Chapter Text
I screamed as the building shook and tilted. Remembering what Mum said I ran into my room and wrapped myself in my blankets. Squeezing my eyes shut. There was a large bang from somewhere nearby and I felt the building tilt again. I tried my hardest to shut out the screaming and shouting as I tried to force myself to sleep. Somehow it must have worked because when I finally opened my eyes everything was different. The first thing I noticed was that the roof was gone and the sky was dark and chocked with smoke. The second thing was that the top of my legs hurt, the bottom half were numb and I could feel something dripping off them. I tried sitting up so I could see my legs but a massive stabbing pain shot through my leg. Carefully I looked down, bracing myself for what I might see, a steel bar been forced through my leg by a huge chunk of concrete that had previously been part of the roof. I didn’t know if my legs were broken or not but I knew I would be moving without any help. Trying not to panic I screamed for the help I desperately needed. Dad had once told me that the human body could survive for seven days without food and three days without water. I didn’t know how long I had been asleep for but I doubted that I could last for three days in my condition. Once the smoke cleared I shouted for help the counted to twenty before shouting again. I repeated this process countless times until my voice gave out and I slept.
This time when I woke up I was in a clean white room and laid out on a firm narrow bed with crisp, pale grey sheets. I moved my legs and only felt dull pain. I cautiously sat up and looked around. The room had no windows and only one door that was shut, aside from my bed there's was nothing in the room. Suddenly I realized that I wasn’t wearing my clothes but a paper thin, white gown instead. Just as I was debating whether to stand up or not the door opened to reveal a middle-aged man in a white coat, flanked by two younger men in uniform to the kind soldiers wore.
“Katherine Blunt, how are you feeling today?” The man asked calmly, walking towards my bed. How did he know my name? I thought very carefully about my answer, hospitals in Sokovia weren’t this good and wouldn’t my parents be here? He spoke good English, though he had an accent I did not recognize
“I’ve been better” I replied quietly.
“That is to be expected” He remarked, obviously trying to be sympathetic. The two solider-like men moved away from the door and let a man in his late twenties who was pushing a covered trolley through the door. He pushed the trolley over to the man in the lab coat who was taking a pair of glasses from his coat pocket. “I am Doctor List” He said introducing himself. Then the younger man took the sheet covering the trolley off and I saw the numerous needles filled with different colored liquids. Then I noticed among the needles was a small see-through cup, half full of multicolored liquid, strangely the colors moved. I didn’t like it, why did the colors move? Panic and anxiety set in, why weren’t my parents here? Where were they? Did they know where I was? I wanted my parents!
My body must have tensed because the doctor reached out to pat my shoulder and said “These are to help speed your recovery”. Though his words were supposed to be reassuring, his tone wasn’t. Why couldn’t I go home, wasn’t I well enough? Doctor List picked up a needle and injected the contents in my arm. Wasn’t he supposed to sanitize the area first, I thought. I winced as the needle went in and stiffed a gasp with difficultly when he pressed the plunger down. As he repeated the process with the next needle I noticed that my body had began to tingle unpleasantly. “Please stop. It hurts” I asked plaintively. It was if I hadn’t said a word, he just kept going until all the needles were empty. My vision was becoming blurry and quickly I felt the tingling become painful. Soon I was moving restlessly, but Doctor List didn’t seem concerned about this, in fact he almost seemed pleased by the outcome. “What was in those needles?” I asked, my voice croaking. “Just some chemicals” He replied nonchalantly. Then he grabbed the see-through cup and poured the contents down my throat. I was too weak to protest or resist, so I couldn’t do anything but swallow when I was told to do so. Once soon after I had swallowed the pain changed slightly, instead of the ex-curating tingling my body was becoming painfully hot. I could sweat forming on my forehead. My hands began trembling which soon traveled to the rest of my body. I hadn’t noticed before that the man who had brought the trolley was writing in a small notebook. The pain increased and pressure inside my head began to build, black dots now clouding my vision. Before long I felt myself be dragged into the darkness of a pain-filled sleep.
The time I woke up I was in the same room. Soon after I woke up a man came with food. Like the others he was dressed similar to a soldier, but I noticed that he had a pistol clipped on his belt. He was carrying the food on a steel tray. I could see from here that my meal consisted of some bread spread thinly with butter, a cup of juice and a couple of slices of meat. He sat the tray on the foot of my bed and left. As soon as I was sure he was gone I grabbed the tray, there was little sign of the pain from last night except I felt shaky. I immediately began eating, I hadn’t realized how absolutely hungry I was, when had I last eaten? Almost just after I was done Doctor List came in, smiling strangely. When his gaze landed on me and the empty tray his smile widened but it made my stomach crawl.
“Ah, you have eaten, a healthy appetite is always a good sign” He commented happily. Then I saw another man in uniform rolled in another needle filled trolley. There was no cup full of the multicolored liquid, I took some comfort in that. Then the man pushing the trolley came over and produced a leather strap that he used to secure my forearm. What was he doing that for? I felt myself tense immediately and I know that the doctor saw it. “Now, now Miss Blunt; these are going to help you” He said, obviously trying to reassure me but I didn’t trust him, not after last time. Before I could protest he injected me with a needle filled with a red liquid. This one made me scream as soon as it entered my body Once the contents of the needle were gone he picked up another needle, the liquid of this one was clear, and injected me again as if he wasn’t putting someone through horrible pain.
He ignored me as I begged, pleaded for him to stop but he continued to inject me with different colored liquids; green, purple, blue, grey even yellow. I didn’t know what was in them but they hurt. Some felt as though they were burning through my veins others made my vision blurr, or my skin prickle. Some made my body convulse, explaining the leather strap. Like last time I passed out from the agonizing pain but just before I completely blacked out I heard Doctor List say quietly in Russian “That’s her last course of needles, tomorrow we begin phase two”. Suddenly I was being roughly shaken awake. My eyes flew open. A man in the soldier-like uniform was jerking on my shoulders. I instantly became hyper aware that I was only wearing a hospital gown. He pulled me out of my bed and yanked my arms behind my back, putting cold and metal circles around my wrists. I assumed that he had handcuffed me, but why, I hadn’t done anything; all I wanted was to go home. He dragged me toward the door, into the corridor, past seven iron doors and made me turn right and through an open door. The room wasn’t very clean and there were puddles of dirty water on the floor. I began feeling extremely nervous, why was I here? In the middle there was a metal bath, a machine that looked similar to a dialysis machine- I remembered my parents taking me to the hospital for work and showing me one- and another machine with lots of wires. Also in the room was Doctor List, more men dressed as soldiers, younger men in dirty lab coats, and a strange-looking man wearing formal military clothes with a strange eyeglass on his right eye. I was pushed further toward the bath and saw that it had restraints; the soldier took the handcuffs off and shoved me roughly forward.
The doctor looked up from the file he was reading. “Ah, Miss Blunt, please undress and step into the bath” He acted as though this was all perfectly normal, maybe it was. Super conscious of the man not far behind me, I walked closer to the bath and slipped out of the paper-thin material. Then I carefully climbed into the cold bath; watching anxiously as a soldier –like man put my arms in the restraints, forcing my arms to stay under the water. My stomach churned nervously, what were they going to do? Then the same man placed tubes from the dialysis-like machine into the bath, which quickly sank to the bottom. The machine was flicked on and soon the water became discolored; changing the once clear water to a cloudy, pale pink; my skin began tingling uncomfortable. After awhile the machine was turned off and the tubes taken out. Then someone put wires with small flat pieces of metal into the bath. Why did they do that, what torture were they going to put me through now? I was feeling even more nervous than ever. My fears were confirmed when the doctor turned the other machine on. I screamed as electricity zapped through my body. My body started convulsing, creating waves in the bath. Distantly I heard someone turn the machine off and I shook from the residual electricity as it left my body. My body began tingling again, which soon morphed into searing, hot pain. I wanted it to stop so badly but I was too weak to do anything.
Through all the pain I was so tired, I was having trouble just keeping my eyes open and soon my body lost the fight against oblivion. A painful pounding in my head woke me up. I noticed I was in a different room, with hardly any light. The walls were a dirty grey and my bed was very uncomfortable. Why was I here? I pressed a hand to my throbbing head and suddenly I remembered everything; the soldier-like men, the bath, being electrocuted. I wanted to go home, I wanted be in the safe embrace of my parents. Then remembering that I lost consciousness before getting out or putting any form of clothes on I sat up quickly, the thin blanket I hadn’t noticed up ‘til now falling down. I saw to my disgust and embarrassment I was still naked, they must have taken me back unclothed! I yanked the sheet back up to cover my chest, looking around furiously for clothes. On the other side of the room, next to the door was a pile of neatly folded fabric; what I assumed to be clothes. How was I supposed to get over there with no clothes? I couldn’t just causally walk over there, what if someone came in? I mentally debated the issue and after serious consideration I decided that it was worth the risk because it was too cold not to wear clothes. So clutching the thin sheet about me I darted across the room, snatched the clothes up and hastily pulled them on. It wasn’t much, a ratty pale long-sleeve shirt and a thin pair of track pants.
Now that I was safely clothed I retreated back to the uncomfortable bed that I could see was little more than an elevated stretcher with a thin mattress. I wrapped the flimsy sheet around me as a meager barrier against the cold and the world after I had situated myself on the bed; trying to make myself as comfortable as possible. I leaned my head against the wall, attempting to shut everything out. I became conscious of an uncomfortable heat. I shifted, trying to get away from the unknown source but it did not work. It felt like the heat had seeped into my bones, heating from the inside out. I moved restlessly, feeling uneasy. My body was slowly moving its way down the bed until I was lying down but I was too hot to do anything about it. I felt sweat forming on my forehead. I moved to wipe the sweat away and was slightly surprised to see my hand shaking. Shocked I let my hand drop to my chest. As if the shaking from my hand had somehow been passed to my heart; the beating which I could hear unnervingly clear in my head I felt it begin weakening. Within a few minutes it was a feeble flutter and inhaling tired me. Is this how I will die, in a concrete room with never seeing my parents ever again, I thought hysterically. I began quietly humming a song my mother used to put me asleep as a distraction.
I must have fallen asleep because I was startled into waking. I quickly assessed my body, no pains or signs from last night. Though there was a layer of dried sweat on my skin. The door opened and Doctor List walked in, followed by two men trolley, I instantly tensed. I saw as they came closer that the trolley had only empty vials, no needles. Soon they were next to the bed. I could see that they had the required equipment for taking blood samples. The closest man picked up a blood pressure cuff and moved my sleeve up to slip the cuff on, just above my elbow. I made no move to protest, just meekly waiting for the process to be done. He inflated it and slid the small needle used to take blood into a vein. I watched, slightly nauseous, as blood flowed into the small vial. Doctor List was standing aside, supervising the proceedings. The other man was writing furiously, clearly making notes. The man taking my blood filled multiple vials then cut an inch off of my hair, which I thought strange until I saw that my hair had changed colour. Instead of being the normal dark brown it was a rich, dark red. He put the hair in the last empty vial. Once he had done that he packed everything away and grabbed a tray of food, leaving it on my bed.
They started toward the door but before Doctor List could leave I blurted out what I’ve been wanting to since coming here without thinking. “When can I go home? Where are my parents?” Doctor List’s expression didn’t change, staying serene as usual. “When you are better” Was his placid reply.What did he mean? My leg was healed, why couldn’t I go home now? My anger gave the small amount of confidence to retort “I am better”. The doctor didn’t say anything and his expression still didn’t change; he just left the room without word. I yanked my sleeve back down and crossed my arms sourly. I let myself sulk for about five minutes grabbing the tray with food. My meal today was the same as yesterday, buttered bread, juice and meat. I quickly ate, leaving the tray next to the door. After I was done I sat on the narrow with my legs crossed. I pulled a handful of hair into my line of sight; it hung down to my shoulders, and studied it. The colour was consistent and went up to the roots like it had always been like this. There was absolutely no sign of the original brown. Feeling extremely bored, I finger-combed my hair proceeded to braid a small section. I became conscious of a peculiar feeling; it felt like there was something feather-light brushing over my skin. I ignored it, pushing the flashes of last night away and after I had finished the braid I laid down, closing my eyes. I decided that since I had nothing better to do I might as well try and go to sleep. But before I could escape from this horrible place, even if it was just for a while the door was opened.