RAT ☣︎
─── patient reader doesn't know who she is, where she is or how she got there. she's monitored by scientist matt who knows much more than he'll tell her. how dedicated can matt stay to his cause when he falls in love with her?
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CONTENT: after weeks of agony, the pain finally ends - leaving patient reader feeling nothing, feeling empty.
WARNINGS: mentions of overdose, descriptions of pain, human experimentation, Stockholm syndrome? (if u squint), drug usage, depression, almost catatonic state, anxieties, punching, nose bleeds, implied almost SA but not really SA, urges to hurt self and other people, suicide idealation, ** SUICIDE ATTEMPT ** - by drowning / smothering, choking, vomit, self injury by hitting head into something, crying, arguing but little speech, memory loss. further info about au in general here.
** PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION !!!
CHAPTER FIVE
WC: 2k
You wouldn't describe your relationship with Matt as a relationship - you wouldn't describe it as anything really.
In spite of that, Matt implied a lot that you were something. Ironically, even he didn't know what to class it as.
Maybe you let him get close for a sense of control. You got to have a little of it by knowing you were more reluctant than you let on. An inner monologue convincing yourself that you were doing it for safety, letting him feel like this ‘feeling’ was reciprocated so you felt he was the naive one for once.
It helped a little to make up for the fact you didn't really understand anything that was happening to you.
Matt stayed close. Clearly concerned, which didn't ease your anxieties.
It was several weeks of pure agony. He refused to give you meds for it; resulting in many occasions where you would even pass out from the pain.
Sometimes the talking was comforting, Matt muttering (basically to himself) about the medication he was working on. He’d describe it to you, explaining it, letting you know how it worked and what it did. When the pain started to wear off, you wished you'd paid more attention to his speeches.
Now you were back to square one of not knowing what the fuck you were even here for.
Cheery seemed a weird word but the most accurate for describing Matt's mood change when he noticed the longer absences of pain in your body.
A part of you thought you should act, pretend you were still unbearably sick so he wouldn't make you leave the bed. You didn't want the trials, the feeling that you were constantly watched and overheard. Just Matt and him only sometimes was easier.
He fed the rat. Also told you to name it. Naming a rat when Matt refused to tell you your own felt like a mockery. So you just dismissed his request every time he brought it up.
You liked having a lack of self in common with the animal.
The withdrawals from the drugs had an unbearable amount of not only painful symptoms but humiliating ones.
Constant runny nose and sweat made you feel disgusting, not at all like someone who could use emotional tactics against Matt to get him on side to set you free from this place.
Matt kept bringing you the same cloth, cleaning it in between days but the repetition seemed to bug you.
You knew you were trapped in a place, and similar days with that same fucking cloth made it feel like a time loop that was hopeless to daydream about escaping from.
Something sick happened the day you woke up painless.
Usually you'd have a pulse thumping in your skull, even a little was enough to know you were still suffering. Now there was nothing. Physically.
You stared at the ceiling from when you woke up till when Matt came in. It could've been hours and you wouldn't have known.
Not a single part of you cared enough to keep track, usually you would have called out for him specifically, alerting him you were awake. Alerting him you wanted him there, taking care of you.
No part of you wanted him. No part of you wanted anything.
Again, there was nothing. Nothing painful sure, but purely nothing at all.
Emotionally and physically empty.
You thought he must've assumed you were hurting. Logical assumption due to previous days of living in so much torture that all you could do was nothing.
Now you were laying, wishing to see, hear, feel nothing, live as pure nothing. That or to be able to scream and kill everyone that was involved in you being here.
Turns out the only skill you had was the consistent not knowing.
You would somehow always miss important details he told you - dissociating from either pain or pure emotional exhaustion so everything just happened to you. Now you just let it.
Matt pulled you out of bed, gently, guiding every movement. He led you out the room, lights blaring through your eyes making everything virtually invisible. You didn't really want to leave your room, but not a single limb decided to take action.
Yet.
With the way your feet dragged from your almost lack of consciousness, Matt took the initiative to pull you into his grasp. Supporting you, making your legs instinctively wrap around his torso and your head rest on his shoulder as he carried you.
You let your eyes rest, despite the fact that you didn't want to relax into him. You didn't want to be near him or anyone or any kind of tool he had prepared to test you.
You realised your only true wish in that moment was to be dead. But you weren't, and you couldn't make that happen with Matt's constant surveillance.
Yet.
He set you down on your bare feet, the cold surface sending a rush up your spine.
It was the most you’d felt that day so far; and it was just the cold. It felt like a waste of a feeling.
Matt was reluctant to let go of you, walking you backwards slowly while your eyelids remained heavy and almost fully closed. His hand remained on the small of your back, touching the fabric of the hospital nightgown you tended to forget you had on.
It was less intimidating to imagine yourself in typical clothing so you refused to process the truth. it made you feel normal, a fake sense of knowing you weren't actually someone insane.
Yet.
A cold surface pressed against your back, Matt seemingly securing you in place in front of it. He kissed your cheek, sparking the first urge to actually do something you had that day: punch him.
Another part of you competed, a part of you that didn't mind him doing it; which kind of made you want to punch him more, then maybe hit your head against the wall to punish yourself.
You didn't move to hurt him.
Yet.
Matt was still. Hands twitching like he was waiting for the right moment to do something. To move. But he didn't.
Yet.
Maybe you knew. Maybe your brain had temporarily become connected to some higher power after your suffering.
It sparked you into action but it didn't surprise you. Like you knew it was going to happen. As if it had happened before. Maybe it had.
Your body made the move before you even formed the thought for it.
Matt jolted back, hand hesitant to touch his face as he felt the blood begin to spill out his nose. His eyes were wide, confused.
You didn't feel the muscles in your face form a reaction so you were sure you didn't show one at all. It definitely didn't ease the fear in his eyes.
You flattened your gown back down, back to where it was before he moved it; holding the hem protectively as you held eye contact with Matt.
“I wasn't- i-i didn't think you were, i don't know, awake.”
You just stared. Mouth closed, body waiting. Numb. still numb.
“I wasn't gonna do anything bad.”
His voice sounded increasingly muffled, like your brain didn't want to listen - wanting to shut him out, ignore him, be away from him the only way you could.
“I-i get that you're upset, okay?” he held his hands to his side in surrender, still stood a couple meters away from you for a mix of his safety and your comfort. “But I need you to turn around.”
He started to walk sideways, around the centre of the room where you only now processed you were standing. You followed his movements, in turn appearing to turn around just as he had initially requested.
The cold surface behind you had been a tub. The material cold but the water warm as evident from the steam.
Out of instinct you dipped your hand in, the heat didn't spark anything in you like you hoped. Maybe hope was a strong word. You didn't feel or want anything. Maybe you just expected it - and expected it wrongly.
“I was gonna help you get in.” your eyes met his again. “You get like this a lot. Quiet. I thought maybe it was the meds. You've kind of always been on them. But there's none left in you.”
‘None left in you’ felt like a very non-specific sentence that could apply to a number of the ways you felt or didn't feel in that moment.
You weren't even angry at him despite the fact you hit him. You weren't much of anything. There really was nothing left.
You stepped in, holding the edge and putting your right foot into the water first. With both feet in, you kneeled down, shifting around to start laying on your back.
You didn't look at Matt. Maybe your mind forgot he was there out of the wish he wasn't.
The water pushed up to cover your ears, working on submerging you fully as you closed your eyes and relaxed into the tub.
Your fingers worked slowly, gripping the hem of your gown, before pulling it up harshly, sending water splashing around you from your finally gained adrenaline.
You covered your face with the mass of fabric, utilising it to be like a full head mask, wrapping over and over, tighter and tighter. You tried to breathe in as much water as you could, beginning to choke while you kept hoping you’d secured yourself enough to compete with your body’s natural impulses to try and survive.
Body shaking, choking, switching, kicking and fighting. Mind versus body.
Matt rushed to the smothering material over your face, hopelessly pulling, attempting to rip.
You fought him off as much as you could, convincing your brain he was the enemy to fight off. Your back arched now, air gone, dying quicker now, but less able to try and win.
The moment your hands could no longer push and slap him away, he gripped your shoulder and tugged you up.
The fabric only got heavier, weighing down your head from how tight you'd secured it around you.
You choked and sputtered, feeling Matt hurry with every strength he had to find an end to the gown. You heard the tear before you felt it release you.
As soon as you felt air, you coughed loudly, a burning in your throat urging your head to tip over the bath to vomit outside of the water you were still laying in.
All you could do was rest your head on the edge, working on your breathing. You felt the cold air of the room on your back, now forcing you to process your nudity.
You were faced away from Matt, hearing his sniffles and cries from behind you.
Now you rested your forehead on the ledge.
You felt the thin flat top of it, shifting your head to feel its slightly sharp corner. In the next moment you didn't think. You just pulled back quickly and smashed your head against it.
When you moved your head back again in an attempt to repeat the action, you felt your face grabbed forcefully, restrained.
His mouth was moving, probably yelling at you. You didn't hear it.
You watched the way the corners of his lips were tilted down - he was speaking through his sobs, tears streaming down his face that joined the smeared remanents of blood by his nose.
But you didn't hear it.
You didn't know what he was saying. You didn't know anything. You didn't feel anything emotionally - all you had was the pulsing heat in the centre of your forehead and the liquid that started to spill from it.
And you had Matt. His hands were secure against your face but not harsh. How he managed it, you didn't know.
Your eyelids felt heavy again. You weren't tired. You felt dead. You wanted to be.
You relaxed into his grip, finding the slightest comfort in being held enough to fall asleep - unaware that this was another of those ghost events. Phantom scenes of your life.
Not that they didn't happen, but moments you wouldn't remember.
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