Conflate | Bellamy Blake ¹ ✓

✯ | chapter seventeen

❝you know what it's like to be unmade?❞

-clint barton, the avengers

♛

LINCOLN HAD MADE IT sound like a walk in the park compared to what actually happens after the intake doors.

I don't even have the thoughts left to feel embarrassed about them removing all of my clothes. All I can feel is pain. The agony is so fierce that it feels like I'm being dunked in lava. It's all happening at once- the burning, the stretching, choking, feeling like my skin is being peeled off. My entire body is so rigid it feels sore.

A person in a suit and gas mask blasts me with a white powder that makes my cells practically fry themselves. I have to turn away from it and shut my eyes so it doesn't get into them. However, I can't move much beyond that- the shackles on my neck, wrists, and ankles prevent that from happening.

The water brings no relief. If anything, it makes me feel even worse until my knees start to buckle. I cry out when I realize that the water is boiling hot, steaming against my skin. My breaths come out in shuddering gasps as I sputter the water that's going into my mouth.

And then it's over, but it doesn't feel like it. My entire body is still on fire when I'm dried off and a syringe is injected in my arm. And another. And another.

And then they take out an injector made of metal. It has a long barrel and it's about as wide as that of a rifle. They insert some sort of circular pill before pushing it into my mouth, stopping just before it would activate my gag reflex. After the doctor presses a trigger, the pill shoots into my throat and causes me to choke until I'm gasping for breath.

More boiling water. It's so hot that it's cold, soaking me in anguish that only intensifies when they start scrubbing me down with a brush. I can hear the gurgled screams of the other's ringing in my ears over the roar of the faucets.

The person holding the brush is anything but gentle. They scrub my skin with ruthless endeavor, ridding it of every speck of dirt they can. It cuts through layers of sweat and blood. I find myself wincing when they go over bruises and cuts and scrapes that litter my body. And it hurts so badly that I don't know if I can take the pain any longer.

And just when that thought passes through my head, I black out.

I come to my senses to find my skin still tinged with a slight burn. And the fact that I'm curled up in a cage.

I jump, then wince when my head hits the top. The cage is just big enough for me to sit in normally, even bigger if I were to scrunch in a ball. Everything is tined a strange blue haze. My fingers latch onto the sides, only to retract in surprise when they touch someone's skin.

"Du yu hod daun?" a girl to the left of me questions snarkily. Her voice is weak as if she's been drained of energy. When I try to look at her, I discover her head is leaning against the wall of the cage that separates mine from hers. A curtain of hair obscures her face.

"Biyo moba," I reply, thankful that Lincoln at least taught me the basics.

The girl lifts her head and eyes me suspiciously. Her irises appear black in the lack of bright lighting, and her face is covered in cuts and bruises. I can see white patches on her frail body that have blood showing through them.

But my eyes drift past her and land on the crumpled shape of Bellamy in the next cage over. He's unconscious, it seems, with his body curled around itself on the bottom of his cage. It's impossible if he's alright from so far away. I feel my face fall in worry, my fingers loosening around the bars. My stomach twists uncomfortably.