Chapter Nine
Time stops behaving the way I expect. Without light or sound, it becomes impossible to hold onto.
At first, I try to measure it. I count breaths. Track muscle fatigue. I notice the slow burn in my shoulder as inflammation sets in.
But the markers don’t line up.
My calves start trembling before I think they should. The ache in my ribs deepens too quickly, eases, then flares again. I’m thirsty, but I don’t know how long that’s been true.
Cold air hits my forearms, then vanishes. Returns somewhere else. My throat tightens as my breathing shifts without my permission.
The ventilation isn’t steady anymore. It reaches me in waves. Gentle. Then harsh. From behind. Then somewhere to my left. I can’t angle away from it. I can’t block it with my shoulders. It’s like sandpaper over my skin—rough and abrasive, destabilizing in a way I can’t correct for.
I keep still, because stillness costs less.
Eventually, they return. Two of them, from the sound of their footsteps.
They don’t rush or speak. One loosens my restraints just enough to shift my position, easing the pull on my ribs while tightening it at my shoulder. I swallow the gasp that wants to break free.
The hood lifts a fraction. Not enough to see, but enough to let air rush in across my mouth and nose.
Fingers dig into my jaw, and something presses to my lips. I clamp them shut without thinking. A man snaps, “Food,” then tightens his grip until tears gather in my eyes. I open my mouth a fraction, and a hard plastic straw hits my teeth.
The smell registers first, sweet and chemical in a way that doesn’t match any definition of the word food. A second later, thick liquid floods my mouth.
Understanding comes too late. They didn’t explain how I’d eat because that would have given me time to prepare. To refuse. They didn’t want me bracing for this. Bracing is resistance.
I choke, panic flaring as my body rejects the texture, the temperature, the wrongness of it. My throat spasms. My stomach heaves. Every reflex screams to gag, to pull back.
I override it.
Again.
And again.
Mechanics take over. Angle my chin. Breathe through my nose. Swallow cleanly. Don’t aspirate. Don’t give them a reason to step in and do this for me.
The tube is pulled away without warning. No comment. No confirmation.
The hood drops back into place, the ties drawn close against my neck. Footsteps fade away and the door locks with a loud thunk.
Time slips again, not forward or back so much as out of reach.
I can’t orient by anything real.
The next time the door opens, I’m drifting, exhaustion setting in. Seconds later, the restraints change, my wrists brought in front and my ankles chained so tightly together that my body doesn’t understand how it’s meant to exist like this.
Hands guide me down to the floor and onto my back.
The position is wrong immediately. Too open.
My ribs flare with every breath. My chest feels exposed in a way I can’t mitigate, and panic takes over.
I can’t get enough air. Sharp, quick gasps strain for oxygen and my heart stutters.
I curl inward, desperate to shield myself.
“No moving!” a man barks out before the door slams shut.
I flinch, return to the position they put me in, and let the discomfort settle in layers.
The strain of holding myself still when everything in me wants to move.
The ache in my ribs with each uneven breath.
The pressure of the hard concrete against my spine.
Each sensation is harder to ignore than the last. I try to regulate, but fail over and over again. The cold is everywhere now.
First, I count my breaths. Then my heartbeats. Then nothing at all.
My thoughts slow. For a moment, I wonder if this is how people die. Not dramatically. Just…discarded and forgotten.
I drift in and out of something shallow and fragmented that might be sleep or might just be exhaustion masquerading as rest. At some point, I stop being aware of my own breath.
Hands.
Everywhere.
My body jerks hard enough to tear a sound out of me before my brain catches up. Adrenaline floods my limbs. Someone yanks my arm the wrong way and my shoulder detonates in pain.
I gasp, lungs burning, heart thundering so loudly it drowns out everything else.
The restraints change again.
Wrists locked behind me now. Ankles separated. A chair under my thighs—though I don’t remember being lifted into it.
That’s what breaks through the panic.
Not the pain, but the missing time.
A man clears his throat, close enough that I feel it more than hear it.
“Do you understand the rules?”
“Yes,” I say quickly, my voice thin, breath uneven.
“State them.”
My thoughts misfire, fragments of shallow sleep grinding against one another instead of clearing. I anchor on the pressure of the cold chair under my thighs and the cuffs tight around my wrists.
“I’m not to move unless instructed,” I say. “I don’t speak without direction. I ask for water. I ask for the bathroom.”
“And?”
The word hangs there.
I search for what I missed. My mind skids and finds nothing to grab onto.
“I—” I swallow, try to reset. “Those were the instructions.”
Silence. So much of it, fear settles in my chest until the man finally exhales.
“Acceptable.”
Relief washes over me, my shoulders dropping and a breath slipping from my lips.
A low, mechanical whir—another security camera—spins up to my right.
“Are you confused?” the man asks.
Yes? No? I don’t know which answer is closer to the truth.
“I’m tired,” I say. It’s the only thing I’m certain of.
“That wasn’t the question.”
My throat works against the tightness of the hood. “Yes. I’m confused.”
“Do you understand why?”
“Yes.”
Footsteps click back and forth in front of me.
“Explain.”
“I—” The thought shatters mid-word, leaving only the sharp edge of fear behind. I grit my teeth, swallow, and try again.
“I—I’m disoriented due to lack of sleep and injury.”
He waits long enough that my pulse starts to race.
“That’s acceptable.”
The door locks, and I’m alone again. The quiet and the cold press back in, unchanged except for that low, mechanical whir. Someone’s still watching.
I shiver as I figure out what they were actually gauging.
They didn’t care what I said. They were measuring how quickly I recovered when corrected.