Memory

You're getting used to waking up in darkness.

You're not sure 'waking up' is entirely the right word, to be honest. Waking up would require you to have been asleep at some point, and you're pretty damn certain they've no intention of letting you do that in the middle of one of their 'discussions'.

But nevertheless, here you are, face-down on the floor of your cell with the roaring agony of a hundred new and exciting wounds and mutilations racing up your spine like the starting spark of a forest fire. It'll hit you soon enough, you know that much. Always does. But in the brief, ice-cold moment before the pain, one thought stands out.

I don't remember. I don't remember any of this. I don't remember this.

It's becoming a mantra, of sorts. An unlooked-for reminder. A mystery. And not one you're in all that much of a hurry to solve.

Not that you've much of a chance, for now. The brief, blissful moment passes as quickly as it arrived, pushed out by a raging inferno of pain that swallows you whole and conscious, each millimetre of ripped skin, splintered bone, crushed flesh sparking and combining into an explosion of white-hot agony.

You burn.

Somehow, you're not quite sure how, you manage not to scream. That, at least, you will not give them.

Everything else? You're not so sure.

You don't remember.

It should scare you, that. Whole hours of your life, just...missing. Whole days, maybe - down here in the dark you're hard-pressed to find any way of measuring time, and you gave up trying a long time ago. Whole swathes of time, just... gone. Lost. Stolen.

You don't remember what they did to you. You can guess, of course - hell, all you have to do is try to move to spark a reminder - but you don't remember.

More to the point, you don't remember what you said.

That, you're pretty fucking sure, should scare you rigid.

But, as the missing time becomes more and more obvious, and the pain that follows more and more severe, you're finding what should happen seems somehow less and less important.

Yes, you should be scared. Yes, you should be fighting. Yes, you should be pushing back against...whatever this is.

But it means you don't remember.

And right now, that seems a hell of a lot more important.