“Again,” Meridei says.
Again?! Look at him! He’s already suffering!
A jolt of heat reaches my face, prickling my forehead, and singeing the meat behind my eyes.How am I supposed to watch this every day?
The anchor lowers him down, and I hear a grunt to hold his breath. He lasts five seconds this time before the thrashing begins. I catch myself holding my breath because I can feel Suseas’s eyes sinking into me like the teeth of a python. This time Meridei lets him up after twenty seconds when it looks like he is about to intake water. He coughs violently over the side of the tub, saliva hanging from his mouth in long gooey strings.
“Tell me about your wife, Chekiss.”
Silence.
Her finger clamps down on the button. He shouts roughly before going under. Ten seconds this time before she lets him up.
“What was your mother’s name?” Her voice is louder to override his panting.
“Did you have siblings?”
More panting.
I can’t take this.
My heart is going to explode, swelling up before pressing against my rib cage and bursting within me.
He’s back under again. This time she leaves him under the full thirty seconds. Just when I think he won’t make it this time, he does. He’s an older man, but I can tell he’s a fighter by these last few rounds underwater. And if he really can speak like they predict, then he is far more stubborn than I am. I applaud him for this.
She pulls him back out violently, his body hanging like a limp noodle. His eyes are bulging and bloodshot; nostrils flaring, and his gaping mouth is howling like a dying animal.
“Why did you hurt your daughter?” Meridei presses another question. As predicted, he doesn’t answer.
This goes on for close to an hour. I fight the pressure building in the back of my throat—the swirling knot of nausea pulsing in my gut.
After it becomes clear that he won’t survive another round, Meridei hops off her stool, setting her clipboard down, and unlocks him from the machine. His quivering body falls limply to the floor. Blood drips from his nose. I fight the need to pick him up from the floor and tell him everything is going to be okay. Tell him that I’m going to get him out of here.
But Suseas’s eyes are fixated on my expressions, my stiff body language.
Meridei stands in front of Chekiss’s body while two guards lift him from the ground. As they turn to face the door, he looks up at me. Although his eyes are brimmed with tears and tiny red veins, they are a brilliant shade of green—like the slimy green algae gathered at the bottom of a pond. They’re peaceful, harmless eyes, despite the reason he’s here and the terrible treatment he just survived.
Suseas turns to face me with a satisfied smirk. “I’m impressed. Almost every girl I have brought into this room has left in tears.” She pauses, examining my empty face. “I could show you the other treatment rooms, but I think that would be a waste of time.”
“Why’s that?”Almost done. Almost done.
“Because it takes a special type of human to be able to watch something like this without flinching,” she states plainly.
You mean a sadist? A monster? Good to know.
“I’d like you to meet a couple of the other patients. Shall we?”
6. The Thirteenth Room
I follow behind Suseas tothe right hallway. It looks longer than the others. Both in length and in life sentence.
I am introduced to two patients.
The first room harbors a woman with a fear of bacteria and germs. Her handslook like a slab of raw beef from scrubbing them with bleach, and she has no fingernails from ripping them off to get rid of any germs that linger. Her head is shaved to keep away lice along with her eyebrows and eyelashes. She persistently peels off the skin from her lips to keep them clean as well. She is under constant watch, so she won’t hurt herself anymore.
Another room holds a frantic man in his midforties. This case may be the most frightening. He believes he is in the ninth layer of hell. He sees fire and lost souls burning in pain and agony. They tell me thathe’s even tried to claw his own eyes out from the horrid things he’s seen. He has to wear mittens now like a newborn.
Suseas stops walking at the second to last room of the hallway. Her feet remain planted in front of the last door as if there’s a barrier keeping her from stretching her leg forward. For a moment, she glances ahead, parting her thin pink lips as a ghost of a fearful frown leaves her cheeks.
