The laugh dies, caught somewhere between my pulse and the hum of the vent. The air still tastes like antiseptic and electricity, but at least it’s quiet now.
For a moment.
Reality doesn’t care about your battle cries or the image you project.
Reality is a cold, indifferent truth that drags you back into its clutches, no matter how hard you try to escape. Bitch. I think she’s a bigger cunt than karma.
I lie back, pulling the blanket up to my chest, eyes on the red light above the door. It blinks steady, patient, waiting.
Maybe it’s watching. Maybe it’s listening. Maybe it’s both.
“Sweet dreams,” I mutter to it, voice rough and dry.
The light flickers once.
And in the dark behind my eyes, the kookaburra starts laughing again.
But right now, I’m a tired, horny cunt, so I snuggle in, praying for sleep to claim me once more so that I can return to that delicious dream of being shared by my psychos.
DISSECTING ME
Chills (Dark Version) - Mickey Valen & Joey Myron
Hatchet
They don’t gag me. A gag would be for someone who screams. Someone who begs. Someone whose voice is a problem that needs solving.
Mine isn’t.
I wake suspended. Not metaphorically. Literally.
My arms are raised above my head, wrists locked into cuffs that bite just enough to be noticeable without cutting circulation. My feet don’t quite touch the floor – just the barest brush of my toes against something solid, enough to keep my legs from fully hanging, not enough to give me leverage.
Clever.
I’m pissed off. Not because of my situation but because I was dragged from a compelling dream where I was chasing a flash of red hair through a forest.
No idea who it belonged to, but I felt more alive than I have in years.
And now…nothing.
The room is grey. Grey walls, grey floor, grey light. Industrial but clean. Functional. Honest, in its own way.
I test my weight carefully.
The restraints don’t budge.
I rotate my shoulders a fraction, mapping the angles, the tension points, the exact tolerance of the cuffs. They’ve positioned me so any real force will dislocate something long before it breaks the hardware.
They want me intact. They want me contained.
I exhale slowly through my nose and still myself.
This is not my first cage. Just the quietest one.
There are no voices at first. No instructions. No countdown. That’s deliberate too. Silence forces impatience. Impatience leads to mistakes.
I won’t give them that.
