Someone pushed a tray of food under the door. I didn’t want to take it, but my hunger got the best of me. The chains were just long enough for me to tiptoe to the door, catch the tray with the tip of my fingers and pull it back. 

I sat on the floor and looked at the tray. There was a lump of white…something, and a bowl of brown soup of unknown origin. I touched the lump. It felt soft and bouncy like dough. The content of the tray looked unappetizing, but somehow it smelled extremely good, which made my stomach rumble.

I tore a piece off the white dough thing, sniffed it, then brought it to my mouth. “...Tastes like sand.” It had no taste, as if the smell was artificially put there to mask the awfulness of the substance. The soup was the same. It was even blander than water. But because I was so hungry, I finished them all. 

Leaving the empty tray on the floor, I sat in the corner of the bed and looked at it as there was nothing else to look at. It had been three days since I was put here - I thought so because food had been delivered six times, and there was no sign I would be released. 

Aside from the person who brought me food - who I only see the hand of, there was no one who interacted with me. So I just either slept, or sat on the bed and started at nothing like a patient in a psych ward.

As I sat there, thinking about my family and friends - whom until just a few days ago I was happily talking with, my tears started to flow again. I’ve never cried so much before. Sad things had happened to me all the time, like when my grandparents or my dog passed away, but I could control my emotions well enough to not let it out. But now I was ready to bawl at any depressing thought, as if my tear gland's valve had broken.

Suddenly, the cuff on my hand started to beep. Something on the inside of it stung me, and I felt an undefeatable urge to sleep. I fell face down on the bed and passed out.

×

When I woke up, I was tied to a chair with metal cuffs on all my limbs and my neck. I was not in my cell, but in the same room I was in when I first came here. The same researchers and soldiers were there as well, doing the same thing they were doing before. The grey haired man stood in front of me again, his face as twisted as ever.

“Please! I beg you! Let me go!” I begged, knowing full well that no one would help me. They either didn’t understand me, or even if they did, they ignored me anyway.

“-----.------------.” The man said something, then patted my head again. I felt like throwing up. His finger, moving slowly and gently between my hair, seemed to be tearing off my scalp.

Backing away from me, he turned to a female researcher standing next to a cabinet and nodded to her. The researcher then produced a huge syringe, the kind where you would only see being used on large animals. Within it was a blue liquid of unknown properties. She then moved towards me with the syringe in hand. I struggled in vain as she stabbed the needle into my arm, and emptied the liquid.

Not long after that, the pain began. 

“AAAAAAHHHHHH!!! IT HURTS!!! IT HURTS!!! STOPPPP!!! PLEASE!!!” My veins felt like they were going to burst as they were flooded with the blue liquid. Furthermore, the vine, which I thought had stopped moving once it entered my body, became active again. It started to dig deeper, sprouting countless roots, which in turn tore themselves further in. It moved slowly, rigorously, painfully through my flesh and organs. And whenever it touched my bones, it pierced into them, twisting between the marrows.

Every nerve in me felt like it was being burned. My body was convulsing from pain, thrashing around like a death row criminal being electrocuted. I tore the skin on my arms and legs trying to pull them out of the cuffs.

At last, when my brain couldn’t take the abuse anymore, I fainted.