Page 87 of Peak Cruelty

Someone’s out there.

44

Marlowe

They take the light first.

No more lamps casting shadows on the walls.No more soft glow filling the room.Just darkness.Deep, thick, and suffocating, like it’s been building for hours.It wraps around me, cold and familiar, like something earned.For a moment, I think maybe they’re done.

Then they take the sound.

No footsteps.No voices.The air is still, thick with silence.Even my own breathing fades into the quiet, as if it’s not supposed to be heard.The room feels stale, as though it’s been sealed off too long, the air heavy with exhaustion and defeat.It’s like inhaling someone else’s exhale, all used up and lingering.

Next comes time.

There’s no clock.No meals.No routine.Just water through a straw and whatever paste they shove in my mouth, making sure I never have the choice to stop swallowing.I start seeing shapes in the shadows.I blink, and they shift.I speak just to hear something, anything.Then I stop.

Because they don’t want noise.

And I know what happens when you give them what they want.Or you when you don’t.

Either way, they change the game.

The door opens on what could be day three.Might be day twelve.There’s no way to know.

Two people enter.Gloved hands.Quiet shoes.Both female, both strangers.I can smell soap on them, maybe something citrus.They don’t speak.

They bring warmth.

Blankets.Soft socks.A basin of water.They wash me like I’m porcelain.Small, circular motions.Behind the ears.Inside the wrists.Between the toes.Gentle, reverent.

They don’t look me in the eye.

One woman sings.The other combs my hair.

It’s not kind.Not violent.That would be easier.This istenderness as technique.I lean into the comb before I realize I’ve moved.My body registers contact like it’s been starved.Which it has.

When the brush slows, I lean a fraction closer.

The woman freezes.Just for a second.

Then she slaps me.

Not hard.Just enough.

The kind of slap that says:We noticed that.Don’t do it again.

The combing resumes.Slower now.More distance between strokes.

And I get it.

They’re teaching me.

Pleasure, then pain.Reward, then reminder.

If I want kindness, I have to earn it.If I want contact, I have to be still.Grateful.Moldable.

They dress me in cotton.Loose, white.Soft at the seams.No tags, no zippers, nothing I could use.The shirt smells like sun, like someone hung it outside and let the wind carry the past away.

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