Final Truth

Chapter 19: How Can This Be?

Julia's point of view:

It's been two weeks since the message to my city, and in that span of time Henley has managed to test and fail me on the powers of imagination, dreams, creativity, and transparency.

Not that I expected to pass any more tests, for how could I under such circumstances?

I've had no word of Peter, so I've been left to assume that he's dead. Gone and moved on from this world.

Perhaps God will take better care of him than I could.

The doctors tell Henley that my health is failing, and if she doesn't give me the time to cope with recent events, the trauma will kill me.

And I believe them; I don't want to die, but it's as if my body has made up its mind. They've had to force-feed me soup since I can't stomach it, and the wounds on my back from being whipped are just beginning to get over being infected. My body trembles with frigidness, but warmth seems foreign here. Terrible nightmares have returned, only this time they're real with all of my worst fears plaguing me in sleep and in waking.

They've kept me hooked up to a saline bag for the last few days because of dehydration, so I get to tote that baggage around the prison compound with me now to add to the humiliation.

Felicity has tried and failed multiple times to help console me, to let me know that I'm not alone and that she understands what I'm going through.

And I know she understands and that she's already experienced this, but I can't comprehend how much Peter's death hurts.

It's the worst kind of pain I could ever feel, and to think someone else could understand my level of hurt makes me want to draw away and keep everything inside. If she understands how much pain this has caused me, then I don't want Felicity's help; I don't want her to bear my burden.

It's not Henley's tests that are causing my health to fail; watching Peter die is the culprit. Truly, I do not want to die, but watching him tortured like that has sent my health spiraling down a path that I can't recover from.

Nobody here can heal me since no one has powers; all the other green-eyed inmates have had their powers taken from them, and Henley's team of doctors work with regular medical instruments that have no supernatural forces at work. Completely ordinary people working for a woman who can destroy the world with power.

Steven has been assigned to take care of me, but he can't do much. He told me that he once had healing powers that were so superb that he could bring people back from the dead, but his abilities have long since been stolen from him. He really does try to get me healthy again, but there's a point when a person experiences enough things that they just give up. There's not much he can do.

"Hey Jules, I think Steven's on his way for your daily check up," Felicity tells me warily, as if walking on eggshells.

I make a noise, a grunt of a sort, to indicate that I heard her before I curl into a little ball in the corner of my cell.

Felicity looks at me from behind her side of the bars, pity in her emerald eyes as flashbacks of her own horrors here replay in them.

"I'm so sorry," she tries to console me. "I didn't think she would've killed him this soon."

But I just shake my head and rock myself back and forth, trying to not think about Peter.

I want to think of nothing, I want to be empty of feeling; I want to be so transparent that no one will ever hurt me again.

I hear the jingling noise of keys against the lock of my cell, and I see Steven opening my door and letting himself in.

He's alone this time without a guard to assist him, but Steven's too mellow to try something so foolish as to escape. He doesn't need to be watched constantly.