𝑀𝑂𝑅𝑇𝐴𝐿𝐴 - S.S.

{two;}

The ceiling is white, the walls are white, the sheets he wrestles himself out of are white, so are the bandages across his ribs.

It's dizzyingly bright but there are no windows, just a small box room with a bed and a desk, a wardrobe and two doors.

One of the doors is painted ivory like the walls, the other is steel like the door to his basement, his cell -- the place that inadvertently became his home. 

The room is clean and it smells like chemicals.

It unnerves him instantly. 

There's a mirror on the metal door, and as he approaches it he notices that it's weirdly thick, slightly warped, he doesn't have to be a genius to work out its one-way glass.

The idea that someone could be watching him right now without him knowing unsettles him further, but he takes comfort in the fact he can see no shadows under the door. 

He should look around, find out where the other door leads to, see if there's anything he can use to his advantage, he shouldn't be wasting time. Yet, all he can seem to do is stare at himself. 

He still looks like him, at least he thinks he does, and the scruff growing along his jawline doesn't come as a complete surprise, neither does his lengthened hair, flat against his forehead like he's been wearing a cap, it almost reaches his eyes. 

This is all stuff he knew, could feel for himself, even in the basement. The way his entire countenance looks harder comes as a shock though, his face thinner -- but not sickly like he expected, with the amount they've been starving him -- less childlike, and his eyes are a lot less Bambi-ish than he remembers. 

There's a scar across the left side of his bottom lip, where a particular cut had been opened and reopened time and time again with every well-timed punch to his jaw, other than that though, he's blemishless. 

That doesn't make sense. 

When he looks down there are a few jagged lines up his arms, but there had been gaping wounds there just a few days ago, hadn't there? 

There are no injection scars littering the side of his neck or the inner crease of his elbow as he would've thought, and he hasn't taken the bandage off yet but his torso doesn't ache like it did when he went to sleep last night.

He frowns, startled and confused, because not only that, but he doesn't look nearly as scrawny as he remembered.

He knows they've been pushing him on the exercise front for over a month now, but muscle doesn't just pop out of nowhere like that. So why do his arms look so toned, his chest so defined? 

Had it happened so slowly he hadn't noticed until now, when he's under bright light and inspecting himself, or has it happened so fast he hasn't had the chance to notice until now, because it's only just now happened?

Maybe it's that cocktail of drugs they've been dosing him with, but drugs can't do that, can they?

He's not sure, and the feeling of not knowing -- while uncomfortable -- is familiar. 

And objectively, he feels good, other than the headache pressing behind his eyes.

It's the lights probably, his eyes are far from used to it and they're still fighting to adjust. He squeezes them shut for a few seconds and it helps marginally. 

-

There's a knock at the door. 

He steps away from the mirror -- which the visitor can undoubtedly see him though -- as the door swings open, and a woman steps inside.