Headcell: Part IV

"A story of a man struggling to retain his sanity in a world dominated by an evil, inhuman society that demands absolute perfection from its citizens."

The music had long stopped, the club was quiet and the dingy little backstreet me and the Girl stood on had grown very crowded. Bouncers went in and out of the building, dealing with those a little less willing to end their night and go home. Considering the position I now found myself in, there was little chance of such a thing happening to me. Me and the Girl turned out to have quite a lot in common; good music, good company and aged wine (despite our youth). I hadn't seen Him in a while. In all likelihood, He probably went off with His bar-loving blonde for the next stage of the fruitless fling, assuming I'd be okay alone. How right He was. Those around us stood in groups laughing and talking, others groped each other like there was no tomorrow. I glanced at my watch; 2:30am. Not bad. 

I felt something jab my arm. I looked; it was Her, both arms folded firmly against her tight leather jacket. She looked even more gorgeous under the neon orange streetlights. Her body was shivering noticeably and She spoke through gritted teeth, which caught the light like sparkling diamonds.

"Can we go now?"

2:30am agreed with me. Nodding yes, we began walking into the night. The quiet night grew more peaceful the further we got from the club. Promise was what had kept us together all night and it paid off quite quickly; walking awhile, once nobody could be heard nor seen, we kissed. With just the cool breeze and dark graffitied buildings to form our romantic backdrop, it was brief, yet seconds turned to years in that single moment. The night had passed by in the space of a few short hours, all leading to this single moment. Lost time has now turned to found treasure. We eventually pulled apart, looking at each other. The distant siren approaching and the nearing footsteps convinced us to make our exit. So off we walked, together and happy. 

I had no idea where we were going, but judging from what had just happened, I think I had a fair idea.

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The claxon rang out, booming across the vast space and reverberating against the rough brick and spacious ceiling. Piercing white bright lights flooded his field of vision as he jerked awake. The cot was hard and cold, the bars slicing all perspective like a cake. The Prisoner blinked a few times, his mind trying to grasp onto the rapidly fleeting memories of his dreams. One reality was now exchanged for another. He sighed, having always hated awakenings. It was the only time he ever saw Her anymore. Getting up off the sleeping slab, he walked to the edge of the cell and looked out between the bars. She was probably doing the same elsewhere, if She was in their grasp. But the long day ahead remained tortorous enough without such mind-teases, as he reminded himself.

Day Three. Seventy-two hours inside Block 13, for perhaps the hundredth time in his life, although counting had long since become futile. The Prisoner watched the walls, as the lights on either side flicked on one by one, stretching into possible infinity.

Life (as Block 13 had defined it) seemed to go on. The other prisoners stood in their cells, soaking in their days of reckoning. Today was when all would be decided, if the unreformed had been truly reformed. Deywun and Deytoo may be able to make a strong case for him, but Deytree would finally be around today to judge for himself. The same thing would happen to every other prisoner with their respective groups of gaurds.  Pretty soon the Prisoner's two "carers" would be along, no doubt assuming he would be returning within a matter of weeks. The Prisoner had a feeling that perhaps they were right, but also a little wrong. Life worked in mysterious ways, both inside and outside Block 13. 

That claxon sounded again. 

Here we go, thought the Prisoner. The Warden's traditional Day Three sermon. The demons of the block would be out in full force today, looking for anyone and everyone to snare back into the hellish grip of vice. That croaky, weathered voice crackled to life.

"We are led to believe in a day of reckoning, a day when all of our sins shall be brought back to punish us, as we abused them in life. However, the dilemma seems to be that none of you are truly alive. Today marks the day when all of your sins shall be forgiven, and the scourge of vice wiped clean from your souls. Soon the guards shall come, but today is where normality as you know it stops. You shall be questioned, interrogated for however long it takes; days, weeks, months. It doesn't matter. Time is imaginary, your situation is reality."

He paused a few brief moments, leaving the silence to fizzle out over the air through the tinny speakers. The silence was so great that it overwhelmed you, consumed all. The Prisoner felt even smaller now than he ever had before. The Warden's way with words was one of the only things that had ever managed to pierce his shell. The speech continued suddenly.

"Three days now have passed since we took you all in. On night zero, you were simply pure unreformed, set in your ways. Now you have become aware unreformed, knowing the consequences. Our process is almost complete. The State is nearly yours for living and existing in. Existing not as damaged goods, however, but as valuable tools to be used in the purification of humanity. The State's work, like life itself, always continues. There is no end."

As he spoke his final few words, the Prisoner noticed the gaurds began to rotate and everyone's usual set come in. Deywun and Deytoo approached slowly. All of them took as much care as possible to tread lightly, for to them the Warden's rants were a fount of wisdom, to be worshipped by all. Their messiah had just about finished his talk.

"So go on and be cured, or perhaps broken again to be cured again. Time is a figment of the imagination, so our treatments may take forever if you wish to be here forever. Remember, your desires are your sentence. This is the way that vice works, has always worked. Today, we shall teach you how to make your desire become your freedom."

They had reached the cell door now and opened it swiftly, motioning with their heads for the Prisoner to come outside. Their authority was diminished today, compared to the man he was to meet later. The three stood silently, waiting for the Warden's words to both sink in and die out. When that happened, both gaurds took the Prisoner by an arm and led him to breakfast. Normally their antagonizing began first thing, but on every Day Three, the staff knew the importance of events to come. The unreformed were to be kept as silent and thoughftul as possible, all day and night long. Only their interrogators would be allowed speak to them.

The journey to the canteen that morning was a shorter eternity than usual. The Prisoner was more concerned with the visions of his past life; the clubbing, the music, the Girl. She was his most treasured memory, above all else. He constantly wondered whether she still wandered out there somewhere, or if it was all over for her now and she found herself in a different place. Hopefully the outside world and its State propaganda had yet to swallow her up into the deep belly of irrelevance. Most of the rest of the world had fallen into it, but the Prisoner hoped beyond hope that it had taken anything but Her. By now, they had entered through into the main canteen and left the Prisoner to seek his usual spot. They went to their side of the dividing line across the room; the line between prisoner and punisher.

The breakfast came down the chute as the Prisoner sat down; lukewarm lumpy porridge with dry muffins, accompanied by a strange viscous orange liquid, that at one time may have been orange juice. Across the border, the gaurds looked to be tucking in to fresher versions of the exact same meal. The unreformed may have been close, but their privileges still had yet to stretch to fresh food. Save for the clattering of cups, saucers and cutlery, the room had the air of a morgue. Perhaps it was that way anyway; given how only half the room was living (according to State terms). The Prisoner was about halfway through the nauseatingly gloopy porridge when everything seemed to stop. He looked around and saw that all eyes were trained on something. Turning around, he was for once caught by surprise. Block 13's evils had reached new heights.

It was Walker, the Commander's choice for the First Realization the previous day. The food lover had completely let himself go and his body stood as gruesome evidence of what a poor decision it had been. With his shirt being torn in half below the pectorals, his punishment was on display for all to see. The razor across his stomach had left a long, ugly scar stretching all the way across. The blood had dried, leaving dried clots all along the line. However, apparently they had not stopped there. Similar but smaller wounds had been inflicted across the rest of the chest, not enough to cause lasting damage but more than adequate for days of serious agony. His face was puffy and his eyes turned from dark brown to ruby red, the tears leaving a glistening dew on the cheeks. Wide-eyed and unblinking, whatever they gazed upon could not have been anything comforting. Aware of those observing him, he stumbled slowly over to his spot, passing the Prisoner on his way by. The men exchanged a brief glance. Walker's eyes spoke volumes; as far as he was concerned, there was nothing more they could do to him. 

If so, thought the Prisoner, then he was a definite returner. In this place, you were taught the full extent of man's inhumanity to man. If Walker honestly thought horrific mutilation was the end of the line, then he was unaware of definite, nastier surprises to come. Once his interrogator saw the injuries, he would go above and beyond, for anything less was risking definite relapse into vice. There were no limits anywhere, for the Prisoner was fully aware that man's evil knew no bounds, both in the pre-State and post-State world.

So the big man sat down and kept his head low, eating his food not with pleasure, but simply because it was expected of him. Whatever he could do to prevent the unpreventable.  With his example set, the rest of the breakfast passed by in a flash, with gaurds and unreformed alike having plenty more food for thought long after their plates had been cleared. 

And how unappetizing it was.

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They were in the part of Block 13 known simply as the Centre of Suspense, the large open space where the unreformed awaited their questioning. This part of the prison facility stretched down several levels underground, how many feet was anyone's guess. Only the Warden knew. The cellblocks themselves were intimidating enough to newcomers, but these underground rooms were even worse. To them, the further down you went, the closer to Hell you ventured. The first-timers forget one important detail, however, pondered the Prisoner. This place is the very epicenter of Hell itself. It always has been. To that logic, the two guards on either side of him were its demons. Demons leading him through the bay doors into his torture.

Deywun and Deytoo were still giving him the silent treatment, although it mattered very little anymore. Each time before had been full of hesitance and wonder. But things had been changing over the past day. Thoughts usually restricted to the outside world were creeping in here; thoughts of Her, thoughts of the lost life, the lost chances. The Prisoner's constant awareness and in-depth knowledge of his surroundings served to further armour him from emotion, but at the same time disconnect him from the truth. They came into the room fully. The ceilings were low and brightly lit with glowing halogen lights. The contrast was striking, leading the Prisoner to think of the Warden's obvious attempt at symbolics; the dark led into light. The unreformed led to their "treatments" by their carers. 

The crowd thronged. All of Block 13 and perhaps more were squeezed into the space. Each unreformed was assigned a number for their questioning that corresponded to a door with the same number. On all four walls of the room were rows and rows of plain, numbered doors. The Prisoner felt something being slipped into his hand, he looked down; Deytoo had handed him a small card, reading only "231". This meant a journey across the sea of people before them. Deywun and Deytoo took tight hold again, and led the way to the foreboding, mysterious Room 231.

Normal. The door was normal, but what lay beyond it was nothing more than the sickest treatment the world could ever have created; the constant tormenting of the patient by the doctors themselves. Deywun and Deytoo released their hold, the Prisoner shaking both arms to stop the pins and needles creeping through his body. Behind them, the sea continued thronging and rolling, thinning ever so gradually. Loud beeps sounded as each prisoner went into their individual room. The ceiling seemed to get lower as the time drew nearer. He turned to look at Deywun and Deytoo.

The first words spoken that day were harsh ones. Deywun spoke his mind, colder than ever before.

"Get in the room. Stop wasting time to fail again."

"When you stop waiting, I shall."

Deywun's face curled into a snarl and he took a step forward, his stride purposeful. Deytoo stopped him by placing his arm across his chest, keeping eyes locked on the Prisoner. Deywun looked at the arm as though a dangerous snake had coiled itself around him. He was half-right.

"It is fruitless. Deytree may have luck yet."

The Prisoner turned his back to face the door. He smiled to himself as the two gaurds froze in place.

"How can he have what doesn't exist? Luck remains nothing more but the fortunate meeting of several coincidences."

Deywun smiled; the first time he had all day.

"He has all. Even though his efforts are wasted on such as you, he remains as the one who has all."

"If he has all, then he has nothing. I am the unreformable. Maybe he changes me or changes me not."

Indeed, perhaps he would. Repetition upon more repetition had been bearable before, but last night's glimpse at the long-forbidden and long-lost past life had revived memories. Memories that the Prisoner had been trying to bury all this time. If She were out there somewhere still, perhaps reformation, or the illusion of it, could be his salvation. Block 13 served not merely to reform, but also to toughen one up for the outside world, in the worst possible ways. Deytoo pointed to the still-closed door.

"Your choice led you here. It has always brought you this far. Go forward and see what this journey's end shall be."

Deywun grunted and looked back over his shoulder.

"The questionings have begun."

Turning to look, the room had indeed begun to clear out. Walker was among the few left, still stuck in the zombie-like trance. When he tried fitting through the door, his girth barely made it through the wooden frame. The Prisoner felt a shiver run through his body, for now was the time. Claxons had become less frequent. Deywun turned back, exchanging a look with Deytoo. All the other gaurds had taken up their positions on either sides of the doors. One to the left, one to the right. Routine's finest and the Warden's treasures. Deywun snarled.

"Get in there."

Come, come, said the door. This room is the centre of resolution in this world of madness. Imagination still played its games with the Prisoner, even though he was fully aware what lay beyond the white wood.  Taking the doorknob and turning it slowly, he went hesitantly into the little room. Ringing out, the claxon over the door was deafening; screaming not for him, but out of the fear of unreformability. It signalled the beginning of the end. 

The beginning of the end for the hundredth time, but perhaps also the last.

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He was even worse than he remembered. The feared one, the one whose influence stretched all throughout the process, the one rank of reformer every unreformed feared like the plague; the questioner. Deytree played this role, had played it beautifully for as long as the Prisoner had been coming here. Across the shining metal table he sat; huge frame, harsh face and a tightly-cut moustache bristling above the lips. His uniform barely fit around his body, the fabric almost tearing from sheer tautness. He had taken his cap off and placed it between him and the Prisoner. 

Behind him was another door, though its purpose was unknown to the Prisoner. Presumably, it led to more of the same. More interrogation, more pain, more uncertainty. Deytree saw him staring, talking with the same iciness as he always had.

"What lies beyond is my concern, not yours."

The Prisoner smirked. Whatever was beyond was nothing special. Some secrets of Block 13, even he couldn't tap.

"Regular as clockwork. This is always how it's functioned."

"No, how you have always functioned."

"Ah, my condition?"

"Your vice. Your....unreformability, as it were."

The Prisoner stiffened. Deytree leaned forward and clasped both hands together, his thick fingers intertwining like sticks. 

"So many times before we have sat together in this room. So many times you have walked away unreformed, exactly the same as you were before."

"Maybe the problem lies in your methods."

Deytree smirked, slowly shaking his head. Every moment he got to show off his superiority, he basked in.

"Our methods have always worked somehow. Method is something to be tweaked constantly, like you unreformed."

Deytree then leaned under the table and produced a thick file. He opened it up to the front page; a photo of the Prisoner taken on his first visit. Written underneath were the necessary yet banal details; name, age, height, weight, etcetera. The Prisoner's body had grown older but his life was still the same. Perhaps the routines of Block 13 had become his too; ending up here time and time again. Deytree pulled the file back towards himself. Leaning back in his chair and brushing his moustache with a thick thumb, he sighed.

"Yes, but this has all been done before. Why bother if things remain the same?"

"Because they always have and always will. Routine is this cesspit's bedrock."

"Routine can be disrupted."

The Prisoner shook his head and rubbed his temples. Only a few minutes had passed, yet the room was becoming unbearably stuffy. Deytree was treading the same old ground as usual, any change that lay in wait would not be coming soon. 

"How?"

"Allow me to demonstrate."

With that, Deytree got up from the table and left the room quickly but quietly, exiting through the door behind him, slamming it shut with all his might. The Prisoner sat unfazed, if anything he found his interrogator's antics boring. The same show each and every time; a new script would have to be written soon. However, the feeling was unable to be shaked that Deytree seemed as though there would be a nuance to his performance today.

The Prisoner popped open the top button of his pristine overalls. The humidity and hot air were stifling; sweat made the clothes stick to his body and the chair grew more and more uncomfortable. The halogen lights cast onto the metal table, causing a painfully bright reflection. No clock anywhere; the walls were bare. Time was still an illusion and the Prisoner was still unreformed. Hotter and hotter the room grew. By now, the sweat gather thickly on his brows and trickled down the sides of his face. His mind drifted away.

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The first glimmers of dawn's early light shone through the curtains. It had been a strange night once we left the club, but now me and the Girl had taken things to the next level. We lay together in Her bed, the sheets rumpled and our clothes sprawled around the little room. The air was heavy, but what I'd just experienced was beyond description. We had tossed and tumbled, groped and felt in the maddest throes of passion imaginable. She respected me and I respected her. They may have tried breaking down everything else we all loved to do, but this was one thing they couldn't ever get to.

The feelings were amazing; my brain rushed with all kinds of excitements and thoughts, the pulse raced faster than any prize car and I felt, for the first time in a long time, truly content. The nights of clubbing, soul-searching and wallowing seemed to be over for now. I turned to look at Her again; lying on one arm, the other draped across her head. Beautiful brown locks. Smooth skin. How she chose me, I'll never know. All I want to know is that she did. The night was old but the morning was new. I lay back down to study the ceiling and savour my thoughts. He was no more, She was mine. The feelings were equally thrilling. The feelings she inspired and the ones she fostered throughout the night, the ones that even when we released ourselves remained. But when they wore off, it would all remain the same. The same godawful world.

The feelings were what I needed. Her and the feelings. Constant supply and demand, from myself. The supply of the great good aftershocks and my neverending demand. It had to be the answer, it just had to. I heard a rustling and turned to my right; she began to stir from her slumber, her head slowly rising from the pillow. Her eyes fluttered like the wings of a butterfly, and turned to look at me. She smiled, sleepily murmuring mornings greetings.

"You're still here..."

I gazed lovingly back.

"Of course. How couldn't I be, especially after...last night."

She laughed softly.

"It was definitely...something."

"Something good?"

"Maybe I don't remember...maybe I do...

Winking suggestively, she threw her arms out.

"But here we are!"

We both look at each other and began giggling. I nodded and she winked. We leaned towards each other and kissed. Breaking apart, we settled back down onto the soft velvety pillows. My eyelids growing heavy, I began drifting back to sleep. She was facing me. Growing tired too, I could barely catch the words before she drifted off again.

"Let's...not remember...better that way..."

The hair hung across her face, dividing it into several lines, all beautiful. She flashed a grin, showing off her pearly whites. Even after a night like last night, with all that had gone on, she still looked perfect. This feeling made it all like that. The world was always going to be a terrible place but viewed through this new perspective, it became like a dream. A dream which never ended.

The most beautiful part, greater than the Girl herself, was the fact that it had only just begun.

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It seemed an age had now passed. Time may be imaginary, but its effects were not. The Prisoner was hot, tired, bored and pained with thoughts of Her. She was his beacon in this world of darkness, or so he thought. He often wondered who he was and what the world was. The State, if they had Her, would tell her that he was a lost cause and pronounce him dead. She would believe them if they made her. It would be easy too, there were so many prisons out there that she would very likely accept him as gone and buried. Immersed in his own musings and with the heat killing him minute by minute, the Prisoner became aware of sounds coming from somewhere outside.

The door then clicked open with a whoosh. The Prisoner, studying the tabletop, decided looking up was pointless. It would be routine to do so, and right now Block 13's routines were the furthest things from his mind. There was another set of boots on the hard floor. Perhaps the Warden had left his lair and come down to personally oversee proceedings for a change. The room was now hotter than the pits of Hell itself. This was Block 13. These rooms were its pits. Deytree's familiarly hateful voice broke into the Prisoner's trance.

"We have a visitor. Someone I'm sure you're familiar with."

He was playing those mindgames again. He knew that the Prisoner was one of the Warden's special unreformed. His authority was effectively doubled now that he was also here. 

"I need not look, I know who you have brought to me."

"Surprises are curious things."

He looked up to him. Unassuming, calm and set in stone as per usual. Indeed there was a shadow behind him, somebody lurking in the doorway. He turned to the mysterious figure and spoke lowly, out of earshot. The Prisoner opened another button of the overalls. His throat was dry as sandpaper and the chair was slick with sweat. The open door provided a refreshing gust of cool air. Deytree moved closer. 

"Let me help you see the surprise."

He walked over and leaned down towards the Prisoner. Gripping his head, he roughly jerked it upwards. Closing his eyes tightly, the Prisoner refused to look. Noticing this, Deytree gripped his hair and pulled. The pain caused the Prisoner's natural reflexes to kick in, and his eyes opened widely in agony. What he finally saw, however, was Block 13's greatest work yet.

She was here. He had brought her. But now she had become one of them.

In that godawful uniform. That sickening black, that lethal equipment and the brainwashed mentality of everything done was all for the betterment of the State. She had been out there. The world had changed Her since She and the Prisoner had last been together, but not for the better. Her long brown hair was n0w cut short and tied back in a bun, her vibrant eyes were dead and soulless and her voice was the same condescending tone employed by all the other guards. At the very least, she still recognized him.

"Well, you're here."

"I never thought I'd see you again."

Deytree went to the doorway and pulled another chair out of the darkness. He slid it over to the table and motioned for Her to sit down. She slowly went over, Deytree sitting down beside her. The heat began to wear off slowly but surely. The Prisoner grew cold. His perceptions of what once were had now become painful, thanks to the new reality before him. The reality spoke.

"Things...became difficult. Your process is never over, but mine is. You see the difference?"

"What happened to you?"

"Many things. They opened my eyes. Yours were always closed when we were one, but now it's all changed. Let me...let us help you."

"With what?"

Deytree and Her looked at each other. Deytree nodded and She began addressing the Prisoner.

"The world is full of vice. Vice that destroys potential and wastes brilliant minds. Potential and minds that can be used to further things more and more. Your case is this exact predicament. So many...days...go by. Days in here. Days living in the world of the dead rather than the society of our State. How many more days are there?"

Deytree pulled out the Prisoner's file again, handing it to the Girl. She took it and opened it to the front page, pointing to his picture.

"Younger then. The process began so long ago, but never worked. How many more times can you repeat the same process, don't you feel like anything is being wasted?"

"The world outside...it's not worth it. This place is where I am safe."

"Safe until you die, and that is coming. The process always runs out, despite its perfection."

"And you two are among those trying to push it."

Deytree spoke again.

"You hate us?"

"More than hate. Loathe."

The Prisoner pointed to Her.

"Especially now...what you have done..."

She smiled. Deytree sneered. The coldness gripped him again, cutting right into his core. Life had changed so quickly in the space of three mere days, moreso than it ever had with any reformation before.

"What was done?"

The Girl was staring into the Prisoner's eyes, though all love was clearly gone. Now she studied him like a scientist would an interesting specimen.

"An awakening, that is what was done."

The Prisoner's frustrations reached boiling point. He shot up, his chair clattering to the side. Neither guard flinched. Emotional responses were necessary parts of the interrogations and this one was proving to be fruitful. Anger, hate and pain were the three key ingredients to show each unreformed the way. The room grew quiet as the Prisoner glared. He sank against one of the walls and slumped wearily against it, the fight beginning to leave both body and mind. His interrogators stood studying him, not a word passing between them. The light's buzzing accentuated the silence.

The Prisoner looked up at them, his stomach churning in fiery nausea. Armour protected you here only so long, until it grew dotted with cracks.

"An awakening...of the State..."

Deytree shook his head slowly. Standing up from his chair, he began to pace back and forth with arms clasped behind his back, his fingers twirling. He turned to look at the Prisoner.

"By choice."

He pointed to the Girl.

"Her choice."

"Your choice is your destiny."

The Prisoner buried his face in his hands, unbridled anger rising within him again.

"Yes, yes, I know!"

Deytree stretched and yawned.

"You know the ways. Our ways. The State ways. You know them just like how we knew your ways."

The Girl took her cap off. Reaching behind her head, she untied the bun in her hair. Her brown locks flowed down freely. At the very least, the Prisoner thought, her beauty remained untouched.

"My ways too. Until all was changed for me."

How they changed her, he didn't want to know. Deytree seemed intent on revealing as much about the full truth of the situation as possible. He had already brought her here, but whatever she wanted to do would affect him far deeper than anything Block 13 could throw at him. She was its newfound greatest weapon, unleashed against its most infamous possession.

How she became the weapon was a story waiting to be told he did not, nor ever wanted to know. But both he and She knew that their journeys towards Block 13 began on the same day.

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The months had passed by in a blur since that night at the club and our first lovemaking. We grew attached faster than anything I could ever think of and the world became less and less of a nuisance. I never saw Him anymore, nor anybody else except Her. Maybe He had settled down with his blonde stranger, maybe He had gone looking for me or maybe He just did not matter anymore. 

Her house became our home. The cold grey streets and the oppressiveness of our world didn't matter when you crossed the threshold. We had everything you'd expect the people like us to have; comfortable cushions and pillows, warm rooms full of colour and our love for each other. The feelings she gave me lasted all day long inside that little space. The rush, the invulnerability, the excitement. I know I was good for her also; my ways were different to hers but she saw whatever special lay inside me.

I had come home from work that day under the assumption of normality. I could tolerate the hours, meaningless paperwork and State propaganda; their perfect worker-bee ready to give up his or her life at any moment in the name of the progress for the new, fundamentally inhuman Great Society. I came in the uniform of the imprisoned; suit and dark shoes, carrying a briefcase full of unnecessities. Walking the streets, the empty ones wandered freely; phones, notebooks and earpieces abounded alongside the officers watching it all. The sky was a light blue tint, with the dotted dark cloud here and there. Finally I turned down our road and came to the house. It was always desolate here. Homes were meant solely or sleeping, eating and sex according to the State. Turning my key, I found her in the living room, slumped comfortably across the sofa. 

The feelings arose again. She was fast asleep. Every time it overcame her, I was brought back to the first night. The feelings were strongest there, that's where I wanted to be. Her breathing was gracefully quiet; her stomach rose ever-so-gently, causing the round breasts to dance with the motion. What she was experiencing right now was the same kind of feeling that our togetherness created. Dropping my briefcase on the polished wood floor, I took the jacket off and sat down on the sofa's edge, gently brushing the velvety soft hair from her face. She stirred. but did not wake.

I lay down beside her, looking into Her face. The feelings were now overflowing and ripping through my entire body; the endless drudgery and brain-numbing tediousness of work faded instantly from memory, now that my addiction was close to hand. Laying down next to Her and wrapping one arm lightly around the waist, we cuddled close together a little while, me staring at the white ceiling in deep thought, whilst enjoying the feeling of Her softly undulating body against mine. I remember the dulled sounds trying to come in through the front room windows; outside was the State and all its unjusts and unfairness. Here, me and Her and carved out our paradise. I settled into it as the feelings overtook me, my eyes closing gradually until I followed Her into dreamland.

Walking a while into the void, I came across her in our field of poppies. Outside of this chunk of life, the void was a terrifying purple-blue transparance, like looking through a pair of curtains when the sun shines. Colours were not permitted in the State world. They had nothing to contribute. She was perched atop a rock, in pure bliss. When she saw me approaching, she grinned widely and motioned me to sit down beside her. So I did. Looking up at her, she closed her eyes again and sank back. Peaceful silence passed between us. 

"The world is ours, isn't it?"

I thought about this as a I studied a small beetle crawling amidst the grassblades. 

"This one is. That's simply the way it is."

She sighed and nodded.

"You're right...but you know what? 

Looking intensely at Her, I shook my head.

"I think that's okay."

"Okay how? We can't live in the living world. It was not meant for us."

"Maybe not. But we can make it our own. We've been doing okay so far."

The beetle disappeared into the greenery, lost into our minds forever. She saw it too and looked into the void, which stretched before, under and all around us. The dreamlands were our clay and canvas; the best ways to escape the State were through pure individuality. The dangerous thing was our practising of it in the real world. Speaking lowly, I reminded her (and myself) of this.

"So far..."

The words echoed through the void.

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"The world is ours. The world is ours. The world is---"

I'm still not sure what woke me first; the awful smash of the glass being broken or the sounds of Her screams. Rough, rocky arms grabbed us and hauled us off the couch. My entire body seemed to be wracked with pins-and-needles, my limbs flopping uselessly by my sides like a hapless drunk. She was the same, but whatever we were in the power of now was something fierce. I realized very quickly what was happening. I just couldn't believe it was happening to us.

Blurry-eyed, they all looked like monsters. Demons from the nightmare realm coming to claim us. The reality was not much different; these were the creatures of the State. Their uniforms matched their hearts. Black. All of them clasped guns in their hands. Intimidating masks covered their heads and faces; dark as the uniform they were, giving them the impression of being not humans, but faceless phantoms. Panic swept through me. Somewhere, somehow, the State had found out. Now their forces were at work, ready to mold us as we had molded their world. They handcuffed us both quickly, holding us apart so we were directly facing each other.

Their leader, I assumed him to be anyway, turned to me. Holstering his weapon, he shouted through the built-in microphone in his mask, not taking it off.

"We are here to arrest you both. Your ways are dangerous to State society!"

She was more angry than scared. Despite her skin looking the colour of death, she never lost her composure. Even with the State forces on both sides of her, her fear never showed. She stared down the commander, her eyes boring into him like drills unto rocks. Beautiful defiance.

"What ways?"

The Commander clenched his fists and gestured to the air, like some sort of armed, twisted stage performer. 

"Your idleness...your petty romance. Your unwillingness to embrace our new world!"

The officers around him all nodded in agreement. The two on either side of me poked the barrels of their automatic rifles into the sides of my stomach. It felt like a giant crab crushing me in its pincer. I could only stand and stare as the feelings that once made me so happy now turned to cold, hard fear and hatred.

"No romance is petty! Our world is a hell of a lot better than the s**t you people have created!"

The commander motioned for the Girl's captors to close in even further on her. They did so obligingly, their weapons unholstered still, the long dangerous ends now pressing against Her head. The commander stepped forward and, raising a hand, struck Her across the face. She screamed out in pain, struggling to break free, but their hold only looked to become tighter. My hatred boiled over, vision turning red.

"You son of a b***h! Leave us alone!"

I tried to rush him but I proved to be no match for his reflexes. He shoved me back, knocking me back to the arms of his henchmen. 

"Your ways will have to change, the way the State wishes them to. This world is not nobody's, not even the State's, but we can make it be whatever we want to."

Indeed they could. He motioned towards the front door, which had been broken down. It lay in splinters across the floor. Now me and Her were being dragged out of it back into the outside world. 

Several cars and vans were parked up and down the once-empty street, right alongside clusters of disapproving onlookers. The sky was still that eerie blue, but now it seemed perfectly inkeeping with the current situation. I cared not about me, but about Her. She was kicking and screaming with all her might. All her life, including our shared (if brief) one, she had feared the State not for its power, but for the lifestyle it demanded. The officers would see to it that she saw differently, unless she could escape. Both me and Her had heard of what had been happening across the country in the prisons. The prisons where our new homes. The commander shouted at the top of his lungs, addressing the small crowd across the road.

"Vicers these two are! Vicers of society!"

As if on cue, the crowd began jeering and booing. Some even picked up small rocks off the ground and threw them at us, one sizeable chunk missing my face by mere inches. The Commander's forces moved towards them menacingly fast, forcing them to stop. He raised his arms and pointed at me and Her yet again.

"Put them in the vans! Now!"

The last I saw of Her, the final look we exchanged was a goodbye without any words. But Her eyes said it all. Those beautiful eyes were now going to be tainted, destroyed beyond repair by whatever they used to dehumanize. Help us, help us, they said, they are going to kill everything we have created for each other. The old feelings were almost entirely gone now and She was almost out of view entirely. The last I ever saw of her was her long hair disappearing into the back of the guard van, swarmed by officers. My stomach turned to liquid and the hands grasping and clawing at me did little to help. My emotions were clicked off in the space of an instant as I was pulled into the back of that van.

The drive to destination unknown proved an eternity. The commander elected to personally oversee my journey into the unknown. The rumbling of the wheels over imagined terrain, the hushed conversation between the officers, the rock-solid handcuffs cutting into my wrists all forced me into pained silence. My heart was heavy as a thousand tonnes and the commander's mask made him resemble an angel of death. The entire time I stared at him, my mind replayed his words over and over, like a neverending message.

"The world is nobody's, not even the State's, but we can make it be whatever we want to."

Me and Her. Our world had been ours, albeit in a slumber. The dreamlands were a distant place now, but here I was, here we were, wide awake and trapped; trapped in the new nightmare, with very real terrors ahead.

Because, as was said, they can make it whatever they want it to be.

Author's Note

Are the flashbacks making sense? Does the Prisoner's mindstate seem like it differs from day to day or is more of the same? Has Deytree been built up enough as an antagonist?