A Hopeless Journal for A Helpless Man

Chapter 9: Collective Captivity

I've been sitting here for a while. The incident that happened not too long ago is finally over. It looks as if it's about eight o'clock, but I honestly do not know. All I know is that I don't have a chance, freedom is acquired - not given - and that I shouldn't try to be a hero. Ros is really getting to me. I think about nothing else. My mind has introduced Ros into every thought.

I've been thinking about how my life was before. It was good, I mean, what else could I want? I was studying psychology and psychoanalysis, beginning my last semester of my master's degree. I had a good family and good enough friends. Everything was fine. These thoughts were frequent; my nostalgia for my great life and how much I took it for granted was kicking in. Now, I chose not to think of it though. Ros appeared in every thought. Whenever I pictured my family I'd see them running towards Ros, while he held the same bat and pistol.

Fortune had a funny way of making me look at things. I guess Ros' lessons are more applicable to life than we captives could think. Good fortune was given to me, then yanked away and torn apart from my body, as if someone were ripping my spine out of my back. 

The other captives and I have been handcuffed to this post near the dock for a couple of hours. The captives are still unconscious, luckily I was the only one who wasn't knocked unconscious, though I still have many mixed feelings about it. I think I would've preferred not to experience what I did. It was traumatizing. I don't know why Ros is so attached to me and so bound on lecturing me. I haven't inferred any purpose or relationship between him and I along with his twisted experiments.

I hear someone. "What's your name, boy?" It was Neil.

"Neil, are you OK?", I asked.

Neil answered angrily, "Do I seem ok? I'm alive, if that's what you meant. Your name?"

"Aaron", I replied.

"Well, as you may already know, I'm Niel. I've been stranded here for months, I think. Tell me, boy, what was the last date you remember?", he asked.

"August 23, 2013. That is the last day I remember not being here. I was in a bar, after that it gets pretty hazy.", I replied after an initial pause.

"I see, well I was wrong. I've been here for close to a year. Aaron... I think it's important for you to know how fortunate you really are. Right now... You're Ros' favorite toy. I was never his favorite toy, even worse: I was his voodoo doll, Aaron... Ros sees something in you Aaron, just like he did with me. He looks at you like another voodoo doll. You seem very mentally strong and sane, Ros knows that. He is the debilitator of the strong, Aaron. He hates people that are stronger than him, in any way. You though, you have something he'll never have. Sanity", said Niel reassuringly.

"Why me? Every other captive seems sane to me", I said desperately.

"Ros seems to identify his deepest want with you. I don't know what sets you apart", Neil explained.

I confessed, "I can't take it anymore”.

"Me neither. I know that change, by now, is a very far-fetched idea and trying is futile, but it's all we have. You may have a chance", said Niel.

"I lost all of my chances the moment I woke up on this island and read Emmet's letter", I responded in a soft, melancholic tone.

"You read my letter?", Niel asked hastily.

"That was yours? You're Emmett Nielsen?!", I asked excitedly, as the realization began settling in.

"I thought that letter had probably been blown away or had decomposed by now.", explained Emmett

"Well it didn't, I found it lying around stuck in the sand next to a rock", I said.

"I'm glad you found it", said Emmett.