What will they do to me now?
20. When We Were Young
TWENTY-THREE YEARS OLD
My entire existence told me not to allow them to put me in the rocky coffin-looking compartment, so I fought the two silent guards pulling me closer. Their faces and hands bled from my scratches.
As they struggled to control me, an old fat, bald, white man in a lab coat walked into the room. His perfect teeth gleamed as his smile widened, watching me fight them. “Miss Michaelson. It has been way too long.” His voice drew a frightful shriek from me, and the two men groaned and covered their ears at the loudness. It was the only way I could deafen the fear to ensure I would not freeze. I took advantage they didn’t like my scream and turned to get back in the elevator but they caught me.
He chuckled. “You’ve definitely grown in all the right places. What did you do this time? Hmm—” He sighed. “Ever the apple of my eye.” The way his eyes perused my body… even from far away, was nauseating.
“I fucking killed your little bitchy twin is what I did!” I screamed.
His smile disappeared, and I thought his eyes widened with some shock and concern. “Not Callum?”
It was all worth it until one of the men punched me so hard on the face, I fell to the ground. Blood gushed from my throbbing nose, and the world spun. I was beyond exhausted, and between the slamming of my head, the choking, and now a bloody nose I felt as if I’d been mangled by a tiger.
In the chamber, my body rattled in full panic. Past images of the compartment filling with water and drowning in it attacked me. I swallowed the blood in my throat and breathed through my mouth fast and ragged. As they covered the chamber with a criss-crossed wooden lid, I couldn’t help it, I begged, “Please. Don’t?—”
The old man appeared above me, once again chuckling. “Not so tough now, are we, my little delicious apple?” The way he pronounced the nickname with such malicious intent was disgusting.
It didn’t matter how much or hard I tried to push or kick at the encasement, I was trapped. The frigid water rose, stabbing at the marrow of my bones, quickly reaching my lips.
I’d killed him, but they still had me under their control. Through the squares, I only saw the high stone ceiling and bright lights. My breathing violently trembled with my body. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I screamed when the frigid water started rising and wetting my body. “No! No! No!” My teeth chattered so loudly, like never before. I kicked at the lid again and again and it hardly moved. The chambered became pitch dark when they covered it with solid metal. “No! No! Help me! Get me out of here—" I arched back my neck to lift my nostrils above the water and took the deepest breath possible, and within seconds, I was completely immersed. The water overfilled the compartment, splashing onto the ground outside.
The water filled my nostrils, burning the back of my throat and freezing my esophagus and trachea at the same time. I pushed the water out, but it kept rising. Bubbles blew to the surface as I release my first breath, and then there was no more space, no more seconds left before the hell that was this torture truly began. As soon as I ran out of air, water filled all of me up, no matter how much I moved, fought.
Help!I lost all strength, and the memories swept through my mind.
I was at a doorway into what appeared to be a warehouse. A few yards in front of me, a distracted boy lay with his knees under him, naked like me andhumming a familiar song, pretending to draw something on the floor with his fingers. I’d heard that song before… that voice. Sometimes, I would hear him through the walls, sobbing, screaming and he’d start humming it to calm himself. It happened so often that sometimes, when Mael came into my room to hurt me, I found myself needing to listen to it.
Make you feel my love…. That’s what he was humming.
The dirt covered his gaunt body in patches. His straight black hair and high cheeks reminded me of… Killian.
Are you afraid of death, little angel?His voice played like a song in my mind and brought back bits of memories of him from when we were young.
For a second, it was as if I were in two places at once or waking from a dream. The frigid water filled my stomach. I was drinking too much of it. I fought being back in reality, needing to be in my dream with my husband.Killian! Killiannnnnn!
Even though I knew it couldn’t really be him, I called out his name with decades worth of desperation, the same decades I had been forced to live without him. “Killian.”
The little boy raised his eyes to me. Are you real? Killian?A warmth reached my chest, slowing down my heart, followedby the calmness I’d been craving all my life. Thank you, Death. Thank you so fucking much for arriving fast.Is this heaven? Killian, are you dead? Are we both dead?
I ran into the frigid room where the ironclad chamber that imprisoned him stood. It was shaped like a giant birdhouse. He got up and appeared as if he couldn’t believe I was really there. His eyes bulged in shock and his mouth gaped open.
“Killian, I can’t believe you’re really here!”I yelled, ectatic, and reached through the metal poles into his cage, trying to reach him. Nothing else mattered.
“Magdalena, w-what are you doing here?” My smile melted as my damaged heart shattered. He wasn’t happy to see me.“You have to get out of here!”
“No. No. Please Killian. I—I love you. I’ve missed you so much. Please. Don’t?—”
“Magdalena. Run!” His scream was so loud that it echoed. “What are you doing here?”
I tried again to see if I could make him happy to see me. Obviously, he didn’t understand that I didn’t give a damn about the consequences, that I’d go straight to hell just to hug him. “I-I don’t know, but I’m so happy to see you.” My voice broke and tears started filling my eyes. “Pl-Please Killian. Please!” With iron poles between us, we embraced. I didn’t feel dead. It was the most alive I’d felt since he’d disappeared. I kissed his cheek, trying to kiss each of his gorgeous freckles despite the dirt. He smelled terrible, but I didn’t care.“Killian, I’ve missed you so much. So much.” My tears poured from how badly it had hurt to not have him by my side. Why was he not speaking?
His body trembled, so I slowly pulled back and saw the terror in his eyes as they stared behind me. A tall balding man with wrinkled peach skin and blue eyes the shape of Mael’s walked behind us. His smile at Killian was cold, holding only malice. Killian’s teeth chattered. Not long after the man enteredthe room, Mael followed. I turned, with my back against the railing, watching their every step.
“You still remember him, Maggie? That’s not good news for you,” Mael said. Killian’s body warmed my back.
