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I never thought that I'd say this - but I missed Russia, in the second the travel started. I missed the Russian prison, because it had almost been heaven, compared to that place. Well, I didn't say it anyway, because nobody talked to me.

During the time in the sea container, I totally lost track of the days and the weeks. First, they travelled, having the container on a truck, driving through the cold Russian October, to a harbor. I don't know which one. I didn't even know in what prison I had been kept and sentenced. At first I had thought that it could be somewhere close to St. Petersburg, but the truck travelled for almost two days until reaching the harbor. It must have been somewhere inland.
I could do nothing but sit in a corner, hugging my legs because of the cold. Nothing isolated me from the outside - except for three millimeters of sheet metal.

They didn't open the container one single time, throughout the travel. It was so dark in there that I could only grope for the things around me- in one corner of the room I found a plastic bottle with some mineral water in it. But that was all that was in here. For two days of travel. No blanket, no bed, not even clothes that would have been appropriate for these temperatures. No food.

I tried to sleep, to fight the hunger.
But I couldn't sleep. The trailer on which the container was jolted and swang, as the truck kept travelling over the rough roads. I just sat in one of the corners, trying to fight the cold and the hunger. My hands were still tied with these cuffs, and my ankles, too. Nobody cared to take these things off me, even though I was locked up in here.

I missed the Russian prison already, even though I wasn't even out of the country yet - because I knew that it would only get worse, being in the hands of whoever had bought me.

I was right.

After the container was loaded onto a ship, I saw my new tormentors for the first time: Africans. A group of blacks were standing there, when they opened up the container's doors to look at me. Machine guns hung around their necks, obviously telling me: don't even try to escape or do anything.

Even now, three months later, I can still hear him say: you will beg me to kill you, Bauer.
He knew my name. Of course he knew my name: he had bought me. As he spoke to me, I could finally tell, which accent they were speaking: Sengalan. I knew it in that very second, that this was part of some kind of a plan for vengeance. I have enemies, in the whole world, wherever I go. I can't go home, I can't hide anywhere else. I made the whole world hate me, I realize.

He didn't have to say anything else.
He proved it to me, that he meant these words. Not when I was still on the ship, but thereafter.

Travelling in Russia, I had fought the cold. Then, I fought the heat. The container was dark on the outside, and we travelled for three days on a trailer, again, in the blazing sun. The roads here were far worse than the ones in Russia. Back there, I had sat in a corner, shivering from the cold. In Africa, I was lying in the middle of the tiny room, feeling like I had no air left to breathe. It was so hot and humid in here that I felt like I was suffocating, three whole days. And the water that they gave me was of such bad quality that it only made me sick.

Knowing that it would become even worse when we'd reach our destination was the worst thing of all.

With closed eyes, I am lying at the examination table now, hearing the person who obviously was the doctor speak with the guards. He sounded angry somehow, but they managed to calm him down. My hands and my legs are tied to the table, but I couldn't have moved them anyway, not even one inch. I'm so glad to be here.

I know now how it is to be trapped in the middle of an African terrorist camp, when they have the one and only order not to kill me, but to give me hell.

Beatings.
Being left out in the blazing sun with no clothes on and no place to hide.
Getting food where you don't know if it's better to starve to death or eat it.

After only a week, I already begged him to kill me, just like he had prophesized on the ship. But he didn't kill me, even though I was down to a picture of misery. The sun had burned my skin so badly that it wept, after the slightest touch. A thousand different bugs seemed to enjoy me.

Finally, they brought me inside, when they realized that I'd die if they kept me out there for one more day. They left me alone for a few days, but I kept begging him to kill me. I still remembered the thoughts which I had had in my tiny cell in Russia: I should repent for my sins, I should be glad to be treated like this... bullshit. I just couldn't take no more. No matter if I'd end up in hell or not, I begged him to put an end to this. Fuck seeing Audrey again. Fuck heaven. I hated every other breath that I had to take. But whenever I told myself not to breathe any more, my body automatically did it. Bad reflex. I just wanted it to end. Make it be over. But he didn't end it.

Instead, he put me into a pit, with all of them watching. I remember lying there, not able to move, looking into a hundred black faces which were all gathered around the pit. The cheered, and I didn't even know why. Were they about to bury me alive? Could be, even though the pit was a bit large for a grave.
A few minutes later I realized why they all cheered, as the Scorpios came.

I rip my eyes open. Don't think back. Don't! You're not there any more! You're back in Russia! You're safe!
Slowly I'm beginning to understand this wicked game, seeing the three prison guards talk to the prison doctor. They give him a large pile of bills, and that finally makes him relax somehow. The money calms his anger, and even the face of the guards lights up again.

Now I realize that they hadn't sold me to the Sengalans: they had lent me to them.
I also realize now why it had always been different people, torturing me here, in this prison, before the Sengalans took me away: these guards were behind all this. People had paid them to get me into their hands. And the only limits seemed to be my death and hurts of which I wouldn't recover. I guess the Russian government wasn't even interested in me any more- aside of keeping me locked up. People paid these guards to make them look away for a few hours, or even for a few weeks. As long as they report to their superiors, that I am still alive and locked up, I am truly and utterly at their mercy.

The doctor comes back over to me, checking on the IV in my arm. I don't know what he's giving me, but I feel okay now. For the first time in months. Probably he gave me some painkillers. I desperately needed some.

I guess it were three months, in which I was away. I am skinnier than ever before in my life. I've seen pictures of jews in Nazi concentration camps, the ones who had barely survived until being freed. They had all been in a cadaverous state. When I look down on myself I don't see much difference.
I haven't been able to get up onto my feet, for over two months. After the scorpions, the Africans tried to cocker me up again somehow, but they failed miserably. I don't even know how I survived the travel back here, in the container again.
Even the guards look worried, when they see me like this. They know that they've gone too far, by giving me away to the Sengalans without any rules and anyone watching. I just hope that they learned something out of this: not let get it that far, in the future. They have to dial it down a notch if they want me to survive. I guess they'd get a lot of trouble, if their superiors ever found out what they were doing, or if they had to tell them one day, that I died in the hands of somebody else.

The painkillers make me tired. I'm falling asleep right here and now, and my only hope is not to get another nightmare.

My wish never gets fulfilled.

The only nights in which I don't have any nightmares are the ones directly after being tortured. But now, as my life has somehow turned better again, my brain constantly keeps reminding me of how bad it could be. I feel the legs of the Scorpios, as they crawl all over me. I try not to move, not to give them any reason to sting me. But they nevertheless do. And then the pain... their poison...

I almost scream as I wake up again. I could have been only half an hour, in which I slept. I find myself on the examination table again, just like before, the guards are gone, but the doctor is still here. He doesn't look like he's my enemy.
If he's a doctor, he must be erudite person, one who speaks English, probably. When he looks over, at me, again, I ask him where I am. I can't even believe how strange my voice sounds. I probably haven't spoken one word in weeks, and I haven't even realized that until now.

в России, he answers.

In Russia. I understand that, at least.
I'm desperate to keep talking to him, it's my only chance to talk to somebody at all. The prison guards don't speak a word of English and I've not been in contact with anyone else, ever since I was brought out of the court room. "Are you a doctor?"

да. He comes over to me. He understands what I say, even though he answers in Russian. He knows my language.
I have to know now - this is the only chance I'll get: "Do I get the death penalty?", I ask him.

He stands next to me, looking down. I can't tell it what the simmer in his eyes wants to tell me. Is it empathy? A flicker of a rest of goodness, which is usually needed to decide to do this job?

"You were sentenced to full life in prison.", he finally answers in English, with a heavy Russian accent.
Right after he said it, he's looking around, over his shoulders, as if he was making sure that nobody heard it. I guess he's not supposed to talk to me.

I wonder if I should beg him to make an end to my life. For sure, he has all the things which are needed for that. I fear that I'll never get to my feet again. I've hardly been able to walk without assistance, before they auctioned me. Now, three months later, I'm not even able to sit up.
There were three bidders in that auction, three!
I guess that doctor will only patch me up again and then everything will be repeated.

He really does.
He does his work very well.

One week later, they move me from the medical ward back to my cell. I guess they are afraid of me. I gathered a little bit of strength again, enough that I have to be put behind solid walls again.
I'm not gonna let it show how well I am. I'm acting like I can't walk on my own but I am sure that I could, if I had to. I could at least crawl.

It's my old cell. They kept it for me. Well... I guess the superiors of that prison always thought I was in there, throughout the past months. No wonder.

This time, there's even a little mattress and a few blankets in there.
The guards are getting nicer. They know that they have to treat me better to keep making money out of me.
I even find a paper plate with food next to the mattress, good things, and nobody comes along twenty minutes later, taking the plate away again.

After they close the door, I dare to turn around to the wall, searching for the letters which I left there. AUDREY. It's still here. These letters have waited for me.
I stretch out my hand to touch them and right now, I can only apologize. I'm so sorry, Audrey, I murmur, I really am. In the nights in which I scratched her name into the wall, I had been praying all the time. I had prayed that I'd get the chance to live, to be tortured, to repent for my sins. What a stupid prayer. And it even got fulfilled! I got the chance to repent, I got the chance to pay!
But instead of being happy about it, I had begged that Sengalan to kill me.
I can't pay for all my sins, Audrey, I can't. I'm not strong enough. I brought so much evil to this world that it will take years until I feel I paid enough. I can't stand this. I'm gonna beg them again to kill me, I know that already. They're gonna ship me again, to some place, I'm sure.

If I could only hold on to these letters. If I could only beg these guards not to sell me out again. I could easily settle for a whole life here, in this room, on these 20 square feet. Probably I'd go crazy within a few months or years.
But the simple thought of being brought away again, to a place like Sengala, being given into the hands of people who want revenge on me, it was unbearable.

I am failing you again, Audrey, I murmur, running my hand over her name. I should be glad to pay, to see you again in heaven, but I'm not strong enough to pay for everything I've done.

You are. She's looking at me. Slowly she stretches out her hand and lays it on my shoulder. I can feel her touch, the first touch of a human being in months, not directed at hurting me.
This is so surreal. I want to take her hand into mine, I want to kiss her. But this is just a dream, an illusion which I am afraid to destroy, so I keep lying there, immovably, just looking at her. I tell her to stay, and she says she will.
She's there, instead of the letters on the wall there's her face.
She stays with me until I fall asleep.

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