Chapter 5: Despair
Exhaustion won out, and surprisingly Susan slept while she dangled from the chain in the cold room. Her hands and arms had painfully numbed over the hours, and she had drifted off. The mental tumult that had plagued her before was utterly silent. Where there had been chaos and noise, there was now an empty void. She didn't question it, chalked it up to the absence of hope and let her mind stay blank.
When the door finally opened that morning, she assumed it was morning, she looked up and blinked with bleary eyes. She hadn't uttered a single word since the escape attempt, and secretly tried to promise herself that she would never speak to the villains again. So as an orderly held the door open, two more wheeled in a bed. Susan's lower lip trembled at the sight of William under the blankets. He was very still, and had oxygen tubes coming from his mouth. He looked like he had been punched in the face he was so black and blue. His bed was positioned across from her to her left, and the orderlies made themselves busy.
Susan tried to lean over and get a better look at William, but her toes couldn't get a grip on the concrete. A nurse checked over William's monitors, humming to herself as she worked. Through the open door, another orderly brought in a chair and placed it a few feet away and in between Susan and Will, forming a sort of triangle. A small box was brought into the room and placed by the chair. All of this was done with minimum noise and great efficiency. Less than a minute later, Dr. Hewitt stalked into the room with a wolf like sneer on his face. Crossing over to Susan, he leered over her and held up his ID badge up in front of her nose. The one she had tried to smuggle out under the elastic of her hospital shorts.
"Didn't help you much, did it?" he said much too quietly. Slipping it back into his pocket, he leaned down, made eye contact with her, and sank his fist into her gut. The air whooshed out of Susan's lungs and left her wheezing for a breath. Her head spinning, she barely heard the doctor say, "Get started, and don't stop until you're told."
As the air began filling her chest again, Susan felt more than saw the orderly that came up behind her. Grabbing her faded shirt, he tore the back from collar to hem, exposing her back to the chilly room. Fear climbed up her throat with such speed, she choked and coughed. Dr. Hewitt settled into the chair that had been brought in and crossed his legs. He nodded to the orderly behind Susan and a moment later there was a sudden crack! Pain lanced in a strip across Susan's back. It took her by such surprise that she didn't register the pain right away and could only gasp, her eyes wide with shock. She was being whipped! Crack!
Susan clenched her body away from the pain, tears springing to her eyes. Crack! Susan cried out and closed her eyes, her back was burning in agonizing stripes that cut across her flesh. Through her tears, she looked toward William on the bed. They were trying to get a response from him. Crack! She twisted on her chain, willing feeling to come back to her arms so she could move more. It was useless, just like her arms. Crack! She cried out again despite herself and looked at Dr. Hewitt. He was smiling softly, and such an expression of contentment of his face made her sick.
Crack! Crack! Crack! The pain was beginning to overwhelm her senses, like a heavy blanket. Susan let out a scream, it sounded like pain and anger. It let her drown out the punishment for a few seconds. Crack! Time began to pass and blur, she cried out a few times more. Blood began to run from the stripes on her back, and Susan prayed that William wouldn't wake up, and that he would.