Daughter of fire

The routine

Something burns in me.

I can't tell where. I just know I'm burning and that it's causing me pain, but no feeling. I know that I'm used to it, but I can't remember from where. I feel I'm suffocating so I'm trying to breathe, but the smoke is like a shard of glass sliding slowly across my throat. I try to cough, hoping that would release my chest from that infernal pain, but more smoke takes its place, and the pain increases in intensity, gradually turning into absolute agony.

I open my eyes to look for an escape, an exit, a quicker death, but there's nothing around me. I'm surrounded by hot darkness. Hope has turned into ashes, and everything is just smoke and fire, fire, and smoke, and it's spinning around me. I'm trying to scream, but my neck is too dry, so the only sound I can make is a hoarse whistle.

"Help!!"

I'm bound to a bed. I can't look up, but I can feel the leather straps digging deeply into my flesh. For a while, a blissful moment of ignorance, where my mind is getting emptier and emptier, leaving only a vacant shell behind. But the moment lasts too little and I quickly snap back to reality. My consciousness returns in cold waves of rage, helplessness, tears, and hate screams.

I quickly realize that my struggle is pointless and I stop. I have given up the fight for a long time. I had given up everything for a long time...

"You're a tough little girl, aren't you? It's not half an hour since your last dose, and you've come to your senses, but that's no problem, I already knew you would. You've always been like that. "

"Is it OK to give her another dose? We don't know how much she can bear…"

"I'm sure my favorite little girl can still bear a dose, can't you, dear?"

The Father turns away, trying to fill the I.V. bag once more with that colorless liquid I was so afraid of then and hate so much now. The Mother looks at me in a strange way. 

I thought, in the past, that she wanted to help me, but she was afraid of The Father. Now I know the truth -- she enjoys my pain. She is worse, much more thirsty for the suffering of others. But in principle, both are the same and do the same so I don't care what they think or feel anymore. It wouldn't matter anyway. All that matters is pain.

I close my eyes; the liquid now runs off the thin tube that links the I.V. bag to my wrist. It's time to burn again…

I wake up on the dirty bed in my room. Today's meeting had passed. They'll leave me alone until tomorrow. It's always the same, a routine I've come to know all too well.

  I have to take a shower now. Sweat feels cold on my back. When I get out of the shower, someone will come to take me to the canteen. I'll eat, then I'll go back to my room. That's all. Nothing more happens here. That has been my life since before I can remember anything else.

I have to take a shower.

The water is cold, but the sensation it leaves on the skin is pleasant. I take a few seconds to think of whether to wash my hair or not, but I realize it is useless. I have short, boyish hair, so it's not noticeable if it's oily. And who would care about it, on the other hand?The knocking sound comes just in time. I open the door and look at The Brother. Today he is the tall one with scars on his face. I never liked him and I figure the feeling is mutual. I like the one who smiles, the blond-haired one, but I don't decide who has to supervise me every day, I just obey.  

I follow him silently. I see something on the way that turns my stomach upside down. An excluded one. Or better said one of The Brothers carrying the lifeless body of an excluded person in his arms. I never understood how they choose those whose place is no longer among us. Or where they send them. I know only that they disappear and never come back. It was as if they haven't existed. It was as if their existence had never counted. 

I am looking at The Brother. He certainly knows what happens to the excluded ones. But I have no reason to ask him. It is not worth the effort. 

In the dining room. Others like me. Nobody talks to anyone, nobody makes visual contact with anyone. All eyes are fixed to a non-existent point, waiting for this day to end and another to start. I sit next to Daniel, the oldest of us. He is probably about 14 years old. I think I'm 10-11, I don't know for sure, but I can guess. No one knows their age or real name, nor why we are here and what this place is. We don't know anything, we are just subjects. The subjects do not need to know things to be useful, they just need to do what others know is best. That's what The Mother said.

The Sisters put a soup plate in front of me. I take the first sip and almost vomit. It is cold. Even if the taste is terrible, if it were a little warmer would be edible, but like this... A part of me tells me to use 'that', but it is forbidden, and the severity of the punishment is hard to even imagine. So it's not worth it, not for a bit of cold soup. A few years ago, when it was very cold, I tried to warm myself using 'that', but The Father found out and got very angry. I thought I knew what pain meant. I was wrong... I found out then.

A loud noise snaps me back to reality. One of the other subjects had dropped a plate on the floor and one of The Sisters now screams at him, threatening to punish him. But no one moves any more than necessary... Someone to drop a plate on the floor is impossible. I then realize immediately that Daniel must have used 'that'. 

He knocked down the plate, and if he risked so much, he has something to tell me. A shiver of anticipation takes over my body. Now is the time. He motioned me to the note in his hand. I must take it while The Brothers are distracted.

You've done this before. Why are you afraid?

"You! What are you trying to do?"

The brother grabs my hair and pulls me off the chair. I show him the teaspoon I had dropped earlier. He doesn't seem convinced. I didn't expect him to be. All that matters is that he lets me go.

"The dinner is over. Go back to the rooms!"

I get up and follow him obediently. I have the note.

Back in my room, I wait until the steps of The Brother get further and further away and I open the note from Daniel, "Let's get out of here!"

My routine will never be the same again.