VII. SCHADENFREUDE
Pain, Thrill, Suffering, Pity, Torment
They'd set it up overnight.
I woke to the sounds of hammers and drills, metal on stone, people talking. It was odd to hear so much commotion, no one ever seemed to come around here, so why now? Sleep tempted me to return, but I finally sat up and looked out the glass window. On the other side, they were setting some contraption up. It looked like a metal gurney, fixed to the floor, wired up to a bunch of machines. The thing that struck me most was the restraints. They were also made from metal, not very comfortable. If they were going to contain someone there, it would be extremely painful.
Or maybe they wanted it to be that way.
It wouldn't really surprise me if they wanted this whole place to be horrible. I mean, my treatment hadn't been great over years I'd been in the facility. I was fed, clothed, given a roof to sleep under, but I wasn't really cared for. I'd only ever seen three people until this day, the doctor-man, Bob, and Noah. Four, if you counted the glass girl. Even those I hadn't seen for a while, I'd begun to give up hope on them returning. Just like my mother.
Slowly, I rose from my bed, walking up to the window. They'd replaced it, I looked at the men and they looked straight back at me. I got the sinking feeling that whatever they were building at the moment was going to include me. No wonder I hadn't seen anyone for a while, they'd been planning whatever this was! For a while, I just watched the men. It was odd to see people after so long, and their emotions were normal enough that I was entertained. A small smile curled onto my lips, but faded nearly instantly as someone I recognized entered the room. Her glossy black hair was longer and the dark circles under her eyes were gone, but it most certainly was her.
My mother.
We locked gazes; I couldn't help but stare deeply into her copper eyes. They were just so warm and inviting, full of life, just like before. She smiled softly at me, said nothing, just smiled. My eyelids grew heavy, no matter how much I struggled, I could not keep them open. No matter how much I wanted to stay by the window and watch the one person I'd missed the most, I couldn't help but stumble over to my bed and crawl under my covers.
I couldn't help but fall asleep.
The room was black, completely dark except for a reddish glow. Hardly visible at first, it grew, dancing through the darkness with the fluidity of water. All this seemed vaguely familiar, but I was captivated by the beauty of it. I just couldn't look away. A cold feeling crept up my spine, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight. Another glow manifested itself in the far end of the room, a blue, the same color as ice. This glow was more solid than the red, it didn't dance, it merely was.
Oddly enough, it was completely silent, until little cracks and pops hit my ears. Mixed with the red were dancing blue sparks, nearly the same shade as the blue glow. As these sparks grew, the red faded, like they were stealing their energy from the warm glow. A scream faded, being overwhelmed by the intense pounding in my temples. My head ached, alternating between periods of sharp pain and dull. My breaths shortened, it became harder to get anything from them. I felt like I was choking, drowning in pain.
And I woke up.
They'd dimmed the lights in my room, enough so that it appeared that the only light was coming from the room across from mine. Whatever the men had been working on earlier was finished, and there was someone strapped into the chair. Her small form was strapped into the bed, various wires ran from her to different machines. I quickly learned, much to my dismay, that the poor girl was awake. And she was crying.
Someone who I'd remembered as being filled with passion and fire had been broken, trapped, frightened. I'd remembered her as strong and clear and the truest person I'd met, and something had happened to fog that up. Gone was the piercingly refreshing emotions she normally gave off, replaced by a somewhat more foggy and depressing despair. I knew there was a reason I had a bad feeling earlier, I knew that they were building something bad involving me.
I just didn't think they were going to involve her.
I still resented her, don't get me wrong, but I feared what was to come. She feared it, too, you didn't need my power to know that. It was written all over her face. Pity filled my lungs, giving me a bad taste in my mouth. I didn't want to feel bad for her, I simply did. Standing, I walked up close to the glass, merely watching. And, for a moment, she looked me straight in the eye. It was like she knew what it would do to me, that I would see every emotion that ran through her, that I would feel just like she did. It felt like she was playing me, and I did not like it one bit. Hence the reason why I did not notice the small hum that filled my room, nor did I much pay attention to the girl's emotions. I tried to block them out, if she wanted me to feel I simply wouldn't. But it was easier said than done.
I diverted my gaze, choosing to rather stare upon the white tile than into the room. The hum grew louder and had become dominate before I finally noticed it, and despite the fact that I was trying to shut myself off, bits and pieces still managed to get through. Pain, horror, anger, it was all a swirl of confusion. Signs of someone who was lost, or under great stress. I couldn't make myself look up, the feelings were enough to quell my curiosity. Little by little, I was forced to open up, unless the floodgates crack and fall. I could feel a distinct, sharp pain in my temples, sometimes bad enough to make me softly cry out in agony. If I was feeling this when blockading some of the flow, I could only imagine what she was feeling.
It made me look up.
A gasp escaped me, not out of pain, but out of awe. She seemed to glow a deep red, intense and clear, completely and utterly true. While it was not a pleasant emotion, she was still being what I had imagined her to be, a crystal, made of glass. She could not fog what she felt for very long, not from me. No matter how beautiful it was, it started to get to me, the stress beginning to make my joints ache. Her face was contorted in pain, she struggled against her restraints. I could feel pressure in the same places.
And, suddenly, it stopped.
The door to her room unlocked, then opened, revealing Bob. He was feeling as usual, immersed in his cool, unfeeling blue. Slowly, he walked up to the girl, cupping her face. I could see her cheeks were glistening with wetness. That was when I realized that I was crying, too. Roughly, I wiped my face, drying it as quickly as possible. For some reason, I didn't want Bob to see. I didn't want him to know what this was doing to me. Bob stood there for a long moment, before turning and walking towards the exit. It was nice to see another familiar face, Noah, had approached and was standing in the doorway.
"Don't you think that's enough for one day, Bob?" He asked, the same sincerity about him as the day I met him. Bob didn't answer right away. He looked back at the girl, then back at Noah. A small smile seemed to form on his lips, barely noticeable, but I could see it. I could see it well. "No, my girl's tougher than that." Bob simply replied. Noah didn't protest, and both left the room.
The hum returned, the ache and the sharpness in my temples. My spit seemed to catch in the back of my throat and congeal, making it harder and harder to breathe. No matter how hard I tried, I could not tear my eyes away from the girl. Whatever they were doing, it was visible on her now. Her body arched as much as the restraints would allow, she seemed to jerk in ways that just weren't natural. I gripped my hands into fists, I could feel my nails begin to dig into the skin of my palms, but that didn't even come close to the electric feeling I could feel across my skin. Sparks began to jitter across her skin, the same cold blue as Bob. I searched for the man, I could barely detect him with how overwhelming she was, but he was definitely there. Ever so slightly, his emotion had changed. Ever so slightly, I could tell, he was enjoying this. Enjoying her pain.
His own daughter.
As the sparks increased on her, the feeling increased on me, going from unpleasant shocks to pure agony. Ever so true to her emotions, she cried out in pain, but I bit down on my tongue to prevent from doing so. A distinct taste filled my mouth, a liquid with the faintest twinge of metal. I tried to concentrate on that rather than on everything else, it did not work. She just seemed to keep screaming and hollering like it was going to somehow make this stop. But, all of a sudden, she just tapered off. Her movements seemed to be completely compulsory, and her glow seemed to fade from agony to a dull ache.
I placed a hand on the glass to steady myself as my knees gave out, my other furiously gripping my pants. Beads of sweat rolled down my forehead and I began to feel dizzy. Before I knew it, I had hit the floor with a hard thud. Everything hurt, absolutely everything. It was just like in my dream. This was my dream. I'd lived it, and I realized just how much more terrifying it was than when I was sleeping. She'd been in such pain, pain that I hadn't even felt in full, and worst of all, Bob enjoyed it. He enjoyed making his own daughter go through such excruciating testing, and he made her keep going. He made her keep going until her body gave way. My mother would never do that to me, I thought, until I remembered that it was she that put me here. She was just as bad as Bob. As the door opened and two men dressed in white ran into my room, time began to slow and my vision began to fade.
Only the gentle pounding of my heart in my throat reminded me that I was still alive.
