The iron door slammed shut behind him, and he very nearly cried—but only nearly. They didn't like it when he cried.

But—it was worse than the chains and worse than the stone and worse than the fact that he hadn't had any appreciable amount of sleep in weeks, or what felt like weeks since he didn't have any way of telling time beyond the activity of the doctors, and he couldn't remember eating anything for even longer than that, though he must have or else he'd be dead. He was cold, and wet, and wet, and cold, and emcold/em, shivering in a ball in a feeble attempt to preserve any body heat he had left. They had told him to stop screaming, they'd shoved him underwater and he couldn't breathe and he was choking and then they'd pulled him up and he'd said he'd stop, he'd emsaid/em he'd stop, emplease no more I can't breathe please no help/em, but they'd forced him back again and again until the world went black at the edges and he couldn't move or think, just hang there like a damp rag, shuddering and shivering and trying to concentrate on breathing because no matter how painful living was it was better than the alternative.

And then they'd sent him back to his cell, and he was cold, and there was cold hard iron at his wrists and cold hard stone at his back and he couldn't remember being warm, or a human touch that wasn't violent or scientific, like he was a emthing/em and not a person. He wasn't a thing.

He'd emsaid/em he'd stop. He'd empromised/em. Why didn't they… why hadn't they…

"Because they hate you," offered Silver Sweet Voice. "All they want is to see you hurt."

That… that couldn't be it. Could it? They were trying to help him, they said. Trying to make him better, but he wasn't sick, he said, he told them he wasn't sick, but they didn't believe him. But they didn't emhate/em him. Did they?

"They do," said Riverstone Voice. "And with good reason. You're a failure, a crazy boy in a mental hospital. You can't do anything."

He shook his head mutely, burying his face in his knees as if to drown out the voices in his mind. emI'm not worthless/em, he thought desperately. emI'm not/em.

"You are," said Riverstone Voice, with a flat tone that erased any trace of self-confidence he might have been building. "You failed us, didn't you? You can't protect anything. You can't even protect your own sanity."

"I'm not crazy," he whispered, voice cracking in the middle of the word, so it came out as a broken "cra—emzy/em", and then, "I'm sorry—I tried—"

"Not hard enough," purred Silver Sweet Voice. "You still failed. Useless, worthless. That's why they hate you."

"Th-they don't—"

"Yes they do," it said. "I've seen the looks they give you. You haven't, you can't even see their faces. Just a little moontouched boy, wet and weak and pathetic, without even a proper name. They despise you."

"No…"

"Yes," said Riverstone Voice. "We can show you how useless you are, if you want. We can remind you."

"N-no!" He shook his head, a tight little motion that shook his entire body, a shudder of denial.

"Are you sure?" Sweet Silver Voice had taken on a hard edge, more silver and less sweet, like a knife at his throat, promising pain. "I think he's forgotten. Have you forgotten?"

"No! Please!"

"He emhas/em forgotten," said Riverstone Voice, in an amiable tone that frightened him more than any threat.

"Please don't, please, nonono emplease/em—" and then there was empain/em, horrible splitting burning pain in his head and in his chest and he didn't want to scream but he couldn't keep it back, it hurt, it hurt, it emhurt/em so badly it was unbelievable, stop stop please I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry—no more—I'm sorry—I won't forget again—

There was a hand on his wrist. There was a emhand/em on his emwrist/em, and it belonged to a pale blurred shape that he recognized as a doctor, emoh god no/em, and he screamed more and struggled, flailing wildly within the confines of the chains because emno, I don't need medicine, please no, please god no, help, stop, please/em but even as he fought he—almost emliked/em the contact because it was warm and he was oh so cold.

The prick of the needle at his wrist, metal in his blood, and he thrashed and screamed and fought—emI'm not sick, I'm not, don't touch my mind, don't send me into the dark, leave me that if nothing else/em—but it was no good; the doctor-shape retreated and he kept struggling but the drug was inside him, dulling his senses and turning his limbs into lead and dragging him into a state of cloudy half-awareness and he didn't want to go, so he clung to the last fragments of the fading world—a voice, murky and distorted as if from underwater, not a voice he recognized, soft and golden like a sunset (or like he thought he remembered sunsets), and he couldn't hear the words but it was a nice voice, something to hold on to as he fell.