The Ongoing Picture Challenge

Forced to Silence

"Take her, please, just leave the money in the mail box," my mother's frantic, hoarse, and dried out voice from her years of smoking spoke out. We had been in major financial debt since my father  got laid off, now I guess this was what she was last resorted to...

"Mom?!" I shrieked, my tone full of desperation and pleading as I tossed and turned in the strong men's grasp like a feral animal. "Please! Please! You can't let them take me away, you can't! I'm your daughter! I love you! Remember all those-"

A sickly green puke-shaded liquid was injected into my arm as the world went black, fading away in spurts and phases. The last thing I noticed was my mother's deep brown eyes, now so dark they looked as black as coal. Her blond hair was frazzled, put into a haphazard bun, but already falling apart, with stray curled platinum blond hair sticking out in odd angles. Her cracked, uneven, white shaded unhealthy lips formed a word, a word that seemed to read "Bye."

"Susanne, it's time for your check up," a harsh and deep male's voice who I had come to recognize as Dr. Croft said from my close right.

There was to be no arguing. No resistance. No disputes. I think the doctors at the institution had made it very clear.

Wordlessly, I stumbled to my feet, reaching a hand out to the wall, feeling around to get a sense of where I was. My hand jammed into a sharp outstretched rough wall, cutting a deep gash into my hand as I felt a warm liquid spill from it; blood.

"Now, now, Susanne, we wouldn't want you getting hurt right before the procedure, would we, dear?" Dr. Croft's deep voice asked me. They said the word procedure as if the hellish thing I would endure was a clean ordinary occurrence.

I was roughly shoved down into what felt like a wheel chair, for "safety." What did they care if their little lab rat injured herself?

I hated the wheel chair. I was shoved into its cold metal surface many a time, to prevent my slow precise walking with one hand on the wall, judging my surroundings. Not only was the chair uncomfortable, but it was so screeching loud. The worst possible sound I had ever heard, which you can imagine was made worse by the fact that hearing and touch were my only senses left. It sounded sharp, piercing, and it felt like a knife being jabbed straight into my ear drum. It sounded like animal nails on a chalkboard, like bloody murder. Like....Like any of the worst sounds you can think of combined. The chair also prevented me from knowing where I was going, or feeling when I was coming to the final destination.

I was newly blind, so I hadn't quite mastered how to see using my other senses. The doctors didn't care about that.

Suddenly I was lifted up by strong calloused hands pulling me upwards by my arm pits. It made my arms hurt and felt like they were being broken. I was tossed carelessly onto an examining table. I had been here too many times.

I felt the cold metal pressing against my back, and I used the tip of my finger to find the three letters I knew were engraved here somewhere. I found them, and traced my finger around each swerve and slide of the letters, moving across the engraved letters "S.O.S' Save Our Souls, indeed...

"How are you feeling?" a quiet feminine voice asked me. A voice that sounded so friendly...but only those who were brought here to be tested on knew the truth. This question was followed by a symphony of chuckles and laughs; they all knew I couldn't answer them, even if I wanted to.

"Well, today I'm going to be gracious, and explain to you what I'm doing, since you can't tell on your own," she explained. I didn't care. I may as well have been dead. "I'm shining this very bright light in your eyes....They're so beautiful. You should be proud."

I had been told how my eyes looked. They were apparently a type of golden brown, with flecks of yellow, and many multiple colors mixed in. I suppose that would be beautiful, but I refused to appreciate it. What good is beauty, when the price of it was to be blinded? I wasn't even made fully beautiful, just my eyes. The malevolent surgeons were testing out the usage of dyes and chemicals in eye color.  The effects would be made permanent. I was also to be blinded.

I didn't agree to this, and never in my life would I. However, my mother sealed my fate in this, just to bring her out of her debt and hardships. She basically sold my soul to the Devil, so she wouldn't feel the consequences. I hated her more and more every day. I had been told she was now a millionaire, for what she did. No one else in the world knew how she got the money. They just that it had happened. She was now living the lifestyle of the rich and famous.

"Aren't you proud of her? Look at all the joy you've brought her!"  The doctors used to coo. No, I was not proud of her, and neither would everyone else if they knew what she did to get where she was. I couldn't even look at that joy, and it was her name to blame.

"Your mouth...is looking...quite... interesting..." the female doctor said very slowly, taking her time getting the words out as I felt her swivel from one side of my head to the other, inspecting their past work.

My mouth was the worst thing they had done. They had stolen my ability to speak, to smile, to pout, to show any emotion. To growl, to hiss, to be the feral animal they made me out to be.

I could recall the numbing pain as they cut my tongue out first, the snip-snapping of the scissors cutting through the room. I couldn't even scream in pain, for they had used these exact medical scissors to cut my vocal chords the day before. They didn't prep me, numb me, or give me any medication to help the pain. To them, I was already dead. I was merely a corpse for them to experiment on.

I don't even remember the point of the whole operation, only one thing stuck in my mind. My vocal chords had been cut, my tongue had been torn from my mouth, my lips had been ripped in various spots, and they had used a syringe to cut my jaw line. To finish it off, they sealed it back together, using several strips of skin to keep my mouth shut.

"Looks like we may have to do some more work!" the doctor maliciously cackled, causing the other doctors and surgeons to join in, too. It was all a game for them. And no matter what, I couldn't win.

I felt a stabbing, gut wrenching pain in my right cheek, and immediately lost consciousness.

I only remember hoping I was dead.