Chapter 2
Sometimes, while she sleeps, the voices stop tormenting her and she remembers kinder times. Times of being outside and playing under bright blue skies with soft green grass between her toes. Times of going to school and seeing friends and candy and birthday parties with lots and lots of people to keep her safe; people who might have even loved her. Times when she must have had a mother who would kiss her scraped knees, and a father who would tell her that the boogey man in the closet was just a bad dream from her imagination. Brothers and sisters she never knew would swim to the surface of her memories and she would choke on her sobs as they strangled her throat and caused tears to spring from her eyes. Because that is when she would be pulled back to her reality and remembers that she has none of these things, has never had any of these things.
Not her memories, she would eventually remember. Not her family. Not her green grass and blue skies and vibrant playground. Not her happier times.
Not hers. Not hers. Not hers.
Who is she now? She always has a hard time remembering the answer to that question when she wakes. All the voices want to be heard, all the personalities want to live through her mind and she becomes lost in the everlasting background static that is their pleas and cries.
Eventually she hears the key in the lock, the faint click as it turns, and her eyes snap open. No, she never really sleeps here. He never gives her the chance. She sweeps the small cell desperately with her eyes, searching for something; anything that might take her away from the mad man with the demon eyes and razor teeth.
Her own personal boogey man.
As with every time he comes for her, she finds nothing more than the ten square feet of concrete, surrounded by thick iron bars. A wide drain sits in the middle of the floor in case she couldn't wait for the twice daily trips to the grooming rooms.
Nothing more.
It isn't surprising really; he would never leave anything sharp enough to damage herself with in her cell. He would never give her the satisfaction of taking away one of his favorite toys.
She feels her body start to tense then shake uncontrollably as the tears blur her vision so that she can barely make out the man who stands in front of her; a sick and twisted smile on his face.
What does he want from her this time?
Blood?
Another piece of her?
Another sample to see if the last experiment had worked?
'Please god, let him just cut out a piece of me and leave. Make it quick. Please don't let it be the alternative, please make him go away.' She pleads silently with closed eyes to someone else's deity. They never answered her pathetic attempts at cries for help, but somewhere within her fractured psyche she is told that this is what you do when all other methods for survival fail.
But as she looks up at him she knows it won't be so simple today. He stands above her, perhaps savoring the terror that comes with the realization of what he wants.
She hadn't even noticed when she had stood and backed herself into the corner like the injured animal she has become in this monsters care, but she feels herself slide down the wall that had been holding her up, her legs too weak to support what little weight they held.
The man with the demon eyes and the razor teeth; the man with the skin as white as a corpse's and hands as cold as ice; the boogey man who stands before her, grins as if amused. He pulls the thin medical gloves over his hands, not that he needs them; he made sure her powers are muted with the collar he placed around her neck whenever he was done with her. He lets the powdered latex hit his wrists with a sickening snap.
No.
Not this time.
Not another one.
Thin lips curling into an evil smile, red eyes glowing like embers in the dark, a long shadow falling over her as she tries to back away from his ice cold grasp.
"Good morning Anna. I have a new patient for you to see today."