Author's note: Short chapter. I just don't have the ENDURANCE to write and concentrate on the same plot bunny for a long time, no matter how awesome it first sounds… Double digits: I'm trying to end at the CH.12 mark!

Warnings… twisted slash (O'Brien/Winston), language, brainwashing.

1985

Run, run, run far, far away

The big bad bogey man is here to stay

He'll wait till you're out light and cold

Then he'll creep up to eat your bones.

And… time passed in a relative state of the human mind, but it's utterly fluid when it passes this chamber, I suppose I could use the possessive pronoun: mine. This chamber is mine, not O'Brien's, not the Party's, not Big Brother's, but mine and mine alone.

And the principal of the matter was forgive to forget, except when you couldn't forget, everything got thrown out of the window and into a brick wall because you have the curse of remembering. Scientists must love you. You remember everything- you remember the past of Mr. Charrington and O'Brien. You even remember when Mr. and Mrs. Parsons began living together, assigned together by the Party, toeing the line of awkwardness and breakage. I used to have dreams of Mrs. Parsons, the skeleton dripped in yellow wax, hovering over Mr. Parsons with a rusty pipe, debating on the merits and consequences of her actions. Then a drop of yellow wax would awaken Mr. Parsons; and Mrs. Parsons' decision was final, not matter how much she didn't want it. I wanted to ask Mrs. Parsons what she would regret but could never gather the courage to, especially when she began calling me over to fix her plumbing.

At first, I was terrified that she was trying to initiate some illicit affair while her husband was away, because Symes told me that women naturally get lonely and want some "naughty release and when they do those sorts of malicious actions, be sure to report her." Then I saw her children and I understood that I wasn't so much as a release as a wall.

A big, ugly, brick wall.

I finished another dinner. I lost count to how many dinners and lunches and occasional breakfasts I've had in my chamber. The silver place with rose designs on the rim and a small green trim was scrapped clean, like every other dinner, and with it was a used silver spoon, because O'Brien would never let me near a knife or fork unless he was the one holding it. I could use the spoon the gauge out my eyes, but I wouldn't die and I appreciate my sight too much for that sacrifice. O'Brien learned from the last few meetings. O'Brien learns fast.

He might possibly know me more than myself. The thought is quite unsettling. He asks me questions about myself and whenever I try to pull a reversal on him, he stays silent. If I stay silent, he starts to touch me. I really don't like it when he touches me when he's frustrated. You can only tell that he's frustrated from how hard he grips or pushes.

I've grown complacent to my place here. I admit: I've lost. I've lost because I'm complacent and I realize that I'm complacent. No actions mean that you're nothing. I'm nothing.

When I'm alone, I like to sing and make up poems and songs that the Party might feel fit to use on the telescreen. The Party loves it when the lyrics don't have any meaning.

Silent at night, you walk to the roads of a Chestnut Tree

Two tall people meet, two short people leave.

Examine the trunk and what do you see?

A broken heart at the base of the Chestnut Tree.

If it's silent, I hear my ears ringing and throbbing.

I used to have emotions, in the past; I used to be passionate and active, if not secretly. I used to have hope, I still do, but it's not mine nor can I view it with anything but a detached view. Where did all that go? When did that part of me start to leave? O'Brien might know, but he won't answer.

O'Brien likes to have conversations. We talk a lot and most of the time when he talks; he feeds me by hand. I like chocolate the best because it reminds me of my mother and sister, but I don't tell him that because then he won't give me chocolate anymore. I think he's slowly drugging me again, suppressing my personality into a withered husk, but I'm still here. Again, I'm too detached from my body to care. It's like my spirit is floating by the ceiling, looking down like I'm watching a movie flick of some twisted man and man romance drama.

O'Brien was the first one I know to bring up the idea of homosexuality.

I'm Winston's hollow heart.

Before, I didn't even know that it existed. That's how ideas are; they take over your body till you live by that single idea. They're parasites so that you spend the majority of your life battling the foreign plant, like kudzu vines and tree molds. It's made me paranoid but I think I have the right to feel that.

O'Brien's smart; he takes care of me, though I'm supposed to be dead. The only person I see these days is him. I don't ask how much time has passed. I don't ask about the mobs of the Party's decline of power, which I'm sure must be falling. I'm so curious but I'm not allowed to ask. O'Brien probably knows that too. I'm sure that O'Brien likes me, but I'm not allowed to ask. I want to ask him what he sees in me, but I'm not allowed to ask. He's patient too. If I remember correctly, he's been waiting for (me?) more than sixteen years.

Maybe I'm his own twisted fantasy.

There's no telescreen in the room. Do they know I'm here? Do I exist outside of my own chamber?

It's all relative.

When I talk, I exist.

I talk about politics and ideals, I talk about the human ruling powers, and books, and catharsis, and psychology, and philosophy. O'Brien gives me history lessons; he knows a lot and he argues with me about his own beliefs. We like to talk about morality. We like to talk about designs and roads, Prole-life and Inner-Party-life.

I talked about my childhood; he stayed silent about his own, he liked to listen to me though. I told him about the dreams of my mother and sister and insomnia. I didn't tell him about my mother's chocolate, not now, not ever. I told him that I think I'm already dead, I only don't remember the actual dying process. I thought that this is how the afterlife will be, I'm in Limbo right now, and what do I have to do to get out? Or maybe I am in Hell, since Hell is other people. O'Brien talks to me about Hell and Limbo and Heaven.

I think O'Brien is brilliant.

He always smells like coffee. He likes to massage my legs, arms, back, scalp, and lips. He's going to go farther in, sooner or later; it's a question of "when?" He wants me to look at him when he does or else he'll start choking me. It's a slow process that happened over time, he didn't do this when the first day I was in the chamber. I think it'll progress to something even more, but I don't want to think about it. Doublethink… Athink. But when I do as he says, he lets me walk around the chamber, its spacious enough to fit my old cafeteria. Walking feels ok, not great, just ok.

I'm too weak. Most of the time, I lie down on the chaise and sleep and dream. I like to sleep and dream. When I dream, I'm somewhere else. Therefore, O'Brien doesn't want me to dream, he wants me to get insomnia. O'Brien is mostly unreadable. You can only get a hint of emotions by seeing how rough or gentle he's treating you.

My world narrows to the chamber, the fake windows, food, and O'Brien. I suppose you can think of O'Brien as God of my world. My world is pitiful and it's all because of him.

I hate him so much that I wish that he was dead but I can only revolve around him because he's the only one there. Sometimes I love him so much that I wish to give all of myself to him. Then I wake up from my dream of autumn leaves and green pastures and my mother and sister and I begin to cry.

I want to die.