Prologue

In the prologue we learn a bit about the unnamed girl.

 

        Prologue

 

           She felt so alone, isolated in this tiny room with no windows. All bright lights, barely any interaction. Nothing. Nothing. So alone. She’s been locked up in this small space forever, since the edge of her memories. Never speaking.

      She can’t remember when she first came here. She remembers nothing. Sometimes, when she’s sleeping on her meager cot, she feels as if there are memories floating in the far reaches of her subconscious. Memories waiting to be awakened. They never resurface when she awakes, and they leave a bitter taste in her mouth and an even bitter feeling in her soul. When she’s dreaming she feels like she can do anything, like there’s a sort of magic coursing through her, bubbling under the surface of her skin and ready to burst.

        They give her things to do sometimes, but only rarely. Things like books. Having taught herself to read, the girl now spends her time hungrily absorbing every little word printed in those few books she gets. She figures her captors don’t want her to have time on her hands, time she could spend trying to escape. They needn’t worry, she thinks sadly. She knows there’s no getting out of this world they’ve created for her.

         Sometimes she wonders if the outside world, the outside of her little cube of a world, looks like the pictures in those books.  Bright colors, full of life and energy. She wonders if she'll ever see anything like that in person, up close.

        Freak.  They call her that sometimes, when they bring her food, or the occasional book. Freak. They say it like it’s a fact, an indisputable fact. She knows it must be true. Sometimes she thinks that’s her name. She doesn’t know if she actually has one, they’ve never called her by any other name.

           They call her that when they take her to the shower, the harsh water abrasive against her pale skin, skin that hasn’t ever been touched by sunlight or moonlight, or any other light save the intense synthetic light in her room. They call her that when they shove her harshly in front of them, making her keep pace as they take her to the other small room where they perform the tests on her.

          They take her blood; make her run on a treadmill while they stare at her, the glare from their glasses nearly blinding her. They attach her to a machine with wires and look at her insides. She doesn’t know what they’re looking for, they never tell her. She never asks. She learned that lesson a long time ago.

         She thinks they might be looking for whatever makes her a freak. But if she can’t find it, why would they be able to? In between the trips to the showers and the testing room they make her wear a cloth bag over her head so she’s unable to see her surroundings. It’s the same rough material all of her clothes are made of, and it scratches her face.

     She doesn’t hear anything, doesn’t see anything. She doesn’t know if she’s the only freak here. She doesn’t know a lot of things. What she does know came from either a book or listening to the guards when they harshly take her from room to room, cracking jokes at her expense and pushing her to the floor just to laugh at her.

       The girl doesn’t know how old she is. She doesn’t know why she’s there,  she doesn’t know if it’s where she belongs, if the pictures and words in the books she’s read are lies, made to hurt her for their sadistic pleasure. She’s read about parents, but doesn’t know if she has any. If she did, would they love her, like a parent loves a child?

        She doesn’t even know what love is, but she’s read about it. If she does have parents, why would they let her suffer here? She doesn’t know if this life is the only one she’ll ever know. She doesn’t know when the sun is in the sky, what flowers smell like, what a breeze feels like.

       When she goes to sleep at night, it isn’t because the sun has set in the sky. It is because sleep is an escape, and her mind and body are so very exhausted of the same thing over and over every day.

As she sleeps, curled up into a tightly wound ball on a tiny rusted cot, the nameless girl dreams about what the outside world is like.

 

Author's Note

Please review and tell me what you honestly think. Sometimes I am too close to my work and I cannot see mistakes or cannot see when something doesn't make sense. Thank you!

Reviews

[MR_BERG]

The overwhelming ambiguity makes for a great start. Your style leaves me ready to read more.

[Sweets]

All of this makes sense..it's so sad x.x
and dark o.o
Great write!