grace under pressure • jerome valeska

CHAP.3: What A Rush

  "No no no! Please! Stop! Stop!" I scream as guards strap me down to a long horizontal chair. I squirm and thrash around wildly but I couldn't get away. They finally strapped me in and I couldn't even move my head. The man that was in a doctor's uniform moved from my chair, and behind me. I could hear something clinking and I cried out. 

  "Hey what are you doin' back there! Hey! Hey I'm talking to you!" I scream at him. I suddenly see him over me, holding a metal rod with two parts curling in with white gauze like things on the round bottoms of them. I knew exactly what those were and I started to thrash once more, shaking the chair. I looked down at the leather straps and I tried to pull on them but it just wouldn't work.

  "Move her hair." The doctor calls out and the guards move the hair away from my face, sticking it over the edge of the chair so it would hang down. I closed my eyes, muttering for him to stop but he simply placed the white ends at my temples. 

  "This will only hurt for a moment." He said and I opened my eyes to glare at him. 

  "Bullshit!" I scream, struggling against my bonds. He tells something to a nurse I didn't even know was there and she went over to a machine that was connected to the metal rods. The doctor put something in my mouth and made it so I couldn't spit it out. I turned to the nurse once more. I could feel my eyes widen as I saw her turn a nob and press a button. I screamed in agony threw the thing in my mouth as I felt as if every nerve in my body was attached to a live wire. My body convulsed violently and my back arched painfully as the electrical current pulsed through me. 

  I saw a flash of my father. He shoved my down the stairs. I broke my collarbone that day. It never fully healed. I saw my mother taking a swing at my jaw and me knocking into the wall. I saw my brothers, using bats to beat me into the ground with their best friend, Sam. I screamed even louder when the shocks intensified. 

   It felt as if this had went on forever before he suddenly stopped and the metal rods came off my temples. I was breathing very fast and my eyes flickered around the room fiercely. I went light head and felt as if I was going to throw up. I kept twitching as the last shocks left my body. I couldn't think straight and my vision was blurry. I could barley feel the nurse untying me and two guards pulling me up and dragging me by my arms out of the room and down the hall. I barley felt it when they stopped in front of my door, opened it, and threw me inside.

  I landed on my knees and stopped myself from landing on my face by putting a hand out in front of me. I couldn't breathe. I closed my eyes and stopped moving. I had learned this trick from when I would have panic attacks after a beating. I stopped breathing for a moment before taking in a long, slow breath. I counted backwards from ten, breathing in and out at each number. When I reached one I opened my eyes. My vision was clear and my lightheadedness had gone away.  I still felt fuzzy though. 

  I tried to stand up but wobbled and ended up back on the ground. I felt something on my face and I touched my cheek. It was wet. I was crying. I let out a low chuckle. You know shit is bad when you can't even tell if your crying or not. I started to laugh more and more. Not really out of amusement but at how bad my situation was. I curled forward, tears rolling down my cheeks and laughter coming from me so much my stomach started to hurt. 

  I didn't know how long I had been laughing/crying before my emotions started to die down. A few more chuckles escaped me before I collected myself, wiped my eyes and stood shakily to my feet. I walked over to my bed and laid down, pulling the scratchy blanket over me. I stared at the wall in front of me blankly. I felt that nothing again. I felt so empty. Like when you didn't eat for a while and you felt those hunger pains. It felt like that but ten times worse. Emotional wise.