S t o r m Cloud

F o r t y T w o

「  F O R T Y  T  W  O 」

:
The feeling of cold fingertips brushing against my arm creeping across hesitantly to my collar bone before resting upon my cheek for a second was enough to disturb me from my hazed sleeping state. It'd felt like I was asleep but I knew I wasn't. Whatever was in the amber liquid that the doctor injected frequently  into my skin was messing with my mind. I could still faintly feel the cold metal slipping in and out of my flesh making my body shudder, goose bumps raising on my skin.

" How was she?"
My body automatically flinching at the sheer sound of the gruff guards voice. His calloused hands touching my exposed skin on my arm. Trying my hardest not to flinch away from his touch I prayed silently in my head that he would let go. His hand trailing to the indented crease of my arm connecting to my elbow. His fingers grazing off the cold metal embedded in my skin. " Not as cooperative as I'd of liked but we can soon fix that." The doctor chastised his footsteps growing closer making it feel as if he was lingering over me. The faint sound of buttons being pressed ringing in my ears. The gruff guard spoke again "So she put up a fight then?" Humour laced in his voice as he removed his fingers from my flesh. " I'd like to try some other treatments on her Kelvin." The pair conversing briefly before the room fell silent.

A burning bright luminous light burned at my skin forcing my eyes open. My vision blurred due to the brightness taking me by surprise, everything within Arkham was always dim and gloomy not this bright. " Slowly raise your head slowly, take everything slowly" the doctor said as he stood over me, the guard no where in sight. "Where's the guard?" I asked tirelessly trying to regain my disorientated sight.              "Kelvin? He's outside, preoccupied if you will." The doctors words sinking in as he paced to my side. "Now let's continue our treatment shall we."

Scarlett sat helplessly numb on a leather chair, thick straps buckled across her ankles and wrists, one across her waist keeping her upright as her head slumped body growing limp as she sat wired up to a heart monitoring machine and IV drip. Her left arm slightly more bruised than the other due to the countless time Doctor Arkham has struggled to find her vein, surprisingly hard which shocked him due to her paled skin. The pair barely engaging in conversation. Scarlett only learning that his name was doctor Arkham. That he mainly seemed more interest in using her as a lab rat monitoring her vitals under this amber liquid that burned her veins. Her body sending her into cold shivers heating up her skin sending her into symptoms of fever. Shuddering were her fallen strands of hair stuck to her face due to the sweat dripping from every pore in her body.
It wasn't until an hour in of being awake like this that the chemical began to take effect. Her vision disorientating, her mind growing cloudy, hazy almost making her limbs fall limp, exhaustion taking over her heavy falling eyelids. Her eyes fluttering, flickering as she began to struggle uncomfortably in her restraints. Doctor Arkham mindless questions that he'd began to bark out aimlessly blocked out in her mind as she began to squirm as she looked past him in his desk chair beside her, his scribbling pen the only sound she could hear as she stared behind him. Her eyes widening in what Arkham could only describe as panic. Furrowing his eyebrows in confusion as to what the poor girl was seeing he glanced behind him, to his displeasure he saw nothing, but to his excitement it settled that finally the drug had settled, every patient reacted differently and this one was going to be entertaining to his research to say the least.

" Get away from me" Scarlett whimpered was she began to wriggle her arms in her restraints, pushing her body back forcing herself further and further into the stiff hardened leather. Her eyes frantically searching around the room, fingers scrunching and unscrunching as she rocked in her place squirming like a worm on a hook, her skin glistening with a cold sweat as her bottom lip trembled. " what do you see Scarlett." Arkham asked only causing for the girls panicked eyes to latch upon him. " You need to let me go please." She pleaded not tears. Burning her already bloodshot eyes. " I'm so sorry—please." She pleaded once more as Arkham began to scribble down notes. Through scarlets eyes she had began to envision the two boys she had been stood with when she had fallen. The two boys she could vaguely remember, they seemed different, darker more frightening than the truth that she knew about them deep down. The two boys staring at her ominously taunting her, their voices like nails on a chalk board, her skin crawling as she whimpered. " Please leave me alone—g-get out of my head." She pleaded throwing her head back biting down on her bottom lip as she scrunched her eyes shut, nails digging into her palms.

It felt like hours of mental torment for Scarlett. Her body coated in a layer of cold sweat as she lay limp like a overly cooked vegetable. Her mind scrambled until the point of over exposure, to the point where she couldn't tell what was up or down. Her eyes barely focusing on the two silhouettes lingering over her, dabbing her down with cold cloths. Her skin had felt like it was on fire, like her body was filled with gasoline and someone had lit a match, burying it into her flesh right before she had erupted into a burning inferno letting out blood curdling screams until her throat became raw. Dr Arkham had made sure of it. Or as he would say he had made her cooperative, submissive, obedient all how they needed they're inmates here. They needed them all but sane.

Scarlett felt the dryness in her throat, the cracks within her chapped lips. Her knees buckled beneath her as two guards took her in their arms dragging her slumped body from her upright position. Her muscles aching and failing to cooperative from being stuck in the same position for hours on end. Her vision still blurred made it difficult for her to navigate her surroundings. She couldn't even tell if she was staring at the floor or the ceiling of the place. The guards words but incoherent mumbles as she muttered to herself groans of protest as their rough fingers dug into her already bruised skin. Before feeling her self being thrown forward landing against the coldness of her hard padded bed. The loud click of the latch being clamped shut comforted her. She was safe from whatever they had done to her. Her eyelids too heavy to open leaving her awake in her mind but trapped within her body. Her trembling self clinging to the mere memories that she could fathom. The only things that she had managed to grasp from that frightening excision with doctor Arkham. Just one of the two boys from her hallucinations. How his messy hair would fall as they swayed on a swing set in a old warn down park on the edge of town, far from home, how he swung his head back laughing as they spun uncontrollably on a contraption before tumbling off into the dead blades of browned grass laughing as they tangled each other's hands in their hair with their brains all eschew from dizziness. " Always, we're best friends—Yknow seeing you with 3 heads is a whole lot funnier than one." His words rattling around her skull. Pulling her eyes open to see a shifting figure of the boy before her, this time much darker like the one from earlier except this time she was able to see him a lot clearer. She was able to see the blood pouring down his hands, from the side of his head as he glared straight at her. " No one should ever trust you." He spat before lunging towards her, his bloodied nails reaching out before disappearing into thin air as she let out a wail of a scream encasing her head between her legs covering herself completely into a ball trying to make herself even smaller. Her finger nails scratching across her skin leaving behind trails of Scarlett red scrambling into her hair pulling at her scalp.

" Whatever that drug shit is, it works." Kelvin the guard scoffed as he watched her through the cctv squirm and tremble in the darkness of her cell. " Shouldn't take her long to mellow out right?"

"Precisely"