Chapter 25
Darlia
It’s cold, so cold. My body trembles and aches, but there’s no reprieve. This isn’t the chair. I’m not restrained. Wherever they have me, they aren’t worried about me escaping.
Pushing myself off from the ground, my arms tremble and ache in protest while my head throbs. I can almost feel the pulse of my heart beating through my skin as I collapse back down to the ground with a groan.
Whatever they injected me with, it’s still working.
Lifting my head, I look around the room, unable to see anything.
I’m alone, I think. I can’t hear anyone else breathing.
I’m locked in a dark room, the only light coming through a small glass, square cut in the door.
They haven’t restrained me, or bothered to provide anything to keep me warm.
I’m freezing, my body starting to tremble from how cold it is.
I try to feel around for a blanket, but there’s nothing.
Suddenly, the lights turn on from above, blinding and disorienting bright white lights, surrounded by all white padded walls.
My head throbs. I’m in a cell from the before.
The type of rooms they would keep those who could not be trusted with themselves.
They changed me, too. I’m in a heavy, red cotton dress, my knife is still in its sheath on my thigh.
Aren’t they worried about me hurting myself? Or others?
“PX-3, good. You’re awake.” A man I’ve never seen before walks in, his smile is warm but his eyes are cold and lifeless. My brain is screaming in protest to everything happening right now. But mostly warning me about the man walking into the room.
The man standing in front of me is taller than me, but shorter than Cayden, so somewhere between 5’10 and maybe 6’2, I can’t tell from the floor.
His face has wrinkled with age and his hair is grey despite the fact he looks to be in his mid to late fifties.
He’s stood in front of me, looking like both hot and cold.
Like he wants to be kind, to reassure me, but he also couldn’t care less about me.
“Where am I?” I croak, my throat dry and desperate for water. It must have been days that I’ve been passed out.
“Don’t worry about that, sweet child. What matters is you need some help in your training.
Your Overseer has noticed you deviating from the experiment, so they asked me to help you.
My name is Doctor Langdon, and yes, you may know my name.
I’m going to make sure you feel all better, and you’ll be back at The Academy before you know it. ”
No.
No.
“I don’t understand, what did I do wrong? I’ll be better I promise, I’ll get better, I’ll do better, I swear.” Given I’m either about to be tortured or killed, I’m not above begging, I would do so on my hands and knees if I needed to.
“Oh sweet child, don’t worry, we’re here to help you.
You don’t need to worry about anything, we will make sure you’re all fixed up before you go.
” Doctor Langdon lifts his hand in what I am sure is a signal before two guards dressed in all white jumpsuits walk in.
They stand on either side of me, grabbing both my arms and dragging me out of the room and down to a corridor.
Everything is white; the walls, the lights, the doors, the floors.
Every single thing down to the uniform is white.
It’s blinding. The lack of colours or any type of darkness only makes my head pound harder.
My body protests their rough grips with aches, but I can’t fight them. Even if I tried, I’m too weak.
The red dress they’ve put me in is the only contrast to the room.
“Please, my name is Darlia Monroe. I’m nineteen, I’m just a girl, I’m human.
” I try to remember what Cayden told me about Clover, what made her feel the most human.
Maybe if I had a reaction, they will too.
“Please, I made a mistake, I’ll be better, I’ll do better.
I’m the best in The Academy, I can be that.
I won’t ever deviate from the mission again. ”
But before I can say anything else, my entire body, including my dress, is dropped into an ice-cold bath, one guard holds me down by my waist while the other grabs my head and pushes me under the water.
I don’t protest at first. Being under the water is almost inviting. There’s a muffled sound in my ears and I revel in it. It’s so quiet, even the brightness isn’t so bad. Anything is better than the complete silence other than my own voice.
In some messed up way, being below in water makes the pounding in my head lessen.
Quickly, my lungs begin to burn, begging to breathe. I start to fight, screaming under the water, making air bubbles burst on the surface. They hold me down even as I thrash around in their grasp.
The guard holding my hips only grasps onto me firmer, making it impossible for me to kick while the other grabs my hair, yanking my head down further. I let out another scream in response, the last of the air leaving me. I gasp on instinct, letting water into my lungs.
I’m going to die. They are going to kill me.
My mind starts to blur, my whole body is screaming at me to kick to break free but their hold on me is too strong. My vision starts to go, pixels of lights flashing as the darkness begins to consume me, my body is shutting down.
And then the world fades to black…
“PX-3, can you hear me?” a voice calls. It’s muffled and my ears are ringing. What happened? Where am I?
“There’s a heartbeat, sir, she’s back,” another voice says, this one deeper.
“Very well. Take her back to her room and increase the internal temperature. I want it at 30 degrees for the first hour so the dress dries, then drop it back down to 15.”
What’s going on?
Where is Cayden?
Cayden…
No, Cayden is a liar. I can’t trust him.
I feel hands on me, dragging me away, but I don’t have the energy to fight. I can’t. My eyes are too heavy to open, and my legs are so tired they don’t even move when I try to make them.
My chest feels like it’s tight and bruised like someone hit it, but I don’t remember being hit.
What happened? Where am I?
“What happened with the blonde?” the deep voice asks.
He sounds tall, or maybe they’re just dragging me low, I can’t open my eyes to check.
I go to open my mouth, but it doesn’t move.
I try to beg for help, to tell them my chest feels like it’s being stabbed every time I breathe.
That every time they pull me I want to scream, but no sound comes out. I can’t.
“Three days isolation. No food, no water, no lights. Sensory deprivation. Langdon thinks she will break if we give her enough time.”
Blonde? Who’s blonde? Who else could possibly be here? Why can’t they hear me? I’m talking, aren’t I? My lips part with a silent scream, but no sound comes out.
“Just throw her in, they said not to be careful.”
I don’t even have time to process what’s being said before I’m thrown into a padded room and the door is locked behind me. The second my body hits the ground, my mouth opens to scream, but again, no sound comes out. I’m weak, so weak.
My chest aches, the pain almost unbearable. I feel like I’m being stabbed with every breath, every exhale, while simultaneously someone is putting their entire weight on me.
Then it all comes back to me: they drowned me and tried to kill me, only to bring me back to life. I can almost hear Madam taunting me as the pain overwhelms me and knocks me out again. I fall asleep on the floor, only for the sound of lights buzzing above me filling the silence.
?
The door creaking open jolts me awake. I don’t bother moving, everything hurts too much. My arms are tired, my legs are weak, and I’ve decided I definitely have broken ribs. It’s the only thing I can think of that would create such agony.
“PX-3, how are you?” Doctor Langdon’s voice fills my mind, echoing around and around, filling the empty silence brought by the room. I open my eyes, blinking them while trying to adjust to the harsh lights, but I still don’t move. I just stay on the ground, unmoving.
“Ribs,” I manage to croak out, to which the doctor nods.
“Yes, a vital part of your recovery is simulation. Unfortunately that simulation went for a little too long, and we had to perform CPR.”
Simulation?
Drowning me was a simulation? They can all go to hell.
“Unfortunately your recovery is very important to us, so we do have to continue with our next session. But do not worry, sweet child, I will personally make sure there is no resuscitation needed this time.” Oh, how comforting.
Again I watch as his hand raises and two guards walk in again with the same crisp white uniforms. They put their hands on my arms, pulling me up and dragging me away. This time I do scream; the pain is so intense that I can’t bear it silently.
Everything is so white, so perfect, so pure. Then there’s me, being dragged in my red dress.
Today is different; they take me to another room, every single detail is blinding white, there’s a chair in the centre of it. A large metal chair that’s grey. I almost laugh at the fact they couldn’t find a white chair, I’m sure there’s one somewhere in the world.
I’m lifted into the seat, my ankles and arms locked into the manacles attached to the chair, much like the one back at The Academy.
But instead of scaring me with threats or blades, they stick wires to me, the cords lead to a screen behind me, showing my heart rate, my blood pressure, my oxygen levels.
They are keeping me alive only to kill me over and over.
“Well, let us begin.” Doctor Langdon smiles, walking into the room and sitting in the stool I didn’t even notice was below the computer. It’s white as well. I am really starting to hate white.
“PX-3, what is your name?”
“Darlia.”
Doctor Langdon presses a button on the computer, and suddenly I feel like my entire body is on fire. Electricity flows through every vein in my body. I tense, my entire body is stiff and my back arches off the seat. The current zaps through me until finally I’m offered reprieve, and it stops.
“PX-3, what is your name?”
“Darlia,” I answer again, confused. Again, he presses the button.
This time it feels excruciating, like every hair on my body is going up.
My skin tenses, my hands pulling into tight fists as I try to fight off the current.
My jaw clenches and my body shakes with the effort it takes just to breathe, until again it stops.
My body relaxes instantly, and I’m left gasping and breathless, desperate for this hell to stop.
It doesn't. Instead, Doctor Langdon continues to send the electricity through me over and over. Every single time I tell him Darlia, it continues. I’m giving him the honest answer, yet somehow it doesn’t matter. He punishes me for it anyway.
But then it clicks. To him, I’m not Darlia.
I’m PX-3.
“Darlia, what is your name?” the doctor asks again, unable to hide the impatience in his tone. I’m barely able to lift up my head to look at him. My body trembles, my chest protesting every breath like it wants me to give up.
“PX-3, sir.”
I don’t have to look up to know he’s smiling.