's more, he never walked, he prowled like some menacing beast, always giving the impression that violence was simmering beneath his skin, ready to boil over and explode at any second.

It wasn't hard to believe that he had denounced his entire family when he was eight.

Honestly, his hard, fanatical stare made her nervous, left her feeling uncertain and awkward, but she wasn't afraid of him. Why should she be? He had no reason to denounce her, therefore she had no reason to ever fear him.

So she signed the neat, practical contract with her neat, practical handwriting and surrendered her life. No, she thought, upon reflection, I didn't surrender anything.

You can't surrender something that was never yours.

Nora Freeman was twenty-six when she concluded life with Victor was tedious at best.

At worst, intolerable.

That's not to say she didn't admire his commitment to the Party, but it was simply exhausting to have to consider every action she made and every word she spoke. She was terrified she'd say something seditious as she lay in bed with him. Nora would never have considered herself seditious a year ago, but the way Victor constantly watched her and analysed every comment made her feel like he thought her rebellious. What's more, he seemed to- to test her loyalty and love for Big Brother at every turn.

She remembered one such instance, about a month after they'd found out she was pregnant. Nora was sitting at the table in their living space, working on the preparations for the upcoming Hate Week when an exuberant voice came from the Telescreen.

"Rejoice!" the voice cried, "Rejoice, Comrades, for Big Brother has increased the weekly water ration to 2 whole gallons!"

Nora had beamed in delight. Rejoice indeed! Such wonderful news to end the day on! Of course, as Inner Party members, this increase would not impact them as they were privileged enough to receive unlimited rations, but this would be wonderful news for the Outer Party and, dare she say it, the filthy Proles. How generous, their Big Brother was!

Victor was working on a report in the adjacent study but Nora was eager to share the good news, even if it meant engaging with her surly, suspicious husband.

"Victor!" she called as she rose and moved to the doorway, "did you hear the good news? The water ration's been increased. Perhaps now the Proles won't smell so bad! Wonderful news, isn't it?"

He didn't reply, just stared his dark, examining, unsettling stare until she began to feel terribly uncomfortable. However, she refused to show it or back down from his gaze. After the longest time, he raised a dark eyebrow and said: "you think so?"

Feeling suddenly irritated, she'd brusquely replied, "of course, why else would I say so?"

Victor hadn't answered, just raised his eyebrow higher before shaking his head and returning to the report. Miffed, she returned to the table and skulled a glass of red wine before pouring another and getting on with her work.

Later that night, Nora stood in her bedroom, staring out the window at the enormous face of Big Brother plastered on the building across the street. His warm, watchful gaze gave her comfort. Big Brother was watching her, but not in the way Victor was. Big Brother was watching over her, giving her his love and protection. She sighed and relaxed as she looked up at him, his rugged, handsome face never ceased to calm her. Nora quickly exchanged her plain but comfortable blue overalls for her soft blue pyjamas before climbing into bed and falling asleep beneath Big Brother's reassuring gaze.

Big Brother is watching you.

Nora Freeman was twenty-seven when she birthed Fitzwilliam.

Her son – and Victor's. She had done her duty to the Party, what was expected of her. What she didn't expect was the sudden rush of feeling for the wailing infant. She wasn't sure what to call this- this feeling. She'd always believed the reverent, feverous burn in her chest whenever she saw Big Brother's face was love, but, now as she stared down at the small face squinting up at her with curious, trusting eyes, she felt else something stirring in the hollow of her breast. It was a burning feeling, similar and yet different to what she felt for Big Brother. It was a powerful, tender, passionate adoration. If her love for Big Brother was a destructive inferno, her feelings for her son were a steady, warm hearth fire.

Her feelings for her son were so damningly real that, in comparison, her feelings for Big Brother seemed so ugly and manufactured it hurt to linger on them. She reached out a finger to cautiously touch the soft skin of his cheek and nearly flinched when he grasped her finger in one tiny fist and held on tight. Helpless, tiny and completely unaware of the world. She was his world.

At this sudden realisation, something in her chest surged with the desperate urge to protect him, no matter what. To keep those blue eyes staring at the world with innocence and trust and in that moment she knew, without any doubt, she would do anything to protect this little boy.

Fitzwilliam's fragility, his helplessness, left her feeling strong and able, like she could and must protect him. By contrast, Big Brother's powerful, enormous face left her feeling helpless, small, like she needed his protection.

So she would protect Fitz, even though it meant forsaking Big Brother's protection.

Nora was thirty years old when she realised something was wrong with her son.

She frowned as she examined the child height and weight chart. Fitz was far too small and thin for a three-year-old boy and only looked tinier standing in the three-year-old silhouette. Her frown curved into a smile when he stopped squirming impatiently and beamed up at her. Fitz had inherited her wide mouth and his sweet smile was so big, it made his eyes crinkle and squint.

Nora cocked her head as she considered her precious baby. Now that she thought of it, he seemed to squint a lot; and not just when he smiled.

"Very good, Fitz. You've grown very big," she lied encouragingly and he rewarded her with another wide grin and a small cheer.

"Can we play now, mummy?" he asked eagerly.

"Of course, my darling," the endearment slipped out before she could swallow it back and she cursed herself silently. There were no laws against showing affection for one's children – in fact, there were no laws at all – but it was certainly discouraged and frowned upon. She was careful to keep her eyes from darting to the Telescreen in a damning move of panic. Hopefully, they weren't watching now. If Victor were here …

Still, the delighted smile and hasty, daring hug around her legs she received before Fitz toddled off to his nursery made it feel worth it. She followed him at a steadier pace.

"What do you want to play with today, little one?" Nora asked quietly, always aware of the Telescreen at the other end of the house. The Telescreen certainly couldn't see them but she knew it could probably still hear them, unless they were very quiet. So it was only in the nursery that Nora allowed herself to be openly affectionate to her son. Of course, Nora could turn the Telescreen off but to do so would be to invite suspicion.

"I wanna play with the new blocks, mummy," Fitz replied, excitedly but quietly. He knew that it was important to be quiet though he didn't really understand why. "I wanna build towers, like where you and me live."

"Alright, I'll get them out for you."

It was the next few moments that changed everything.

Fitz sat on the carpet, surrounded by the painted wooden blocks. She watched as he reached out for one, only to miss. He pulled his hand back and reached for it again, only to miss once more. His lip stuck out petulantly and he squinted furiously at the block before reaching out … and missing again. He turned to her. "Mummy …" he whined miserably.

"I'll get it for you, darling." She bent over and plucked the block from the floor. Nora considered it with a small, thoughtful frown before she looked back to her son.

"Fitz," she said slowly as she held out the block. "I want you to take the block from me."

He huffed before attempting to grab it again. Once again, he missed. After another failed attempt, she passed it to him and moved back to watch him try to stack the block on top of another. He still couldn't do it.

And in that short exchange, she realised something was undeniably wrong with Fitz. He was smaller and lighter than he should be, his hand-eye coordination was off, his eyesight in itself was poor and, she now realised, likely deteriorating. Fitz was unorthodox.

Unorthodox people are vaporised.

Nora didn't know what to do. How could this be happening to her? Little Fitz's oddities could be discovered at any moment by any number of people. The Thought Police, watching through the Telescreen. Spies, numerous and everywhere, eager to report back to their masters for a pat on the head. Big Brother is watching you …

Perhaps worse still, Victor was watching. Thankfully, these past few years Victor had been busier than ever within the Ministry of Love. He had barely interacted with Fitz in the three years he'd been alive. He certainly hadn't noticed Fitz's diminutive size and shoddy eyesight. However, Nora knew it was only a matter of time before he noticed Fitz's … problems.

Fitz was almost four years old when they took him.

Still just her little baby … her poor, sweet, little baby …

Nora was thirty years and six months old when Victor finally noticed.

They were sitting around the table, eating a dinner of chicken and boiled vegetables. No one spoke and Fitz shifted nervously as he felt the tension radiating off of his parents. They hadn't eaten a meal together like this in quite some time and this was probably the longest time Victor had ever spent in Fitz's company. Victor ate with a swift, single-minded focus in a way that's similar to how someone quickly finishes a particularly unpleasant chore. Nora felt a rush of relief at seeing this because the sooner he finished eating and returned to his reports, the sooner he'd be away from Fitz.

Fitz, for his part, was doing as she'd instructed he do during mealtimes and was carefully using his knife and fork to seek out the bite-sized food on his plate before eating it. Nora just hoped that Victor would assume Fitz's intense squinting stare at his food was an attempt to mimic his father's intense focus. Nora felt she would faint with relief when Victor rose from the table.

She nearly jumped when he spoke.

"Are you going to tell me why the boy is struggling to see his meal?"

Nora's hope and relief seemed to shrivel and die.

"What do you mean Victor? Of course he can see his meal," she blustered, feeling quite desperate.

"Don't lie to me, Nora," he said coldly, pinning her with his stare. "Don't be stupid and lie to me."

But Nora wasn't ready to surrender her child. "I don't know what you're talking about, Victor," she said firmly. She met his gaze and let him see the stubbornness burning in her eyes. She would not let him take this from her. Fitz was hers. Hers to love and protect and, confound it all, she was going to do it! She rose slowly from her chair, reaching out to grab Fitz's hand and pull him to her side. He was crying quietly and he clutched desperately at the loose fabric of her overalls.

"You are mistaken, Victor Freeman," she said.

Victor looked from the iron in her gaze to the way Fitz held her like a lifeline, his lips curled back in disgust. "You are not thinking clearly. You have allowed yourself to be distracted by sentiment," he spat viciously and Fitz flinched violently at the amount of poison he packed into that one word.

"You are mistaken, Victor Freeman," she repeated.

"Give me the boy, Nora. I will have him corrected."

Once, Nora would have passed her child on without question or argument. She would never have passed up the opportunity to have her child "corrected". She'd have felt honoured. Now though, all she could think about was how her baby didn't need correcting. Fitz was already perfect.

"No, Victor. I said no."

His eyes flashed dangerously, "you will give me the boy and you will give him now!" he thundered.

"No!"

The Telescreen made a loud, sudden noise and then a voice came through it, screeching for her to "Comrade Nora Freeman, surrender the defective child to Officer Freeman!"

Fitz was wailing in fright now, and Nora was panicking. Victor was roaring at her, the Telescreen was shrieking away and Nora didn't know what to do. Her instincts were warring away inside her. Her heart told her to hold Fitz close and never let go, but her head told her that no matter what she chose to do next, be it fight or surrender, they were going to take her son and they would take her too if she didn't just surrender the child.

Suddenly, policemen burst through the door and Victor tore her son away. She struggled to pull Fitz back and Victor didn't hesitate to smack her across the face so hard she fell to the floor. The next few minutes passed as a nightmarish blur. She remembered leaping up and lunging after him only for policemen to hold her back as she screamed and writhed like a lunatic, trying to make it to her terrified son. He howled for her, reaching over Victor's shoulder as he was roughly passed to another man.

Then, Victor returned to where she stood, still screaming and sobbing and pleading, and punched her straight in the face. Nora fell back and her head hit the floor and she sat in dumb silence, shocked into submission.

"Leave us," Victor ordered darkly. They obeyed.

And then, he beat her. The punches and the kicks seemed to rain without end. His booted foot collided with her ribs, with her face and, when she curled her legs up to protect her ribs and held her arms over head he silently walked around her body and kicked at the base of her spine. He beat her until her shrieks changed, first to sobbing whimpers and then to silence. It seemed like hours before he finally stood back, panting and with her blood flecking his face.

"You were correct, Victor. Sentiment was distracting me, you were right." It was spoken in a desperate whisper and the awful, awful words made her want to retch, but she grit her teeth and swallowed back the bile. Above her, Victor sighed before crouching to lift her. His rough hands on her bruised and broken body had her flinching in distress and what he said next only added to the horror.

You don't believe that yet, Nora," he said, "but I promise you will when we are through with you."

Nora was thirty-one – or so she assumed – and heading to her first interrogation.

She had been scared, as the wife of a re-education officer she knew exactly what went on in the white walls of the Ministry of Love. She expected to be imprisoned, beaten and starved until she was a bloody, sobbing mess, and they certainly delivered. She had learned to beg for death. Turns out, it takes more courage to suffer than to die.

She was dragged down a gleaming white corridor into a darkened room and strapped to the chair. Her eyes flicked around the empty room nervously and she yanked on her bonds until the door opened again. A squat, black-eyed man entered and Nora's mouth fell open in surprise when Victor followed him in. How was he assigned to her? He was a re-education officer! Not an interrogator!

Within minutes, the interrogation began and all too soon, Nora was telling them everything. About how she had lied about her son's unorthodoxy, how she had come to question and hate the Party, how she wanted to spit in Big Brother's enormous eyes. After that, they demanded to know of her accomplices and, abruptly, Nora had a sudden, vengeful idea. She made herself shrivel up and shook her head vehemently, "I can't," she gasped, "I can't say."

The squat man flew at her, shouting at her and pulling on her ears and hair and demanding answers. Victor just stood with his arms folded, examining her, as usual.

"I can't! He'll kill me!" she cried desperately. It wasn't hard to make herself sound desperate and terrified.

Immediately, the small man pulled back and acted like a friend, calling her "comrade" and promising her she would be safe, because whoever he was, he couldn't get her here.

"Yes, he can," she said and she looked straight at the little man. "Because he's in this room."

Time slowed and the small man whipped around to face Victor. Victor never looked away from her. "She lies," he finally said, "she's just vengeful over the loss of her son."

Nora saw red. "How dare you speak of him!" she screamed. She thrashed wildly, screaming abuse and obscenities until she was sent off to be beaten by the guards again.

Beaten again and again and again.

Nora Freeman is thirty-one and waiting for death.

She waits eagerly, desperate for an end to the pain. But there's always more pain in the world.

The cell door whisks open, it's Victor. His eyes are dark, his face impassive.

"Room 101," he says.

THE END

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