Inside

by Kyra Anderson

  When the scientist reached his position next to Eun, I stopped, petrified, watching the poker slowly descend to Eun’s knee, pressing into her flesh, melting the cloth of her blue pants and searing her flesh in a bubbling hiss that I could hear over the intercom. The hiss was quickly covered by Eun screaming in agony around the cloth. She coughed, screaming and trying to breathe as she panicked, twisting to get away from the burning iron.

  “Stop it!” I bellowed.

  No one in the other section of the room gave any indication that they heard my desperate plea.

  They moved the iron up Eun’s leg, pressing it just above the first injury. She screamed again, the sound shrill and loud despite the fabric in her mouth. I cringed at the noise, trying to turn away from the sizzling flesh, but my head would not move, strapped against the back of my chair. I could only close my eyes tightly, trying to ignore the horror.

  However, when a far more painful scream sounded, my eyes snapped open and focused back on the room where Eun’s body was arching, fighting against the poker pressing another horrible burn to the upper part of her thigh.

  The scientist with the poker moved away and the woman who was running this horrible exercise in torture reached to the table she had uncovered after Eun’s third burn. She picked up a bottle with a nozzle, spraying the liquid over the gaping burns. Eun’s scream dislodged the cloth from her mouth and set my teeth on edge, rattling my bones.

  I pulled at my restraints, watching the bubbling of Eun’s flesh on her leg as the burns were further aggravated by whatever the solution in the bottle was.

  “Stop it!” I screeched, jolting my body, trying to overwhelm the joints of the chair. “Dana! I know you’re watching this, you sick fuck!” I screamed. “Call it off! If you want to torture someone, torture me! This is pointless! All you’re doing is pissing me off!!”

  I had a feeling that Dana was chuckling. It sounded down my spine in a shuddering crescendo…

  This was exactly what he wanted.

  The poker returned, but this time, they pressed it to Eun’s collarbone. Another scientist forced a strip of cloth between her teeth, pulling tight and locking her head in place on the back of the chair. Eun screamed again.

  I pulled and pulled at my restraints. The chair was jumping around on the floor as I tugged, trying everything in my power to get free. I was sure that I could use the chair to break the glass and, therefore, get to Eun. The tears were streaming down her face, which was contorting in pain even when the poker was not against her flesh.

  The woman with the poker laughed and moved the iron further down Eun’s chest, pressing it to the top of her right breast with a horrible smile, relishing in Eun’s tormented cries.

  I jerked my legs violently and managed to break one of the legs of the chair. Stepping firmly on the cement, I pulled my wrists with all the strength in my body, feeling the wood of the right arm strain and finally give way, the metal plate that held the leather strap to the chair ripping free.

  I heard another scream and looked up quickly to see Eun’s other breast being burned, the women teasing her about how they could not have her asymmetrical.

  “Grab her!” one guard snapped, starting toward me. I turned the back of the chair to him and backed up awkwardly, blocking him from getting to me. As the other was coming up in front of me, I kicked at him, hitting his knee and causing him to fall to the ground in pain. However, the attack made me lose my balance and I found myself on the ground, breaking the other leg of the chair and twisting my ankle horribly.

  Forcing myself up, using the chair as my shield against the other guard, I hobbled to the glass.

  The guard grabbed the chair to hold me still. I reached up with my free hand, clawing at the side of his head and tangling my fingers in his hair, pushing his head with all my strength into the glass. There was an audible crack and the man let out a gurgle of pain, though Eun’s scream drowned it out. I did not look at her, glaring at the guard.

  “You think you’re in pain?!” I bellowed, pulling him by his hair away from the glass and slamming his face back into it. “Look at her and tell me if you think I care about your pain!”

  I slammed his head once more into the glass, watching his eyes slide shut.

  Dropping him to the ground, I turned to Eun, seeing the scalding, red wound on her neck, surrounded by burnt flesh and blistering skin.

  The poker was being heated again.

  Angrily, I grabbed the chair, which was still attached to my left wrist, and hurled it viciously into the glass, though it bounced back harmlessly, dragging me down with the force of the rebound. I was about to throw it once again, but I caught sight of the other guard quickly hobbling to me.

  He grabbed the chair and pulled it away, dragging both of us to the ground as I tried to scratch in retaliation.

  He lifted the syringe in his hand and plunged it into my arm angrily, emptying the contents as I tried to escape.

  My limbs began to feel heavy, and I slowly teetered as I tried to stand, falling back down and hitting my head on the overturned chair, causing another jolt to my system before I blacked out.

  When I opened my eyes, I was in my cell, staring at the concrete under my face. Groaning, I forced myself to my hands and knees, breathing hard and sweating from the drugs they had used to put me out.

  I took a few deep breaths and then slowly turned, wanting to see if they had finally cleaned the corpse out of my cell. Peering over my shoulder, I glanced at the middle of the cell.

  There was no one there.

  Relieved, I sat up and took a few more deep breaths, running my hands over my head, pushing my hair back. I cringed as the torn skin around my wrists was agitated by the cuffs of my shirt.

  It took me a while to remember Eun’s torture. I hoped that they had stopped after I had been knocked out. It was painful to think that she was only tortured because Dana somehow knew it was going to get under my skin. She had done nothing to deserve what had happened. Her only crime was being someone I cared about.

  That hurt more than anything.

  She probably did not even know what she was being tortured for. She probably thought she had done something wrong, or that she was being punished for escaping the Commission of the People.

  I felt sick at the thought of her innocent ignorance.

  When the food came several hours later, I could not think to touch it. Not only did it not look appetizing, but my stomach was turning and twisting inside of me, doing flips and tying itself into knots with my intestines. It was disgusting.

  I was focused on Eun, wondering if she was still alive, or if Dana had used her for what he needed and killed her without regard.

  There was something building inside of me, sharp as nails and hot as lava, running through my organs and my veins, building to an almost intolerable heat.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to regain control of myself, but there was nothing I could do to stop the growing pressure in my chest. Pretty soon, I was sure that my whole body was going to explode, coating the pristine white walls in blood and bone.

  Every time I filled my lungs to capacity—which I found to be much more than I recalled before—there was a flash behind my eyelids of searing flesh and screams that pulled at the lowest part of me and made me feel like my spine was being ripped out by my tailbone.

  Suddenly, these flashes were reality.

  There was a scream that echoed through my cell, a scream I recognized immediately, recalling the circumstances for that horrid sound from memory unwillingly.

  I leapt to my feet, listening to the final echoes of the scream reverberate through the corners of my cell. My eyes were wide, my breath short as I tried to find where the sound originated from. The vibrations died away and I was left in the middle of my cell, looking around the walls frantically, terrified.

  Assuming that I was hallucinating again, I slowly relaxed, deciding that I was not going to let my own brain trick me as it had previously. I dropped
my shoulders and stood straight, walking to the glass wall and looking outside, glancing back and forth along the hallway. The experiment in the cell across from me was asleep. Even she had lost interest in watching me. A few of the others were quietly eating the food that had been brought to them, none of them seem disturbed. They had not heard anything. It was all in my head.

  I sighed and stepped back from the glass wall.

  The scream resonated again and I jumped, whirling around, expecting to see Eun in the cell with me, being burned and tortured. Her scream was so close, I was sure that she was there with me.

  But the cell remained vacant apart from me.

  I counted the seconds before the cell fell silent again, glancing at each corner.

  My heart was starting to thud a frightened rhythm against my ribs. There was a constant prickling of my skin as I waited for the sound to return.

  It’s coming…

  I stayed still, my whole body anticipating the return of the sound. Even my blood had slowed to stay as quiet and still as possible in anticipation. I was a deer that had heard the snapping of a twig and was looking for the predator lying in wait.

  To my surprise, I was able to stay in the tense position for hours, waiting, expecting each moment to be the one when I heard the scream again.

  But the thing that made me jump first was the sound of the food slot opening and the tray sliding into the cell.

  I spun at the noise, turning and finding myself snarling at the young man pushing the meal into the cell. He looked concerned, but not frightened. He let the door slide shut, clicking the latch into place before he moved on with the rest of the group to give food to Eyna.

  I stepped over to the tray, sitting next to it and staring at the contents, trying to muster up some sort of appetite.

  Instead, I reached for the cup of water, deciding that was better to try and quell the hot lava tossing in my belly.

  I sipped quietly, my eyes focused on the ground.

  Once again, the water was hard to swallow. It felt like trying to force down rocks that sat heavy and hard in my stomach.

  The screaming returning.

  Shrill and sharp, the sound pierced through the quiet air and I jolted from my seated position, furious.

  “Shut up!!” I screamed, throwing the rest of the water onto the floor as I hurled the cup into the vastness of the cell. The screaming sounding again, not allowing the first horrific sound to disappear into the walls. And, for a third time, the screaming continued.

  “Shut up! Shut the fuck up!!!” There was nothing I could do. I had to destroy the noise. I ran to the walls around the room, pounding on them with my fists and screaming madly, trying to drown out the noise of the repetitive horror as I attempted to tear down the walls of the cell. Either I had to find a way to get out, or I had to find a way to destroy the one who was making the horrible screeching noise.

  I yelled and ran to another wall, slamming into it with my entire body, ignoring the pain in my shoulder as I clawed at the wall before kicking it and pounding at it with my fists.

  Again, the screaming pierced the air.

  I ran to the half wall that concealed the toilet and tried to break it down. I had to destroy anything I could. There had to be a way to get out, to break the noise and break the walls containing me.

  I was going to find a way.

  The wall would not budge, so I turned to the toilet and covered my ears as the screaming continued.

  “Stop it!!!”

  I fell to my knees and curled forward, trying to drown out the horrible noise, my eyes about to explode, my teeth rattling, the sound shredding every nerve in my body. I hit my forehead against the ground once…twice…three times…until I clawed my way to the toilet and shoved my head in as deep as I could, the water doing little to drown the horrible cacophony, my ears pressed against the cold metal of the rounded seat. My throat was being pressed by the front edge of the oval, and even though I knew it would not be long before I was yanked out of the water by the ever-vigilant guards, I entertained the thought of killing myself before they arrived.

  The scream flew above me, bombarding my back with its vibrations. I mirrored the sound, letting all the air out of my lungs as I pressed my throat harder against the metal.

  The nails scraping my scalp told me the guards had arrived.

  They yanked me back by my hair and the back of my neck, tossing me to the ground as I choked and spluttered, my eyes wild around the room, unable to focus.

  The echoes were dying, fading into the room. I looked around, trying to see what had changed in my surrounding. There was a black figure in the white colors of the cell, standing near the half-wall, blocking my way to the possibility of drowning.

  Just as I had when I was drowning from testing, I recovered quickly, but crawled into the corner and rocked back and forth, my hands covering my ears from future attacks as I waited for the next bombardment.

  The attacks continued the next day.

  Not long after the next ignored meal entered my cell, the screaming resumed. I was not the only one who jumped. The guard did as well, cringing against the noise as I began to panic, my eyes going wide and my breath coming in pants.

  “No, no, no, no, no, no…” I chanted aloud, trying to cover my ears, or even rip them off so I would not hear the horrible sounds of my failure.

  That was what the screaming had become. Failure. Failure to protect, not just Eun, but everyone from the Commission of the People. A constant reminder of bullets ripping through wings and foreheads, tanks crushing bones and organs, and jeeps pulling apart limbs.

  I was painfully intact physically and crumbling mentally.

  For twelve meals I endured the screaming, sometimes running around the room screeching and bashing at the walls until I rounded on the black spot that was standing against his white background. The stain frightened me, and I would back away, crouching in the corner and staring at him, expecting him to open his mouth and let out that horrid sound…

  A few times, I was sure he did.

  The stain changed once in-between meal deliveries and once at every meal time. There were four black spots that wandered in and out of the cell, making me uncomfortable and unsettled. I did not use the toilet, instead staying in the other corner of the room. That was when the blue stains would come into the white room and clean up the mess I had made while avoiding the black stain.

  For three days, the four faces were the same, until three of them changed. I had seen their faces grow paler each day as they hesitantly stepped into the cell. It was obvious that even the guard was being horribly afflicted by the constant screams.

  Finally, when the screaming sounded, that hot ball of lava and nails ripped out of me.

  I was no longer screaming when the sound rolled around the room like thunder. I was hiding, shying away from the noise, sometimes crawling along the walls in an attempt to escape. This time, I was crawling toward the glass, my head bent low to bear the attack of the noise, and I turned to look at the black stain. He had been very pale the last time I had seen him, and now he looked just as sick and terrified as ever. However, his face was different. It was not pale, it was chalky, dead, even. And his eyes were darker, his hair had changed. And there was a constant stream of blood rolling over his bottom lip and down the front of his shirt, sliding along his chin and his neck, where a jagged scar could be seen marring the line of his jaw.

  I screamed at the same terrified and agonized pitch as Eun, both of us seeing her brother standing, eyes focused ahead of him, blood from his torn throat pouring out of his mouth.

  The thread snapped.

  I reached up to my hair and pulled, my broken and torn fingernails ripping hot gashes in my scalp, my fingers coming away tangled with fine rope as I bellowed and screamed into the room. I ignored the rope around my fingers, turning my nails on my own body, tearing at my chest, pulling at the fabric as the threads caught in the broken crevices of my nails. My neck soon was searing with hot gas
hes that allowed the lava to pour out of me, finally giving release to the pressure that had been building inside.

  Relieved by the feeling, I began clawing at my neck, moving down my chest and pulling at the buttons to reach more of my skin. I had to release the lava or it would burn me from the inside out…

  The stain turned, and I saw the horrific face of the man I had killed in the cell a week previous.

  Ripping the sleeves away from my wrists, I bit deeply into my flesh, ripping the skin and muscle away to allow the gaping wound to release the lava. I could feel the heat eating away at my flesh, causing those gaping sores that were festering with yellow pus to erupt with blood and magma.

  Lifting my hand to my face, I bit into my other arm, allowing the blood to splash into my mouth as I tore the flesh.

  There were hands on my shoulders, pulling me backward and throwing me to the ground as I screamed, covering the recorded scream with my own symphony of cries. I was flipped onto my stomach, my face pressed into the concrete as my arms were brought behind my back. The man was yelling hurriedly, ordering for help, though my screams drowned out most of his words.

  I felt something force its way between my teeth, opening my jaw and keeping me from closing my mouth entirely. Then, a musky smell surrounded me as my world plunged into black.

  Hands were guiding my body upright and quickly ushering me forward, two hands locked around my bleeding wrists, stopping the flow out of my body. I fought them. I had lanced the wound and they were not letting the pressure drain. It hurt. Everything hurt.

  I felt each turn, knowing where we were going, and smiling slightly to myself when I succeeded in determining that we were in the lab. They strapped me down and began bandaging me as I thrashed and fought. The bag was still over my head, keeping me from seeing the faces that the voices belonged to, but I recognized some of them.

  Jeanie came in frantic…