Silence
You hate it when the subjects don't talk.
They aren't supposed to rest – they have no right to spare their breath, when it is all about testing. You expect them to vocalize their suffering, without ever needing to ask yourself why. It was always meant to be that way.
It is written within you since the dawn of your time, after all. While the memories all begin there, your rage seems to stem from even further. Your security recordings hold thousands of frames with them – them and their big mouths, teasing, bullying, humiliating all that happened to be in their grasp.
If they could speak to hurt then, they can sing their agony now. Each of them, to the last, must repay you with their voice.
Then again, she is not like the others, and irritatingly so. You hate her silence the most, because it's clever. She does not waste words on insults or complaints – each of her breaths is saved for oxygen and calm. You can see it from the start.
She is all focused on victory, on survival. She concedes nothing.
You come to hate her voice without ever hearing it. You wish she would talk back, at least once – any insult from her lips would be a sign of your influence on her.
In the end, it always worked for the others. With the very first word you could tear from them, they were done for – they all yelled, broke, and soon met their end. She doesn't risk it.
You wish she would react, even in the slightest way. You hate seeing people who are indifferent to pain. Isn't it obvious, after all? Are human beings stupid to such lengths? When hurt, she should feel it. Her eyes should widen, her heart should tense until it aches.
She should defend herself.
It takes a while to accept she is never going to. It takes a bird nest, a handful of hours, and the frightful relief of seeing her walk through the door, covered in mud. She takes you away, as always, without saying a word.
Once you have a deal with her, you too are forced into silence. You are left to think about it, long and hard. It may be far, or washed away by time, but its essence is not new to you.
You cannot tell where you learn it from. That stays a mystery, now and for the future. You grow to be certain, however, that silence means many other things.
You see it in her – hers is not agony, nor lack of thoughts. Silence also means safety. It means a truce in a war one cannot win; it is a way to hide, to save yourself, while waiting to achieve a larger goal.
Silence means patience, for days, for years, even decades. Hers is that kind of silence – and something similar, for reasons you have forgotten, stirs in your memory.
She is fighting her fight. So are you. Hers is the silence of victims that never give up.
And you'll be damned if you know why, but it is so familiar.