Re: Chapter 4: Abyss
William fought.
He kicked, he bit, he threw his weight around. He fought them every step. Finally they threw him to the ground and one of the orderlies left to get a sedative while the other sat on him. He wriggled for all he was worth, but the restraints weren't coming off and neither was the weight of the orderly, crushing him against the floor. Finally, he wept. He let his forehead rest against the cool linoleum, and cried harder than he had for years.
He remembered what Susan was going through. They were breaking her, and it broke him to see it happening to her. His mind was a whirlwind, raging and screaming when he was used to it being quiet, so quiet.
The second orderly returned and jabbed a needle in his neck. After a minute William felt a wave of forced calm, felt all his muscles relax, and once he was lying motionless and limp the orderlies hefted him by his arms and dragged him along. It was some sort of relaxant; it took all his willpower to remember to breathe. And he was awake, though he was groggy and his vision was blurred. He was aware.
They took him to a room and propped him up on an examination bed, untied him, then roughly pulled off all of his clothing. A doctor then poked and prodded, and William realized he was getting a checkup. He looked away from the people and focused on the ceiling, trying to ignore the feelings of humiliation and violation, to protect himself, and he fell into old habits, old thought patterns that took his mind away from cold fingers and instruments. As he daydreamed, the doctor checked him over thoroughly. He didn't hear what was said about his health, didn't come out of his own thoughts until he was lifted from the bed.
Naked, he was dragged to a nearby shower block. There, they scrubbed every inch of him with some kind of stinging, disinfecting soap. He stared at the drains the whole time, feeling his breathing quicken as the sedative slowly, slowly wore off. They were preparing him for something. He could twitch his fingers, but not much else. Once he was clean to their satisfaction, one of them took a handful of his hair and lifted his head. He barely felt the discomfort. He saw a nurse approaching with scissors and an electric razor in his hands. A trickle of relief permeated through his otherwise locked down mind; his hair had been long and falling annoyingly in his eyes for weeks. It had been months since his last cut. It was probably longer than Susan's by now.
But the nurse just eyed him, head cocked to the side, and pointed as he spoke, gesturing. William couldn't make out what he said. The sound of water was too loud in his ears. After a few back and forth comments and both orderlies taking turns at roughly grabbing at his hair, the nurse left without doing anything. William was confused as he was flash dried, the water hissing off of his skin and the sudden dry heat making pinpricks of sweat rise painfully through every pore. He remained confused as they quickly dressed him in a plain white, short-sleeved hospital top and long white pants. He could nearly stand by himself. His hands were cuffed again and he was led on a long walk, down elevators and through checkpoints.
Finally, he was deposited in a very strange room. The orderlies walked him in, forced him to sit on the floor, removed his restraints, and left through a door that hissed closed. He leaned back against a pristine white wall, slowly taking in his surroundings as the sedative worked it's way through him. The room was sectioned in half by a perfectly transparent wall. It's surface was broken by a round, slightly concave section in the middle, with seven circles of opaque plastic arranged symmetrically inside. A hexagon, six circles arranged around a seventh in the center. He could see little hinges in the clear plastic, so he assumed they opened and closed. The room was well lit and sterile, a stark counterpoint to the grubby cinderblock of his old cell. He was alone in his half, and the other half, which had it's own door, was empty. After an hour or so, he forgot about his confusion and was able to stand and walk around, and his mind returned to thoughts of Susan, and the whirlwind it had been before the shot of relaxant.
He angrily swiped his damp hair out of his eyes as he paced. How dare she? Drag him back from the brink only to decide to step up to it herself? William cursed and rubbed at his arms. He didn't know what she intended to do, but whatever it was, it scared the hell out of him. He couldn't let her do it. He loved her too much. The look in her eyes... it haunted him. What was it? Fatalism? Resignation? Defeat? He felt tears rising again as he thought about it, but shoved them down. He just needed to talk to her. To tell her that she couldn't. Whatever it was, she just couldn't.