inferno | 18+

XXXI

"Memento mori."
- Unknown

DEVINA

I stare at the black ceiling, my eyes adjusting to the sudden darkness I'm surrounded with. There is a long mirror running along a wall. I'm lying on a bed. My throat is so dry. I blink a couple of thousand times, looking around at everything. There's pages on the floor. On the black floor. Four walls. One ceiling. One floor. One bed. One book shelf. It's cold.

I move my arms in an attempt to rub my face, but meet restraints. I try again, but to no avail - I can't move my arms. I try my legs, and nothing; I bring my head up, trying to figure out why I can't move my body, only to find out I can't lift my head either. I open my mouth to yell, but I can't. God I'm thirsty.

I lay there like a vegetable, observing everything around me. I can hear footsteps. The door to the room opens. A person (a man) walks in. He's wearing a labcoat. Doctor's coat? He looks down at me; I can see him looking down at me. I can see everything; hear everything. The door opens again, and in comes a familiar face.

My breath quickens. My heart starts running a marathon. A lot of beeping sounds erupt. My eyes well with tears; as I stare at him staring right back down at my body. For some reason he can't seem to meet my eyes.

Look at me, I demand, but he does nothing. Anger courses through me like magma in a volcano, and the beeping gets louder. The doctor (I suppose) exchanges a look with him, and he lowers his gaze, as if he's embarrassed. I scream at him to look at me. To look me in the eye and see the thing he broke.

"She seems to be aware of your presence. Unusual; I've never seen it to this extent before," the doctor says, and a bunch of question marks start floating before my eyes.

I'm right here, I say. I can hear you.

They don't reply to me. He looks down at me; at what he's done to me. And I pray and scream and wish that a tear runs down his cheek; that he can see how broken he's made me; that he feels anything. He still does not meet my eyes.

"Why are her eyes open? You said her body was unresponsive."

I hear my own heart break over and over as his voice fills my head. All the other voices are tuned out by his, and suddenly; he's the one haunting me. He's all I see.

"You gave her a paralytic, and have been giving her the same for the past week. Thought about upping your dosage?" the doctor retorts back, and I scream so loud, I hear the bones in my body crack. I want to kill him. I want to kill him so much.

He looks at the doctor and gives him a cold look before asking him to leave us. I cry and beg him to stay. Please don't leave me here with him! Please! But he doesn't hear me. He continues walking out of the room, leaving me alone with the man who scares me more than anything else.

He sighs after the door is closed, and I try to move my arm. To move my foot. A finger. A toe. Anything. As if he can hear my desperate attempt of trying to do anything, he finally looks at me. His eyes are darker than a cloud before rain. He looks at me with so much hatred, and all I ask him is why. Why me?

"I'm guessing you can hear me too, angel," he starts, and I nod my head, but remember that I can't move a single muscle. He scoffs, and turns his back to me, staring out into the black room. He turns again, this time a grin on his lips. "I had really hoped I could change your mind, you know. So we weren't going to end up like this. I was praying that you weren't stupid enough to buy the bullshit I was feeding you everyday, but after doing some digging into you, the entire thing made much more sense.