The Monster [H.S.]

Chapter 10

For the first time in 10 years I don't wake up suddenly with fear. I slowly open my eyes, black leather being the only thing I see. I try and sit up but I cant, something is weighing me down and now I jolt upward. I thrash, desperately trying to get it off.

I can feel myself become more and more panicked and I breathe in and out furiously to stop myself from panicking.

When I feel I have regained myself I slowly try and lift it off but it's stuck and I'm underneath it. I'm stuck and I can't get out.

I'm stuck.

• • • • • • •

I sit up slowly, waiting to be weighed down but it doesn't happen. It was just a dream: or maybe a nightmare.

I don't recognise this. This isn't Harry's room, and it isn't the control room I was in. I'm lying on a bed, unsure of how I got here, when I hear a gun shot.

Instinctively I roll off the bed and crouch behind it, looking around the room for anyone else, but there's no one.

I stay crouched for a while, my breathing heavy with nothing to defend myself with.

I look around the room, and I don't know why I didn't before. Is it real? I have never seen such luxury. The bed I rolled off is bigger than my room back 'home', and a large set of drawers that aren't scratched, or have paint peeling off sits opposite underneath what I think is a television. It's so big. So flat.

Back at camp we have televisions with huge blocks at the back and aren't big at all. The walls are plain cream, not grey, or wooden or cement, just cream. A nice colour, if I'm honest. The light is like nothing I've ever seen. Its like the one from the infirmary. It's so bright and I don't understand it. The only thing brighter is the sun.

A painting covers the wall to the right of the bed next to the door. It's an oil painting of a vase with some flowers. I know I may be in danger, but I just can't help myself not to touch it.

I get up from the floor and walk slowly over to the painting as I stare at it in awe. We have some back in camp that people had in their homes before the war but nothing like this. Nothing quite as exquisite.

I reach my finger up and trace the outline of the vase, up the stem and around the petals.

The handle on the door turns downward and I quickly turn my back to the wall and slide down it.

There's a couple of footsteps before a man emerges and I know exactly who it is; but it's not a man.

I hate calling them 'he' and 'man' but they look like them, talk like them and act like them. I'll be damned before I call Paul Higgins and his disciples 'he' on purpose, even though I occasionally do by force of habit, but with Harry I will make an exception. Harry is different. I understand he beats me and says harsh words, but I feel like he's their version of myself and it verges on intriguing me.

Ever since I met him I've called him Harry. Maybe that's because at first I didn't know who he was, or maybe because I was drugged mostly, but I never have. Its very informal and may give him some ignorant thought that I trust him and he can use it to manipulate me, but the truth is I'm not sure why. I just do.

"What the hell are you doing?" he looks down to me, his face distorted with confusion.

"Where am I?" I snap, standing immediately so he doesn't tower me quite as much.

"You're at the house, we told you" his eyebrows are furrowed and he looks at me like a piece of dirt.

A memory of vaguely listening to Paul as he rambled on about the house comes to mind.

"What do you keep injecting into me?" I ask as he goes through the drawers. I wonder what it even in those.

He doesn't answer, back to his reserved ways. He only ever opens up when things are heated and it pisses me off. Maybe I should make him angry and ask him.

"Why amen't I chained?" I ask.

He still doesn't answer and I roll my eyes with frustration.

"Tell me what is going on!" I scream, and he stops going through the drawers and turns his head slightly.

"Stop shouting" he simply says.

"Stop shouting? Stop breathing!" I yell, and he has me up against the wall before I even realise we have moved.

I grab his wrist to pry him off, the pressure on my throat becoming tighter before I kick him in the crotch which I hope hurts on them.

He weakens slightly and I pull him away, twisting his arms round and cracking it down, before he twists it back and uses his foot to attempt to trip me over. At the last moment, I grab his t-shirt and haul myself up before punching him in the face which hurt like hell.

Suddenly he lift up my shirt, slapping me across my stomach with such force my body trembles slightly at the contact and I collapse to the floor.

I cough repeatedly, the wounds from the whip opening. Suddenly I feel bile rise in my throat, and I grab the smallest bin I have ever laid eyes on and empty whatever might be in my stomach.

They have mainly had to force feed me because I refuse to willingly feed from their hands.

I open my shirt with my hand, careful to try not to touch it and silently whimper at the sight. I am slightly winded from him and struggle to get air in, but when I do the wound opens slightly because of my furious gasping, and I am forced to vomit again.

"What's wrong?" I hear Harry ask but I can't reply.

Blood and things I don't know of drip from the wounds and I can't focus straight. My head is blurry with dizziness but I can't pass out again. I try to focus on the wall but as I think back to my red swollen chest I gasp for air.

I want to rip off whatever clothing I'm wearing because I'm becoming too hot and I feel sweat dripping down my forehead. I fall back but I don't hit the floor as strong arms wrap around my shoulders, my back held up by his knee.

"What do I do? Tell me what to do?!" He almost sounds panicked as he stretches his head to the window to see if anyone is outside.

But I don't know what to do. I feel my breathing slow and my heart struggle to beat and with one last breath I close my eyes, emerald greens fading from view.