Vera felts helpless as a migraine that throbbed in her temples caged her. The temptation to hide her face into the palms of her hands grew with every passing second. With drivers honking their horns, someone’s conversation to the left became louder, construction a block up. To your left, buses moan and screech to a halt. To your right, tourists chatter as bicyclists whiz by. An ambulance wails in the distance. A trumpet plays. Everything, every sound she loves and that makes this city what is it, Vera begins to loathe. As her thumb and index finger move to either side of her forehead, hoping that would ease the pain. A part of her knows that the movement is useless and that it’s not because of all the noise around her that is creating this pain. Once more, Vera finds the city falls back into a hum. “No, no, no, no…” She whispers. Watery eyes press together, so do her lips. Her back is pressed against the glass window, trying to hold onto reality as it quickly slips away.
Time has passed. There’s no telling how many days or weeks it has been. Her hair felt damp as it sticks to her face. A hard shiver travels up her spin as water drips down onto the new, dry hospital cloth she changed into before coming back to her cell. It didn’t matter what she wore. She was always cold. And sitting in the wettish prison doesn’t help one bit. The boy on the other side… Vera doesn’t know if he feels the chill. He must be used to it. “What’s your name?” She asks the young man who’s trapped like her. She sits in the middle of the cell, while he lay curled on his cot.
She comes back and immediately wraps her forearm around her middle. The queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach increase, the back of her throat tightens threateningly. She tries to control the feeling with deep inhales, but her breathing is already laboured. Vera looks at the scared boy before her. Vera goes to say something to him – something, anything, - Then, her vision begins to swim. The feeling of panic beings like a cluster of spark plugs in her lungs. She can feel the tension growing in her face and limbs. She can hear each of her breaths, rasping just the same as when she had the flu two winters ago. Vera closes her mouth and keeps her hands balled into fists and she stills herself, concentrating on not having a full blown panic attack.
“I’ve had enough. Please, I’ve said I’ve had enough.” The patient surprise herself. From the session she’s just had, she could have figured there would be no noise coming from her. There is, though. It’s hoarse and hardly above a whisper, but it’s there. Because somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows that she was taught that she would and always will have a voice. No matter how shaken or broken it sounded. They put fire at her feet - it didn’t unlock her genetics, it only made memories of her family home up in flames bloom before tightly shut eyes. She couldn’t feel any pain until she’s thrown back into her cell. Vera curls into herself. Her eyes find the boy. She blinks slowly.
That’s where she learns all about Isaac. That’s when they become friends. When they decide to help each other. Be there for each other. Talk to each other through the pain. For these quiet moments bring both of them solace. Vera reaches out, seeing his fingers through the bars. The pads of their fingers touch, then Vera envelops her hand around Isaac’s, squeezing softly.
Again, Vera comes back. Reality hit her like a stack of bricks to the back of her head. It’s so damn painful. Vera meets the same blue eyes from the images behind her eyes. These aren’t memories. They can’t be. How can she be through something that she doesn’t remember? She doesn’t want to shout in public, so she slips into an icy demeanor. Cold and harsh. Jaw set, eyes narrowed. Vera pushes off of the glass, standing as tall as she can, ignoring the feeling of her knees wanting to buckle. “Don’t say my name like you know me.” She orders chillingly while giving the stranger an unfriendly stare. “Stay away from me.” Vera points an accusing fingers at him.
Turning her back on the stranger, Vera begins walking in the opposite direction. Her chin is held high, steps are strong. She doesn’t look back. An act to keep her pride and sanity in tact. It dissolves the moment she turns a corner into an alleyway. Pulling her phone from her purse, she looks for a particular number and presses the call number. She hears a voice on the other side of the call, but she can’t pinpoint of it’s a voicemail or if it’s really the person she has called. She talks anyway. “Nicholas…. Nic…” She leans her head against the brick wall and looks to the sky. She’s too afraid of closing her eyes. “I need you to come pick me up. I’m at… Fifth and Water avenue. I…” She licks her dry lips. “Just come, please.”
Time stood still and moved too fast all at the same time. The air that hung between them felt frozen while the rest of the world kept moving around them, Isaac’s eyes still locked on Vera’s. Her face, her voice, it was all the same... it was her. But how could it be?
Isaac’s body crumples into the cell, completely spent from that day’s session. New burns line his bare arms and hands as he wraps them around his middle, curling into the fetal position on the cold damp floor. His eyes blink open and closed, open and closed, the only thing he seems to be able to keep his mind on. Every part of him aches, his skin and blood on fire with something they’ve injected into him. He wants to throw up, but the effort to do even that seems to great. He can hear the muffled voice of the woman beside him, but he can’t find the energy to answer. Eyes just blink open and closed, open and closed. He doesn’t know how long he lays there, but he remembers Vera being pulled from her cell, their eyes connecting as she’s pulled away for her turn. He tries to muster a smile, but his frail figure just shakes lightly as he lays there. His eyes finally close. He’s not sure how long he sleeps, but when he wakes, he’s regained some of his strength, but Vera still isn’t back in her cell. He crawls into his cot and waits.
Isaac watches Vera unravel before him, his own body caught frozen in time, small flashes of electricity dancing between his fingers and up his arms. He cannot breath, and is sure that at some point he will just pass out from lack of oxygen, but he doesn’t. He watches her panic, he watches her mind catch up with what she doesn’t seem to remember. She doesn’t remember the horrors they went through--she doesn’t remember him. Isaac swallows, shifting his weight when he suddenly feels that he can move, though his feet still feel like lead. He sees the physical change in her demeanour before her words come out and cut into his gut like a knife.
She doesn’t remember him.
Isaac waits, and waits, and waits. Eventually they come back for him, taking him away for another session, this one just as equally horrifying as the last. When he’s thrown back into his cell, he pulls himself up to the bars to peer into Vera’s, but she’s not there. Days pass... weeks... he’s not sure how much time passes, but he knows she’s gone. He’s sure they’ve killed her. He cries for what seems like forever, until he cannot even find the strength to cry anymore. He loses the last bit of hope he didn’t even realize he had. Even the electricity they pump through his veins can’t make him scream. He’s nothing more than an empty shell; a broken boy with nothing left to live for. When they take him from his cell on that last day, he’s sure that this is it. He can feel it in his body, that he cannot take much more, and he’s willing to just give in to the oblivion. Little does he know, when he’s finally surrendered it all, is when Kohl finally manifests.
Isaac watches Vera turn, and promptly walk away, her figure getting farther, and he can’t find it anywhere in himself to follow her. She doesn’t remember him. She doesn’t know him. He’s a stranger to her that brings back something she’s clearly worked to forget. His heart drops to his stomach and his head spins until someone bumps into him, sending him turning and running in the other direction. He collides with a few others, hearing various ‘ows’ and curses at him as the static in his body shocks those he comes in contact with. He rounds the corner of an alley where he presses his palms against a brick wall, eyes swimming with memories he’d tried to forget. He slams his hands against the wall as sparks fly off them in frustration. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” He breathes out in anger and pain. His breathing is rapid and his heart races as he runs a hand over his face, turning to lean his back into the wall. He lets himself slide down till he’s sitting, knees bent and his face resting in his hands. Tears prickle the corners of his eyes, but he pushes them away, as he works to calm the nausea in his stomach and the spinning in his head. He sniffs and stays there for a few moments, catching his breath. He digs through his pockets, pulling out a small baggy of whatever he has left, and uses it, knowing he’ll regret it later, but also knowing he’d rather have his head swimming in a high than memories. Tossing the baggy aside, he leans his head back, waiting for the high to hit him, working to push back the thoughts that still make him sick.
She doesn’t remember him.