Breaking Chains

Introductions

Samantha woke up in her bed with the blanket wrapped tightly around her. Her hands were red and numb from gripped the crude blanket in her sleep. It provided little warmth but it was a step up from being exposed to the air, the same with the bed. Really the bed was more of a cot but it was better than the floor. There were no sheets; they could be torn into strips and used to hang oneself or strangle others. Pillows were simply too much of a luxury for inmates of White Haven. It was a far cry from the cozy layers of satin and silk she was used to rolling into every night. How sad her life had become.

She sat up, hugged the blanket closer, and tucked the stray cloth underneath her frozen toes. As usual it was freezing cold but the cold was going on her. It was a slow process but a gradual tolerance was developing; she just wished it would hurry up. Her sluggish eyes surveyed her dismal living quarters.

Each room was held was meant for two though it could scarcely hold one. The “room” was ten by ten feet wide and occupied by two cots, splitting the space of the room in half. There were no windows. On the door was a metal grating for air, an eye slot for check ups, and a food slot near the bottom.

Samantha had a roommate, if you could call him that. He was eighty years old, hunched like a shrimp, and spent all his time curled in a ball in the corner of the room. They had “conversations” in which Samantha would talk and he would gurgle and drool. Not exactly stimulating stuff but she took what she could get.

“Hey Lloyd,” Samantha said to him. He was the only male prisoner of White Haven but then again, Samantha had never seen many of the other prisoners besides the occasional passing glance. He never talked. He rarely ate. He just sort of existed in the corner of the room. She didn’t even know what his name was she just called him Lloyd because is patient number was 1048 and the eight had faded so it sort of resembled a ‘d’ and the four kind of looked like a ‘y’ so the number tag was an approximate of ‘loyd’ which is what she chose to call him.

“How was your day?” Samantha asked. She might as well have been speaking to the wall. “I had another session with the good doctor yesterday. I think I upset him. I shouldn’t have upset him. I was so close to talking to someone else today. I wonder if he’ll give me another chance,” she mused.

Her thoughts wandered to the girl by the window. She was such a curiosity. It was almost as if she didn’t exist as all, like a ghost. Her eyes had been so empty. And she knew. Somehow someway she knew what Samantha was.

“I saw someone,” Samantha said, more to herself than to Lloyd. “She was another patient. A young girl.” Samantha touched the frayed bandages wrapped around her face. “Very pretty,” she whispered.

How did she know?

“Not quite as pretty as you of course, Lloyd,” Samantha said on a lighter note. Lloyd started to drool on himself. “Ew...come on Lloyd,” Samantha groaned.  

The door opened and Samantha grimaced. Lloyd started to shake.

Breakfast time.

Samantha tried to stand as the nurses walked in with a funnel and tube. They shoved her back down, the back of her head hitting painfully against the wall. Their target was Lloyd.

“There has to be easier ways,” she implored them. The nurses were stoic. One nurse yanked Lloyd from his corner and dragged him onto the bed. He feebly tried to fend of their hands to no avail. “He doesn't like it, can’t you see!” They grabbed him by the hair and forced his toothless mouth open. “Stop it!”

The tube followed, it was shoved straight down his esophagus. Samantha shielded her eyes. He gagged and then swallowed it down. The funnel topped the tube and nutrient broth was poured down. They stopped pouring only when the broth bubbled to the top of the funnel and they were forced to wait for it to drain. Samantha didn’t need to see to hear him struggling to take it down, the sound of it sloshing, him trying to take the tube out, and the nurses holding him down. Lloyd was moaning in distress as his gag reflex tried to reject the foreign object in his throat but he had to control himself or he’d choke on his own vomit.