Look in the Mirror

It’s the creak that first gets my attention.

Five months in this place and I’ve become intimately familiar with each groan of wood and click of boots on stone. This is different. There’s a sharp quality to it unlike the normal shifting of things, of dust, of something farther away in the compound. I lift my head up from its resting position between my knees and peer into the semidarkness, trying to make out if there’s anything different about the shadowed corners and cracked tiles. My neck aches. Three weeks spent in one position is too long, I guess. I roll my shoulders in an attempt to ease the tight throb, but stop quickly when pain lances through the cramped muscles. I think there’s a point when you’ve gone too far in the way of a statue and your body starts to accept the change. Maybe I’ve reached it.

Shifting on my cold slab of a bed, I scan the cell for a sign of where that noise came from. There it is again. It sounds like a door shifting at the end of the corridor, but no one’s been down here in days, so it’s unlikely. I glance up at the camera above my bed, and the red light’s still blinking, meaning they haven’t forgotten about me yet. It’s a small consolation to know that someone’s watching, but I’m still very much alone.

I lie down and close my eyes to try and stop the spinning of my thoughts. You’d think after a long enough time down here everything would just slow down, but it’s the opposite – your mind refuses to believe you’re isolated and fills the silence with anything it can come up with. That’s probably just what that creak was, like when your computer is falling asleep and you shift the mouse to wake it back up.

Wake up, mind. You’re not dead yet.

Someone grabs my shoulder and yanks me up off the bed. My eyes open immediately but the rest of my body isn’t so quick to respond, and I’m slammed against the wall before I can turn to see who is attacking me. The stone, untouched for so long, spits dust in my face and I try to cough but choke instead, mouth pressed against the rough surface. My weak limbs spasm from the sudden movement. I can’t turn my head at all, and my pulse starts to kick up. Who are you? My cries are silenced and my face is pushed harder into the sharp grit.

Pain. A blow hits my rib cage and my breath gushes out. Needles scrape my throat. Another strike, a knee to my stomach, has me doubling over, skin scraping against the wall. Twisting, I try to look behind me, but the attacker uses my momentum to slam a fist across my jaw. My arm is wrenched behind my back. I gasp, and my mind chooses this moment to slow down, to shutter. I can’t react. I’m pummeled from all sides. Shaken. Scraped. I swear I feel fingernails rake over my stomach, ripping cloth.

I try to gain control of the situation through my mind, in the classic strategy of denial. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This is definitely happening. The ends of my shaggy hair are tugged with superhuman strength, sending white hot pain into my scalp. A scream I didn’t know I had in me is pulled from my throat. Desperate. Confused. Scared. I haven’t felt scared in longer than I can remember.

A glove comes down hard over my mouth, muffling the sound and shoving me to the floor. I hear as opposed to feel my knees hit the tile, the thump finding my ears like I’m a spectator outside my own body. Echoing. My mind can’t decide whether to speed up or slow down, so I’m frozen, waiting for the next blow to land.

Something thick is wrapped around my throat from behind and yanked. Sharp pressure explodes across my windpipe, snaking down into my chest. Constricting. I choke and cough, limbs flailing as I fall backwards. I can’t breathe. I lash out but my fist connects with air, tipping me even more off balance. Spots of black swim into view in front of my eyes and I see the face of a young child flash in pieces among them, fractured. My face. Pins and needles pull me downwards.

The blinding pain in my throat starts to fade to a dull ache, one that pulses throughout my body. When I start to feel calm, that’s when I know it’s almost over. There’s an internal war; part of me wants to just rest, finally, while something else screams to hold onto life. To keep existing. To feel again. That something grows smaller and smaller, at the brink of nothing, then suddenly flares up. Sharp. Stinging. Pushing a final cry from me.

And that’s when the door opens, and the pressure releases, and I gasp, collapsing to the icy floor.

“Hey! What’s going on in here?” A gruff voice accompanies the tall shadow falling over me, but I can’t raise my head to see who it belongs to.

“I– I was attacked–didn’t you see?” I wheeze as my lungs fill up with air too quickly. “Someone attacked me”.

The guard steps around into view, “Mate, what are you talking about? You can’t just yell and flap about to get one of us down here. You’re gonna be locked up for a long time–get used to it.”

“What–no! I was just lying here and someone grabbed me! They tried to kill me, look!” I gesture to my neck frantically, where surely some mark is left from the assault. The movement pulls on the skin and pain flares, making me wince.

“Buddy, I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s nothing there. Come on, you gotta come talk to my supervisor. This can’t happen again”.

What is he saying? My whole body stings, aches, burns. Why won’t he believe me? There was someone here trying to strangle me, where did they go?

The burly man pulls me up–he must be new because I don’t remember seeing him before–and clasps cuffs around my wrists. The cool metal actually feels nice against my flaming skin, calming my senses.

He pushes me in front of him and I stumble down the hallway, my limbs shaking. I don’t remember much of the walk. My mind has retreated in on itself, a haze of confusion and fear. It struggles to interpret the pain signals being sent to it from all over my body, creating a dull pulse that makes it hard to think about anything else.

A door is opened and I’m forced through to the other side. I trip on the change of surface, stone to carpet. It tickles my bare feet, the soft wool almost uncomfortable after so long in the solid cell. The guard behind me grabs my chin and yanks it up, forcing me to look straight ahead. There’s a man there, hunched in front of a mass of screens.

“Sir, I have him for you. He says he was attacked but there’s no evidence in the cell or on his body”.

The chair swivels then, and a dark, tattooed face levels its gaze on me, burning. “No evidence on tape either–just checked it thoroughly. He’s trying for attention. You’re not getting out, Beckers, what do you want?”

I shift my eyes to the screen behind him, where my struggle is being looped through the cell’s camera. I see myself crumpling, hear myself crying out. There’s no one behind me. No one hitting me, no one wrapping a rope around my neck. It’s just me. On my own. Dying.

A tear slowly rolls down my cheek.