“Good morning, Sunshine,“ his Siren’s voice sounded.
“Where am I?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see you, remember? Only hear you.”
Brooks sent tendrils of awareness to his limbs.
His arms met resistance and, with a more detailed examination, he realized they were crossed and bound tightly over his chest.
“Great,” he sighed. Brooks didn’t have to continue cataloging his limbs. He knew that they, too, would be bound to the metal frame he rested on.
A small huff of laughter sang through his mind.
“Do you recognize where you are now?“ The smile in her words was obvious but it felt tired and dredged up for his sake.
“I do. But I don’t remember getting here.”
“Describe it to me. Maybe I can help.”
For a second he pondered her question. It was ludicrous to describe anything to her since she was just a part of his broken mind, but what else was there to do when you were in a straight jacket cuffed to a bed by your ankles?
“I’m in a padded cell. Everything is white. The ceiling, the walls, the door… solitary.” He scanned the room as best he could with the mobility in his neck minimized by his bindings.
Although, what he’d done to get there, he couldn’t remember.
Visions flashed through his mind, dredging up the most awful nightmare he’d had while under sedation.
Bodies…
Bodies mutilated and strung along concrete floors.
Bodies turning their milky stares to him and caging him in.
Bodies holding him down while they ate him alive.
He shivered and thanked whatever god was out there that it had only been a dream.
Off to the side, he caught small gleams of surgical light bouncing off of metal equipment.. Resolute dread sat on his chest as the realization of why he was here strapped to a table settled in.
He was in the room a lot of patients entered, but never came out of.
Dr. Kore was going to give him a lobotomy.
At the thought of her name, a memory swam in his mind that he couldn’t quite grasp.
“How did you get there?”
“I can’t… I can’t really remember. Kind of like a dream that you can’t quite grasp.”
“How do you get out?”
“I don’t,” he confessed with a heavy swallow. “I’m powerless.”
“You are a lot of things, Brooks, but you are not powerless.”
“How would you know?”
“Do you remember that night in your dream?”
