Chapter Text
7:36 – 72 days after dawn
Everything… hurts. You feel like you haven’t moved in forever: the first thing you are able to feel again are your fingers, trembling lightly as you force yourself out of sleep; your brain is the part of your body that’s aching the most right now, feeling like someone had just stabbed the middle of your forehead with a knife.
You take in a deep breath as you slowly open your eyes: the room was painted in a blinding white, the spotless ceiling the only thing you could see from your position.
You look around yourself, and realize you were laying on a comfortable, padded floor: you try to sit up, but your arms don’t move; you look down and discover your whole body was covered by a straitjacket; it was not the first one you had ever seen, but it was odd wearing one yourself. You slowly crawl into a sitting position and lean your back on the wall, your breath quickly accelerating.
‘Where am I?’
You look again around yourself with wide eyes, but it’s all the same, all white, all padded, smelling with a horrible stench of disinfectant that was burning your nostrils with every breath you took.
‘What the hell is going on?!?’
You look down on yourself, but all you can see are large white clothes covering your body – too large for your meager form. The only things exposed were your feet, and from their skinny look you could tell you were malnourished.
You catch your breath as something flashes in the back of your mind – pure hunger, starvation, horrible thoughts that had tried to take over you slowly, whispering things in your ears, trying to force you to act on that single and terrifying command: Eat.
You shut your eyes and lean back against the wall, taking quick and irregular breaths.
You feel a tear slowly tracing the profile of your nose as you calm down, forcing yourself to think, even if it hurt like hell every time you tried.
Your locks are covering your face, and you slowly come to realize they weren’t that long the last time you could remember.
You look up and spot a door, white as everything else in the room: after some attempts you manage to stand up and get closer to it, inspecting your surroundings as well; it was the only way in and out, but alas there was no doorknob to turn. “Hey!” you try to yell, but the words come out as a raspy whisper and get easily stuck in the back of your throat. You try to lower your head and massage your neck but the straitjacket was restraining your every movement.
You clear your throat and speak again: the result is not as disappointing as the first, but it could still get better.
After some minutes and various attempts, you finally manage to shout at anyone that could have been beyond that door, kicking it as well to gain some attention.
Hearing no answer, you turn around and start pacing in a little circle around the room: you knew it had been long since the last time you could remember. But how long? And most importantly, what was the last time you could remember?
You stop and look up: as you think, flashes of teeth and claws pass in front of your eyes; you remember feeling breathless, hopeless, broken. Weeping in the dark as the voices tried to take over you. You clench your teeth, almost seeing yourself crouched on the ground, just a name repeated over and over on your lips.
The door clanks open and you snap around, trembling. Two men wearing grey overalls were standing just outside of the room: they looked quite bulky but they had a somewhat calm expression on their faces; it made you think they didn’t want to hurt you, so you try to speak.
“W-where is Josh?”
They exchange a look with each other, without muttering a word. The ginger one turns to you and opens his mouth to speak, but the other man stops him.
“We should wait for the doctress to come.”
Ginger turns to him with crooked eyebrows.
“She just wants to know-“ “She has done that before.” You scan the two of them down, realizing the one antagonizing you had a bandaged arm. “She’s a biter; wouldn’t want her to eat another piece of me.” He mocks you; you open your mouth to counter him, but stop immediately: there was no use in angering your captors. Beside, even if you were sure you didn’t know them, you didn’t remember anything at all: you might have bitten him, somehow, even if you couldn’t really think of any situation that would have made you injure someone this badly with just a bite.
You look up at them one more time and see them greet and make room for another person; the aforementioned doctress steps in front of you, the two men at her sides as they approach you while you unconsciously take a step back. “Be careful. She might snap at any moment.” The doctress tilts her head slightly towards the man, without breaking eye contact with you “I don’t think so. Not this time at least.”
Before you can even ask something, she grips your face and lowers you to her eye level, flashing a little torch in front of your eyes. “Careful!” you hear the men say as you squint. You finally yank your head free from her grip and take another step back defensively.
“I’m no fair pet, ma’am.” You manage to hiss, your voice seems to have faded in that horrible rasp one more time.
She just smiles at you and then turns back to the other men “See? No pupils dilated, no more growls nor unreasonable ramblings. I dare say she’s back!”
“Excuse me?”
The doctress faces you again and slowly puts a hand on your shoulder, squeezing lightly. “You have been here for over a month, dear. Don’t you remember?”
You slowly shake your head, your headache worsening as you try to remember.
You hear her make a disgruntled noise and then mumble to the others:
“Get the psychiatrist here. He’ll want to know.”
8:48
They had made you sit in another room: it had less light and was painted in a horrible blue-grayish color, but you were happy to have some furniture back. You were sitting in front of a table, another chair at the other side. A couple of plants were positioned in the corners of the room, completely failing at making the room look better.
The two men hadn’t trusted you to keep behaving without your straitjacket, but Ginger had a strange pitiful look on his face while his colleague closed the door shut in front of you;
You are looking down at the desk, examining the little dots covering the surface and a miniature crack spreading on one of the corners, your bare feet brushing playfully against the old moquette, when you hear the door opening again: and there Ginger is, with a little smile on his face and a cup of something in his hand.
“Hello again.” He says cheerily, while you just look at him, kinda lost.
He gets near you and kneels down to your eye level, leaving the cup in front of you. “I thought you might use some hot chocolate.” He says while ripping the paper envelope of a straw. “Chocolate..?” you mutter while turning your gaze to the steamy cup in front of you. “Yeah. I hope you like it. Even though I have never met someone who willingly refused a cup of it.” He plunges the straw in it and waits for you to sip it, but you keep staring at it.
“Wait, you really don’t like it?” he asks in a mortified tone. You lightly shake your head, a frown on your face. “I don’t know.”
You blink a couple of times in front of it: you couldn’t remember anything, not even your name. How were you supposed to remember about drinks?
“Why don’t you try it?” you make an attempt to shrug and take the straw in between your lips, sucking cautiously: it did taste good, even if a little artificial. You close your eyes and smile, licking your lips “Sweet.” You open your eyes again “Tastes like hugs.” He chuckles at your comment and pats you on the back, when the door opens one more time: a dark haired man enters the room, a strict expression on his face.
“Mornin’ Doctor.” Ginger says while sitting up. The newcomer stares at him while he walks around the table to reach the door. “Tyler.”
When the door closes again, it’s just the two of you: he looks down at you with a wicked smile playing on his lips; you gulp lightly, not knowing whether you were supposed to tell him something. After a couple of seconds you just decide to keep drinking your chocolate while staring at him, waiting for his next move.
He looks down and grins widely, closing his eyes; he then sits in the chair in front of you, opening a little notebook and taking the cap off the pen.
“I have been told you have woken up today in a better mood; and with a particular lack of memory.” He pauses, expecting for a reply that you did not give.
“And words” he adds with a stern tone “as I can see.”
He looks down at his notebook and writes something down before turning his gaze back to you.
“What is the last thing you remember?”
You let go of the straw and lick your lips, taking your time. You sniff and gulp again, trying not to make the flashes from before take over you.
“Teeth. Claws.” You look at one of the spots on the table, focusing your attention on it. “Darkness. Cold.” He keeps scribbling something down when you remember one more thing, that makes you catch your breath. You look up to him. “Where’s Josh?”
He finishes writing and drops the pen, putting his hands on the table and straightening up. “He’s safe, in this building. He’s doing fine.”
You try to nod, but you feel like you haven’t got the force to do it.
“Don’t you remember anything else about this… claws?” you take a moment to think, then subtly shake your head. “It’s all confused.” You whimper.
“It’s ok. It’s perfectly normal for people in your state.” You take another sip of the chocolate, still staring at the table.
“Do you know where you are?”
You shake your head again, biting at the straw. “What year are we in?” you again just shake your head, numbness not even making you realize there were tears at the edges of your eyes. “What’s your name?” your teeth prick the straw as you put more force into your bite.
“I want to see Josh.” You manage to mumble.
“You’ll be able to meet him later, don’t worry about it right now.”
He keeps scribbling, stealing a glance at you from time to time. Examining you. You didn’t know what he was looking for, or expecting. You didn’t even remember how you had come here.
“I think it’s enough for one day.” He says with an affable smile plastered on his face.
He stands up and turns around, opening the door to leave. You realize you didn’t even know his name- “Wait!” he stops and looks back at you “Who are you?” you ask, blinking your eyes innocently. That evil grin from before comes back to his face. “You can call me Alan.” He looks at you for some other seconds but, since you kept staring at him blankly, he just walked out of the room.
9:32
The two men from before had come back to bring you into your room: Ginger had greeted you with a little smile and had helped you stand up while Jerk was just being… a jerk, actually.
You had been walking between the two of them down the corridor when something echoed through it: it was like a shriek, a high pitched whistle, but not just that; it was something more, something that called for a distant thing buried deep inside of you. “Josh.” You whisper, feeling your hands clenching inside your straitjacket.
Ginger immediately grabs you from behind and lifts your feet above the ground, but you contemporary headbutt him and aim your heel at his crotch, leaving him painfully bent on the ground.
You run towards the source of the noise, the screeching increasing in intensity as you approach the room: you are able to turn around the corner when something yanks you back, making you fall on the ground. You try to kick at the ground and get back on your feet but a strong arm winds around your throat and you feel a stinging pain at the base of your neck; your vision blurs as you hear the screeches turn into feral growls and banging. You clench your teeth together, something voracious speaking from the back of your mind: you were so close. Too close. You wouldn’t surrender now.
Your vision focuses again and you wiggle enough to make your chin get near the man’s arm: your teeth easily plunge into his skin and the grip around your neck loosens as you rip the flesh away. You fall forward on the floor and stand up again, spitting skin and blood out of your mouth, but as soon as you’re back on your feet the man yanks your back one more time, making you turn towards him: you barely see his fist hitting you, feeling like a train had just decided to run over your right cheek.
You trip on the floor and fall on your belly, your brain registering one last horrible growl before definitely blacking out.