They say water is healing. Randall had to admit that the water in the tank was calming. He didn't mind being submerged in water. He wasn't the best swimmer, but he wasn't scared of water. Besides, the water was soothing. It was cool like a nice pool in the summer. He couldn't hear the beeps of a heart monitor that was he was strapped to unlike other tests. It was just him and his thoughts and after six months, he didn't like his thoughts. All his thoughts of late were murdering the good doctor. His eyes flew open as he began to squirm in the tank. He needed air. God, he needed air right now! The tank lid immediately opened and he broke the surface, gasping for breath.
"Five minutes and twenty seconds," Dr. Kovac calmly announced as an assistant helped pull Randall out of the tank.
The monster dried himself off with a white towel. He was tempted to lunge at the doctor, but there were two armed guards that would have him drugged immediately.
Every day was a new test. Fire. Water. Over exertion to exercise. There was even a week where they starved him just to see how he'd respond. All because he kept refusing to tell the good doctor anything about himself. Six weeks ago, they broke his second right arm to see how long it would mend. Four weeks. It took his bone four weeks to heal. He tried to tell them that, but the good doctor still had to take a hammer to it.
As time slowly went on, Randall's rage built. He was going to kill the good doctor soon. Very soon.
Every night before sleep he would picture himself murdering the doctor, then return to his world to get a well-deserved vengeance on Sully and Wizowski. However, his dreams were much different. They were filled with nightmares. His dreams used to replay his banishment over and over like a mocking loop, now it was the sound of other experiments' screams and his own torment. He would sleep in the corner of his cell in a tight ball, hugging his blue tail for comfort. He used to think of the happier times when he was child, waiting for his mother to tuck him to bed. His father died when he was young, but he was always told that he looked like him. He had his mother's green eyes. She passed away four years ago. He used to wonder if his parents had reunited wherever they were.
The next day, the good doctor dropped by for his usual noon appointment.
"#314, all you have to do is answer my questions and these tests would stop."
"Go to hell."
"I took away your books and sketchbooks for a month now. Don't you miss them?"
He did. Greatly so. The boredom was maddening. He would never confess to it, though.
They found each other staring at one another as if trying to read each other's thoughts.
After a minute of silence, the doctor stood up and took his folding chair. "Very well." He and the guard left.
Randall returned to his corner and fell asleep. He ignored his dinner of slop and slept through the night. In the morning, he ignored his breakfast. Then his lunch.
At noon, the doctor noticed this: "I hear you haven't eaten your latest meals."
Randall, still tucked his corner, glared at him like a predator.
"#314, if you do not eat your–"
He leapt at the doctor with teeth bared, but felt the prick of a dart. He rag dolled into a landing– dead asleep.
When he came to, he was strapped to the familiar table underneath the coil. Before he could react, the electricity coursed through his body. He screamed until his throat was raw. He was thrown back in his cell. Randall wanted to scream in frustration, but was too sore. Distant, inhuman screams broke though the cell's walls. Exhausted and in pain, he just fell asleep to the sounds of the tormented.
A full year passed and Randall had new scars on him. Surgical scars. One went down his stomach and another on his chest. It wasn't from any health issues, no, just the good doctor's curiosity. Nothing was removed nor tampered with. Randall was told that there would be no more surgery, so at least that. Laying on the floor with ignored books and sketchbooks, Randall just stared at the wall. It was day three when he officially stopped eating. He's only been drinking water, but he was tired. A year in this place was long enough and he could never get the chance to kill the good doctor. His hated for Sully, Wizowski, and the good doctor burned like a hundred suns. Hatred was the only thing fueling him, but hatred can only last so long. He was running on fumes. He was tired.
In the forth day of not eating, his breakfast was delivered on time at eight in the morning.
"314," the good doctor's voice suddenly said over the intercom, "eat."
Randall didn't move.
"If you do not. We will make you."
There was no doubt in Randall's mind that they would. He didn't want a tube shoved down his throat or who knows what other sadistic things they would do. Sighing, he forced himself out of the corner and go to the questionable slop. He stared at it and all its mushy, grey glory. There was no appetite. A year in the facility, and it felt like they had finally broke him, but in the end, he won. He'll take any information they want to his grave, he may be a shell of his former self, but they have nothing they wanted. He managed to keep his sanity in check, but now the anger shifted from Sully and Wizowski to himself. How could he ever allow himself to come to this? He never stopped eating before in his life. His cunning mind would think of dead end plans of escape or murder. His drive of survival was in there somewhere because he felt like an idiot to stop eating, but the other apathetic part understood why he stopped. He just wanted to go home. He really, really wanted to go home. He forced himself to eat as much as he could to save himself from more torment. With a half a bowl left, he retreated to his corner.
When his noon appointment came by, Randall didn't bother looking at the good doctor. He simply ignored him.
"Why did you stop eating?" The doctor asked.
Randall didn't respond.
The doctor sighed. "For a year you haven't answered any of my questions. I test you, challenge you, try to make you tell me anything and you never do. You can make this pain stop if you just tell me." For the first time in a year, the patient tone was slowly becoming irritated.
For the first time in months, Randall cracked a smirk and slowly turned his head to the doctor. "I bet that's really aggravating you." He frowned. "Good."
"Then you will continue to suffer."
"So what? I tell you and you spare me pain?"
"Yes. That's what I've been telling you since the beginning."
Randall bitterly laughed. "So I just stay in this cell for the rest of my life, pain-free, while you know everything about me?"
"Along with…general testing, yes."
"No deal." He lowered his head back down.
"What do you want in return?"
"My freedom," he flatly answered. "But I know that will never happen."
The doctor inhaled. "You tell me what I want to know, then I will have you euthanized."
Randall's gut knotted.
"You will be humanely killed. No more pain. No more suffering. It'll be quick. That is the only way you can have your freedom."
He busted up laughing. "In bodybag? Yeah, I figured as much!" He looked at him, stared into the eyes of the doctor and all he could see was an emotionless being. Empty. Soulless. "You will never get anything out of me. Never! I will take all of my secrets to the grave! Keep torturing me!" He manically grinned. "I'll never let you win!"
Dr. Kovac's lip curled. The soulless eyes turned to a cruel glint. "I will break you, 314." He stood up.
"I've got nothing to lose! Nothing!" Randall stood up. "You think I value my life? What life? This isn't a life! You think I'd trade a merciful death? No, because my sole purpose right now, is pissing you off, Doc! Knowing I'm getting under your skin with the lack of knowledge of my life's story," he pleasantly smiled, "really, really makes my day." He clapped his hands together. "So, Doc, go get your next test ready because I'll be here." He laid back down in the corner. "I will always be here."
The doctor and the guard swiftly stormed away.
Randall closed his eyes, hugging himself the moment the door closed. "I will…always…be here," he quietly repeated to himself. "I'm never gonna get out of here, am I?"
The test that Randall challenged never occurred. A couple of days passed and the doctor never showed up for the appointments. For a year the doctor never missed an appointment. Days turned to weeks and weeks turned into a month. Randall hadn't spoken to anyone for a month. His sketches went from doodles of murdering the doctor to aggressive scribbles, to pictures of flowers and pretty things that he remembered from his world, but never drew other monsters out of fear of being questioned. Now, his sketches were all tallies. For several months, page after page were solid tally marks. After a month of being alone, not hearing another voice, was starting to drive him mad. He began to talk to himself more so than usual. He didn't leave his cell for a month. He began to do laps in the cell; mindless circles.
Finally, after a month and half later, a voice broke through on the intercom. "Are you ready to talk?"
He ignored the doctor.
After waiting a minute, there wasn't another response. Growling, he went back to circling, but collapsed after a minute. "I can't do this anymore," he grumbled to himself, hugging himself. "I-I can't. I can't, I can't, I can't–"
"Wow," a familiar voice flatly said, making his eyes spring open. "So…this is the great Randall Boggs, huh? I gotta tell ya, pal, you have lasted…a long time."
"You're not here," he murmured, covering his ears.
"No, I'm not. Good call. You're not completely out of your mind."
"Why are you here? Why is this happening?" He desperately hissed.
"Maybe…because you need a friend?"
Randall snapped his head to the right, expecting the green annoyance, but no one was there. Tears filled his eyes as memories from his college days flooded his mind. He and Mike were roommates at Monsters University. They would help each other study all the time. When they weren't studying, they would talk and watch bad horror movies on his laptop. He knew about Mike's family and how he came from downstate to go to the university. They were genuinely good friends. They got along well and shared similar interests. If Mike wasn't kicked out of the dorms, they probably could've still been friends. Randall hugged himself tight, allowing himself to cry for the first time in a very long time. As cruel as his subconscious was, it was right. He needed a friend, but in reality, if anyone back home knew that he was suffering, they would all walk away. He didn't have friends at home. He was too cruel to everyone.
His mother told him he changed during his time at MU. She told him this anger was going to consume him. He kept brushing her off. She kept supporting and worrying about her only son. God, if his mother was alive to hear about what he did a year ago…. He didn't want to think about it. Her death made his cold heart turn into a void. A year ago he tried to kidnap a human kid and use her to help his boss. Back then, he thought it was a great idea. Looking back, he wished he thought Waternoose was unhinged and did something about it, but instead, he took his boss's idea and ran with it. For what? For what? A year ago, he would have proudly given an answer to that question, but now, he'd didn't even have an answer.
Randall continued to cry. Sully and Wizowski banished him, but they weren't cruel. If they had known he'd end up in this facility, they would probably have picked a different door or had him arrested instead. Looking back, he kidnapped a little kid. God, she was so little. Honestly, he and the good doctor have more in common than the doctor actually thinks, but he'll never know that. He'll never know anything. "I deserve this," he whispered in between sobs. "I deserve this."
The heartless, friendless monster cried in a ball on the floor of his cell. Just a monster at the mercy of a different kind of monster.