by Gold, Amelia
*_*
When the tides change, they change very quickly. My transport happens at night. When the soldiers unchain me from the wall, I find it difficult to move, considering I’d been forced to sit in the same position with very little movement for two days. I am marched outside and thrown into the back of what would been a small meat truck once upon a time. Seven other girls share the space with me.
We come to an agreement that it’s best for us to conserve our energy since most of us have no idea where we are going and we know what the soldiers are capable of doing to us. I fall into a state of semi-sleep as sudden vehicle movements by the truck and random outbursts from some of the more nightmare prone girls keep me from slipping into a more immersive sleep.
After what seemed to us to be an endless drive, the truck door is opened and the light of the sun forces all of us to shut our eyes.
“One-Five-Seven.” One of the soldiers calls out.
The girl sitting next to me stands up and she is pulled out of the truck by the soldiers. Then the door is shut, plunging the truck into darkness again.
“Where do you think they’ve taken her?” One of the girls asks.
“It’s obvious isn’t it?” Says another girl with a child-like voice. “She’s been bought. All of us have been sold to someone. I hope she gets a rich guy. They’re all ugly but at least they’ll have a nice place.”
I suppress a laugh as I seriously start to wonder what planet the girl’s been on. She’s still having some sort of princess dream where her buyer will also be her Prince Charming and he might actually set her free from the kind of life that the soldiers had planned for us.
“I heard that they’ll move us to a different house every night so that no one ever knows where we are.” Says a third girl with a husky voice.
My time at the base was mostly spent in solitary confinement of some sort – some more painful than others, but always by myself. These girls seem to have already bonded with each other. I realize that my experiences over the past week have been very different to everyone else’s.
“What do you think Myc?” The first girl asks me.
“Me?” I’m surprised that they would ask for my input.
“Hash told us what happened to you.” The girl with the husky voice explains.
“I’m very sorry but I don’t know any of your names.” I admit, embarrassed. They were all from different intakes to mine. I think their selections were more recent.
“Doesn’t matter.” Says the first girl. “We’re all going to be separated today so you probably won’t see us again.”
“But you all know mine.” I reply, slightly uncomfortable.
“Who doesn’t know your name now?” Says another girl from the back of the truck.
Great. This means that by now, everyone has either seen footage of or heard about my selection.
“You guys were discussing where they might be taking us.” I try to bring them back onto topic.
“Yeah but we’re all just guessing. You’re different. You know.” Says the first girl.
I’m beginning to understand some of the hesitation that Hash displayed when I had asked him the same question. I did eventually get the answer out of him but now I can see why he thought it better not to answer me at first. It actually has nothing to do with the guilt associated with being the bearer of bad news. It’s the complete lack of information that makes it even more difficult to be the messenger. He didn’t want to tell me a half truth. And since I know even less than he does, I’m going to have to tell these girls a quarter truth.
“I don’t know the specifics.” I tell them. “Like I don’t know exactly where each of us will end up. But I know the kinds of places that we are likely to be put into.”
“Which are?” Asks the girl from the back of the truck.
“We’re going to be institutionalized. There are no private buyers in any of this.” I tell them.
Institutionalization
I am choking as ice cold water is being hosed into my face. This procedure has less to do with cleaning than it has to do with their need to keep on humiliating me. I am lying on the floor of the showers inside Hvin Prison which is just outside Hvin, the capital of Hven.
The prison guard is waiting for me to beg him to stop but I’m not going to give him the satisfaction. Eventually (due to water restrictions) he turns it off, leaving me to shiver with cold.
“Get up.” He commands.
I try not to make too much noise as I push myself off the floor. Of course I am not given a towel so I follow him, dripping wet, out of the shower. He leads me down the hall into an empty room with a desk and a chair in the middle. At least I’m given something to sit on this time. That’s actually an improvement to how I was treated by the army. He closes the door and turns the lights off, leaving me in almost complete darkness.
I take the opportunity to consider my current situation. I am still weak but my injuries have mostly healed. My most recent couple of days have been relatively quiet and I got to spend them in the company of people whom I could call friends. In this prison, it is clear that there will be no friends to speak of. There is also the chance that I could be treated worse than how I was treated by the army. They say that when you are hurt, you often don’t feel it until after because sometimes adrenalin masks the pain. Now that the adrenalin rush is over and I am semi-healed, I never want to experience that kind of pain ever again.
*_*
Eventually the lights come back on and, after blinking for a moment, I can see that the guard who was present at my handover from the soldiers has come into the room.
“Good evening.” He greets me with feigned politeness.
“Hi.” I reply shortly.
He sneers before asking for my name.
“Myc.” I reply.
“I’m Vyr.” He smiles.
I just nod, waiting for him to get to the main part of the evening.
“I’ve been told that you like watching videos.” He tells me as he presses a button and a screen comes down from the ceiling.
I try my best not to look at the screen.
“What do you think you are going to be shown?” He laughs at my reaction.
“Some things shouldn’t be shown.” I tell him.
“Perhaps.” He allows but presses play anyway.
The screen shifts to another room. There is a girl lying on the floor of the room on her side.
Another soldier walks into the frame. “What are you?” He asks her.
“I’m a pathetic piece of shit.” When she looks up, I can see that the light has gone from her eyes.
He kicks her so that she rolls over onto her back. “What do we do with you?”
“Whatever you like.” She replies. Clearly she has been through this many times before.
He lifts his foot and then digs his boot into her chest. Repeatedly. She does not protest as he continues to assault her.
“You like that don’t you?” He asks her as he rests his foot on her breast.
“Yes…” She whispers.
“What are you good for?” He continues to question her.
“Being fucked.” She says. Her answers have become automatic and ingrained.
At this point, I have to look away because it’s just too degrading. This girl has no sense of self left. She isn’t just saying those horrible things about herself to please her abusers anymore.
“Please turn it off.” I tell him as the guards have started to rape her on screen and she thanks them.
“Are you scared?” He asks me.
“No.” I tell him.
He sees through the lie and smiles. “This is Lyth. She has been with us for just two months. I could tell you her life story but I don’t think that you really need to know. This is who she is now.”
“Why are you showing me this?” I ask him.
“Because you are going to meet her.” He replies, switching off the footage.
“This is how the program works.” H
e explains. “Every girl that enters the program takes the place of the girl before her. It’s only natural.”
He’s going to kill her. And he’s going to make me watch her die. That’s what he’s trying to tell me – that when my time comes, another girl will be watching footage of me and then I will be killed before their eyes.
“Then I don’t want to be in the program.” I tell him.
“I don’t think that I was asking you.” He smiles.
It wouldn’t be the first time that I had seen someone die since my capture and I get the feeling that it won’t be the last.
“After you.” He says as he stands up.
Knowing that I have no choice in the matter, I head in the direction that he indicates. He opens another door on the other side of the room. I am not surprised to see that the room we go into is the same room from the video. I am surprised to see that the guards are still using Lyth. At this point, I come to realize that I was not watching a pre-recorded video but I was actually being shown a live screening.
Vyr does not stop them immediately, preferring to make me watch the rape. I wish that I could close my eyes but I can’t. Not when it’s happening right here right now. I know what they are waiting for. They are waiting for me to say something. They are waiting for me to try to stop them doing this to the poor girl. I don’t want to say anything because once I open my mouth, I probably won’t be able to shut it. I am also painfully aware that I am witnessing the last moments of Lyth’s life. I may be able to influence her suffering to some degree but I will not be able to change her fate. Should I try to stop something horrible being done to her, knowing that something worse is about to happen to her?
“You’re enjoying this.” Vyr says to me.
“I can’t stop you.” I tell him.
“Everyone, meet Myc.” Vyr says loudly.
The other three guards in the room stop assaulting the girl and turn their attention to me. I keep my eyes fixed on Lyth. She is breathing heavily from the assault.
“She will do the honours for us.” He says as he hands me his gun.
I stare at him with disbelief. He doesn’t just want me to witness Lyth’s death. He wants me to kill her myself. I don’t even know how to fire a gun. And if I did, I would not be aiming the bullet at Lyth.
“Considering that I don’t even know how to hold this thing, how do you expect me to be able to shoot it?” I ask him.
“You’ll work it out.” He tells me. “It’s actually not that hard to kill someone. It might be harder to forgive yourself after the fact but the act itself couldn’t be easier.”
I briefly consider dropping the gun on the floor to protest how stupid the situation is but it might accidentally set the gun off.
“If it’s so easy, why don’t you do it?” I ask him, annoyed.
“So you agree that she should die.” He replies.
“I didn’t say that.” I tell him. But I know what he’s saying.
“You have not once asked that she should live. You have only been concerned with how she dies. Not the death itself.” He smiles.
I can’t honestly say that I care enough for the girl to really feel either grief or remorse if she does die – which is completely wrong. I should feel something. But I don’t.
Transformation
Lyth’s eyes are not like anything that I’ve ever seen before. I can’t shoot her. Of course I can’t. But then why am I standing over her with a gun in my hands? I can’t find anything in them that I know. Hope and self-preservation are completely absent. She has reached a state of being terrorized for too long and she can’t remember what it was like before the terror took over.
“All you have to do is pull the trigger.” Vyr speaks into my ear.
I don’t even say sorry to her. I just close my eyes because I do not want to see what I have become. Then I can feel my hands shaking and I sink to my knees. I’m not aware that I’m crying until I feel something wet sliding down the side of my face. I don’t want to open my eyes because I don’t want to see what I’ve done.
“What you are feeling right now. Embrace it.” Vyr tells me. “Because you will never have to feel it again.”
He’s right in that the experience of being forced to watch someone get raped and then having to shoot that person will probably never be repeated but he’s wrong about the lengths that I will go to survive. If I am forced to shoot again, I probably will.
Someone takes the gun from my hands and Vyr tells me to get up.
When I finally open my eyes, I can see that I didn’t just shoot her once. I fired at least four bullets into her and there are multiple wounds on her chest. I’m not sure why I did that but I think I was terrified that I would leave her lingering. I wanted to make sure that she was dead because if she didn’t die straight away then she would be in unspeakable pain for as long as it took for her life to slip away.
“I was right.” Vyr smiles at me. “It was easy, wasn’t it?”
“Yes it was.” I admit.
*_*
After I murder Lyth, the guards do not let me rest. They put me straight to work, raping me in the room next door, where I was being held earlier.
“Bend over.” Vyr commands.
I lean on my front so that the top half of my body is lying on the interrogation table while my feet remain on the ground. The guards waste no time in taking turns to sodomise me.
Vyr pulls my head up off the table and speaks into my ear. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”
I can’t say anything in reply without screaming so I stay quiet.
“Remember it.” He continues to whisper into my ear. “Remember what you are here for.”
*_*
The cell that they put me in is very small. There is barely enough room to lie down and absolutely no source of light whatsoever. I sit against the wall like I had done in the medical cell at the army base. The door closes and I am locked in completely.
I have not had a chance to process what I did. I’ve never done that kind of thing to anyone before. I’ve never killed. I’ve watched people I know get killed – like Mira and Ath. I’ve watched people I don’t know get killed – like the Knax populace of Bass Village. But now, I am not just a witness anymore. I am a murderer myself.
I’m beginning to understand why they had handed me a gun without fearing that I would turn it on them. Even if I was crazy enough to try that, there were three other guns in the room. I had considered that. See if I couldn’t shoot one of the guards. Then of course reality hits me and I know that I can’t do it. Not because the guards were going to shoot me or torture me if I tried but because I just couldn’t.
I wasn’t a murderer. Until now. Yes I was forced to do it. But it doesn’t change the fact that I was the one who pulled the trigger. I was the one who took a life without even acknowledging that person. I had no interaction with Lyth at all and in all honesty, had no particular feelings toward her. At that point, if I had been asked to shoot a cow, I would not have felt any different toward the cow.
I can see myself changing and I don’t like what I’ve become. If I came across mum and Mish now, I wouldn’t even be able to look them in the eyes. Yes, I know that what I did was wrong but I can’t say that I feel any remorse about it. I feel horrible for firing a gun but I can’t say that I feel anything for the person that got shot. This is what Kov had meant by apathy.
Assignment
I am taken to Cell 209 to spend the night with its inmates. Hvin Prison is the largest prison in Hven for serious crimes. As far as I’m concerned, the guards were not that much better than the prisoners but that’s probably just because of the “program” that I’ve been put in. I’m sure that the guards treat their family back home very well.
“She’s all yours.” Says Ab, my supervising guard. He was the one who had hosed me on my first day.
“I haven’t fucked a girl since like forever.” Says one of the inmates. He is bald and heavily tattooed.
“Have fun.” Says the other
inmate, who is clean shaven and wears contact lenses.
I just stand there, not moving and not speaking.
“Relax man. I’m not going to fuck you yet.” Says the first inmate.
Great, he prefers to have a chat first.
“What’s your name?” He asks me.
“Myc.” I tell him.
“I’m Gav.” He says. “Where are you from Myc?”
“Kynn.” I tell him the name of my town.
“That’s good to hear. I’m from Hvin.” He continues. “Shut up Zeb.”
The other inmate is laughing at his false civility.
“You know what he’s in here for?” Gav asks me, pointing to his cellmate.
“No.” I shake my head.
“Tell her.” Says Gav.
“I killed my boss.” Zeb shrugs.
“That’s nice to know.” I reply, sarcastic.
“You wanna know what I’m in here for?” Gav asks me.
I really don’t but I am obviously not going to argue with him.
“What?” I glare at him.
“I fuck my girl and she goes to the police.” He laughs. “But we’re together man. She was acting like I was being horrible to her.”
If she did report him to the police, I don’t blame her.
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask him.
“Because he wants you to insult him.” Says Zeb. “It’s easier for him to use you when he’s angry.”
“Of course.” I mutter.
“You haven’t asked us any of the important questions yet.” Zeb remarks.
“Like what?” I ask him.
“Like you just accepted that I killed someone but you didn’t ask how or why.” He says.
“I don’t want to know.” I tell him.
“You won’t have to hear it.” He smiles. “I’ll show you.”
He approaches me and I don’t try to move away. There is nowhere to go to and I can’t fight them off.
“You take this.” He holds up a small white scarf. “Then you wrap it around the person’s neck.” He performs the action on me as he explains. “Then you twist it and you fold it until the knot doesn’t come out. He was fighting back, mind you. He didn’t just stand there like you are. Then you grasp both ends and you pull.”