June – POV
I wake with ICE in my veins.
I’m strapped to a tal chair—cold, unyielding armrests clamp around my wrists, my thighs, my ankles. My body feels heavy. My head pounds. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I can’t—not again.
This can’t be real.
No. No. No.
I’m in that room. That clinical, sterile nightmare space. Walls painted the sa dull gray they used in psychiatric wards. Harsh fluorescent lights. A single door, tal, with a sliding panel—like sothing from a horror film. Sothing they would use.
My vision swims. My heart hamrs so hard I can’t hear myself think.
No. This... this can’t be right.
I try to pull at the straps.
They’re locked.
I try to breathe fast, hyperventilate. The sll of antiseptic, tal, and sothing acrid hits .
Not here.
Not this place.
I can feel the cold light—tingling across my skin like a ghost touch. My limbs tremble. Tears sting my eyes.
Please. Please.
My heartbeat fills my ears. My eyelids flutter. I see—flashes.
Bright rooms.
My wrists strapped to a table.
Needles plunging into my vein—ice-cold liquid shooting through .
A helt. tal prongs touching my scalp.
Sothing that tastes like rust in my mouth.
No... No. Not again.
Sothing begins in my skull—a mory uncoiling like poison. My eyes fly open. The break room, the white coats, , screaming.
"Let it out," they said.
"We need results."
A flash of electricity. My back arching. My teeth gritted. The world a starburst of pain.
I wake, gasping. Holy God.
I’m back. I’m here. Sa nightmare. Wrapped in straps, alone.
I’m pinned.
Panic drowns .
I slam my head against the headrest—once, twice—hoping sothing breaks. Hoping I wake up.
It doesn’t.
My nails claw at the leather straps around my wrists. They’re locked. I can’t even feel my hands properly.
My vision blurs reddish.
I imagine my blood pooling. I claw, try to scream.
But there’s no sound. My voice is swallowed by the room. Swallowed by that place.
Why am I here?
Why?
My brain latches onto a mory—sharp and searing—my mouth dry, my body shaking as a doctor administered another injection. A line of pills. Electrodes.
My screams ricocheting off showrooms, polished floors, cavernous halls.
I close my eyes tight and try to hold that mory off—but it surges—like it never left.
Like I’m there—again.
I feel the old voices—their seductive whispers creeping up:
You’re broken.
You belong to us.
Just give in.
They were fading. Evaporating after everything changed. My monster of a father—gone. Rescued. My new life—luxury, love, sanity.
And Justin.
Jesus, I started to feel whole again—with him, with my money, with my freedom. The therapy. The support. The noise gone silent.
But it’s back. All of it.
And now... I’m back here.
I try to speak, to scream.
Nothing but a croak.
A pounding.
Soone is coming.
My whole body freezes.
Can it be him?
Justin?
Please.
Footsteps in the hallway.
tal wheels.
A door opening.
A click as soone enters.
I press my eyes shut tight.
But they must hear my heart. Feel my pulse. See tremble.
A quiet voice—a woman’s, calm, professional—says, "Subject 159... awaken."
It’s clinical. Nothing else.
Terror shoots through .
How many subjects?
Fucking 12.
Miles away, but still .
I feel bile rise. My body convulses. My chest shakes with a silent sob.
"Subject 12," the voice repeats, now closer.
They’re coming for .
My panic cracks open and I slide into hysteria.
No. No, no. Let go. Release . I can’t—
The voice says, "Administering neurotransmitter inhibitor. Begin dosage."
I feel sothing cold press against my neck.
A needle? A cooling gas?
I convulse. My mind fractures.
This world vanishes.
I’m six again. Screaming behind bars.
I’m twelve. White cloaks chanting "Protocol 7."
I’m in my father’s house. Flas around him. My fists raised.
It hurt , they said. It would be fine.
But it ripped apart.
I can’t go through it again.
But it’s happening.
I scream. I pound my fists on the chair.
A tearing, raw sound escapes —broken, raw.
SOONE, PLEASE—
My vision dims.
The synthetic scent grows stronger.
My head lolls back.
The voice is final: "Subject sedated. Prepare for transfer."
Everything cuts to a blur...
I co to.
The door is left slightly ajar now.
The lights are dim.
I’m still strapped in.
Different room. This one smaller, tal grated floor. The air tastes thicker, warr.
I’m alone again.
I try to breathe. My lungs burn.
My mind is patchy flas and ashes.
The old voices—urgency now:
We own you.
Give in.
Stop fighting.
My chest feels raw.
Each breath—even though shallow—hurts.
I start hyperventilating again. Screaming silently. Trying to wrench myself free.
But they took my strength.
Everything is trebling outside—pounding doors, distant shouts, footsteps. I feel sothing shift in the air.
Soone is near.
It’s not just them.
It’s... soone familiar.
I think: He’ll co.
Justin. Please co.
A calm voice again—but deeper, warr.
He’s talking to soone else:
"...Subject woke early. Standard protocol. We need to move soon."
It isn’t them. It’s Justin.
My chest seizes.
"Justin?"
There’s no response.
I try again: "Justin, don’t—"
My throat fails.
I start weeping.
Silent tears.
I squeeze my eyes shut and focus on him. His face. His voice. The promise in his eyes.
He’ll co.
But everything in screams it’s a trick. A lie.
You’re alone.
You belong to them again.
I pound the armrest until my knuckles bleed.
My vision swims.
My mind fractures again.
Please don’t leave here. Please.
Then darkness with one thought lingering its just a nightmare.
*********
I wake up choking on panic.
It’s cold. Too cold.
My skin sticks to plastic. My limbs are heavy. I try to move, but sothing pulls back, holds down. I jerk, and sothing clinks. A restraint.
My arms.
Strapped.
My legs.
Strapped.
My chest rises and falls too fast—my heart slamming against my ribcage like it wants out.
"No... no, no, no, no..." I whisper. It wasn’t a nightmare it was real. I was really back.
The room is white. No, not white—sterile. The lighting buzzes overhead, fluorescent and harsh, humming like insects in my ears. The walls are padded with dirty gray foam. The bed beneath is bolted to the floor. No windows. Just one steel door with a slit of a window.
It’s a ntal ward.
Or a replica of one.
But it’s not just that. I know this setup.
It’s them.
The bastards who ran experints on . Who fried my brain. Who tried to carve out my soul and leave sothing hollow behind.
"No, please..." My voice cracks. I start to thrash, to pull against the cuffs—velcro and tal digging into my wrists. My breath cos in gasps.
The room slls like antiseptic.
Like blood and bleach.
Like fear.
I scream.
But there’s no one to hear .
My mind flashes.
Electricity.
Screams.
tal tables.
I sob, curling into myself as much as the restraints will allow. My knees are trembling. My chest burns with the effort to breathe.
This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening again.
I was free.
I had escaped.
I was a goddamn heiress now, spoiled and safe, wrapped in luxury and fake designer scarves. I was healing. Living. Laughing again.
And I had Justin.
Justin.
Just thinking his na makes sothing collapse inside . My lungs cave. My soul clenches.
He’ll co for .
He has to.
But I know what this is. This is what happened before. It always starts this way—the disorientation. The restraints. The drugs. The whispers. The needles.
My body starts to tremble violently. Cold sweat slicks my neck, soaks my back. I scream again, louder this ti.
The door doesn’t open.
The silence mocks .
And then I hear it.
The voices.
Like static in the corners of my brain. Whispers rising, slithering through my ears and coiling into my spine.
"You never really left," one hisses.
"They’re always watching," another croons.
"You’re back where you belong, pretty toy."
No.
No, no, they were gone. They’d started to fade when I found Justin. When he pulled back into the light. When he looked at like I wasn’t broken. Like I was sothing to protect. Sothing to love.
I scream again. A high, shattering sound that claws at my throat.
My mories surge up like bile.
I see myself strapped to a cold table, wires attached to my scalp. I rember the sharp sting of needles in my veins, of fluid being pumped into until my limbs went numb.
I rember screaming until my voice vanished. The burn of a collar around my neck. The way they called a subject, not a person.
And worst of all?
The silence afterward.
When I couldn’t even scream anymore.
I sob, jerking against the cuffs again. "Let out—LET OUT!"
The walls don’t answer.
The door stays shut.
The voices in my head giggle.
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