Chapter One-Just another day.

The room meant nothing and everything at the same time, the thud of footsteps and the clatter of metal. Riley’s blurred vision was always trying to adjust to the light, but after so long in darkness and with only short intervals in the over lit rooms she visited once every day, it was almost impossible and because of this Riley had to rely on hearing, but an overwhelming amount of the time that failed her also.
            Who she had come to know as Doctor Codas could be heard somewhere in the room choosing an instrument, he was very picky and would often pick up one just to put it down and pick another causing the metal to clatter, Riley tried to find a difference between each clattering sounds to try to identify which utensil he would finally pick, but it always proved useless and each of the sounds meant nothing to her no matter how hard she tried. Trying to locate his footsteps also never worked, his footsteps seemed to echo throughout the entire room, this wouldn't matter if Doctor Codas just walked straight from his utensil tray back to Riley but occasionally he wouldn't, sometimes he would walk around the room first and then strike and there where even a few times that he would walk around and then just leave, there was never a definitive time where he would begin. Not knowing what was about to happen and when was just about as torturous to Riley as the actual act, and Codas knew it.
            Today he walked straight over to her and she felt a cool metal slice into the skin of her face along her hair line, circle around in front of her ear and around her jaw and join back at the top, she then felt the cool metal outline around her eyes and lips. 
            During the process Codas spoke to her softly, “I quite like scalpels, you can do such detailed work with them, create a real masterpiece…” Without warning he ripped the skin away from her face and she let out a blood curdling scream. “However, I do like a bit of abstract.”

“Chto takoye kvadratnyy koren' iz shest'sot sem'desyat shest' ?”
            “Twenty-six,” Riley replied, bored. She watched carefully as the shadow in front of her seemed to cross his arms in disapproval, which was better than what she sometimes got when she didn't follow the rules-an unplanned trip to her favourite doctor.
            “In Russian, Riley,” her teachers thick Russian accent was commanding and pretty frightening.  Grigori Popov taught Riley maths, world history, current affairs  and language and literature for multiple different languages, the majority being of Celtic origin; these lessons rotated between languages of which Riley had been taught , and all in complete darkness. Whenever she questioned the fact she was being taught such pointless things considering her living arrangements she was informed that she was being prepared for when she was ready. Ready for what, she didn't know.            
     “Yes, Grigori Viktorovna.” He chastised Riley for her English once more before continuing the maths lesson.
        Time rolled on and Riley’s lessons came to a close and she was escorted to the cleaning room. 

            The whole process didn't take long; first she had to get her clothes off as quickly as she possibly could, otherwise she’d either be thrown in still partially clothed or someone else would rip the clothes off of her. She’d then be thrown into a cold, hard room, often falling and scraping her knees and palms just to be sprayed with soapy water. The few seconds she was sprayed with the soapy water was all Riley had to scrub her body of its filth. This was followed by a burst of clean water before she was given thirty seconds to towel off and get dressed before moving on, dressed however far she got even if she was completely naked.
            Then once every few weeks Riley would be escorted to a different room where any hair she’d grown would be shaved off.

To finish the day off she’d be injected with some sort of sedative only to wake up later and repeat the same process. 

Author's Note

Absolutely any feedback is more than welcome :)

Reviews

[Jessica Willmott]

This is rather intriguing, well done! I'm rather curious as to what will happen to Riley, and why she is being treated like this in the first place.

[Rachel]

Thank you so much for reviewing! :)