Destruction - The Oasis Project Book 2 (Complete)

Two - Linkin

I couldn't move. I was lucky that my body felt no pain because months strapped to a wheelchair, kept just conscious enough to be helpful was taking its toll both mentally and physically. The back of my head was against a rest, and restraints came around it to keep my head locked there. Tiny needles ran from the base of my spine to my C7 prominence, something which could easily be twisted if I wasn't cooperating. While I felt my nothing, sticking a needle directly into a nerve could make me physically sick as the pressure builds in my brain until I'm ready to scream, thinking my skull is about to burst.

What was almost the worst part of it all was the humidity. I wore practically nothing so if they used my skin to get information for someone, they would have images to look at as I said what I could see. Even my little clothing didn't cut down the heat. Moisture clung to my body and half the time I couldn't breathe.

I was literally in hell.

My job was simple for whoever my captors were. They forced me to look at images, documents then burned them. They would wear hazmat suits and dragged in some poor prisoner who looked worse off than me and they chained us together. The second our skin touched, they photographed what my tattoos did before they started interrogations. They could last up to an hour, the subject coiling on the ground from pain, begging to die. All because they touched me.

Often, their wish was granted. The number of bullets I saw put into people's heads and faces would never be erased. Some people who were too stubborn to give in, even to my touch, ended up having a heart attack from the pain of it all.

I was no longer a person; I was a weapon, a tool to break people, an untraceable, unhackable storage system. I never ate, didn't drink. Instead, I was kept on an IV and a feeding tube. I was weak, fragile. The concept of food and water were foreign to me, I didn't even know if I could remember how to eat given the opportunity. Speaking was even a privilege I rarely got.

They had broken me. Escape no longer had a place in my vocabulary, some days I had even forgotten my name. "Two" was my new name and the only place my mind ever wandered to was wondering who was number one.

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The doors opened and my eyes instantly opened as well. I had long ago discovered what happens when I tried to keep my eyes closed when they wanted something. Today was different, I could tell that the second two men walked in wearing scrubs instead of full hazmat suits. Standing in the doorway as an older man, his shirt hair was salt-and-pepper, his beard almost completely white as he watched me carefully. He kept his hands in his lab coat as the to men came over to me.

It was a long process. The first thing they did was secure my head and I prepared myself for the headaches, but they never came. Instead, it was the opposite. I felt a sudden release, my whole body was able to relax and the stabbing feeling behind my eyes slowly dissipated. After the needles were removed, it was then washing me with icy water and hard sponges, switching my IV bags, removing my restraints from the wheelchair, getting me redressed into a grey crewneck sweater and leggings. The last thing they did was tape my NG Tube to my cheek and finally removed my restraint from the headrest.

My head fell, risking giving me whiplash, my muscles had long atrophied and I had almost forgotten how to hold my own head up. It didn't help the paralytic drug was still in my system, even with the saline drip I was now on. "It's okay, Two, you'll feel better in your new room. Just close your eyes and rest." It was the Doctor who spoke to me as I was wheeled past him.

Cold air rushed over me and I was suddenly thankful to have the thick sweater and long pants. I curled up into it as I got used going from the 44°C room to the 12°C hallway. Neither of the people in scrubs spoke to me, but they also didn't blindfold me. It might have been because I was so eager to listen to the Doctor's suggestion to rest, now that I was finally able to slump in the wheelchair. I had no idea what was going to happen to me, what their new plan was, but I didn't care.

I was too tired to care. Magnetic doors sensed our presence and opened for us. A click behind us, we were locked inside. We went to the end of the hallway and I almost flinched feeling a light burning my eyes even though they were closed. When I finally got the courage to open them, I was shocked to see half of the hall was glass windows, snow piled up against the window and as my eyes adjusted, I followed the undisturbed whiteness to the horizon.

My eyes flickered to the other side of the hall. It was door after door or marked room, numbers 1-12. All the doors were shut and coloured different colours. Even the hallway wasn't the stale white of the island lab I had imagined myself in. It was a dark, rough stone which seemed to have moss growing on it.

My head was starting to hurt again. Thankfully, we arrived at a door and the man went to open it. The first thing I noticed was the fancy number 2, screwed into the door like it was a street address. The TARDIS blue door opened for me and the two men looked down at me, one finally spoke. "Alright Two, we're going to help you inside now, alright? The wheelchair would ruin the carpet."

It was the strangest sentence I had heard. My eyes flickered to the thick chocolate rug, it looked soft and brand new. One of the men went inside and grabbed an IV pole, changing my saline bag and other medications to it before coming to my side. "We're going to stand up on the count of three, alright?" They waited for a nod as both of them pulled on gloves.

They both had an accent, one I couldn't place, not that I was conscious enough to do it anyways. All I did was nod as the men helped me up. While my feet were on the ground, they dragged as they carried me forward. We passed by a closet, the bathroom, and through the living room with a full white couch, two bubble chairs, and a flat screen TV, I was brought to a bedroom. It was also stocked like the finest hotel. The closet door was slightly open and I could see clothes on a hanger. There was also a dresser, mirror, and a king size bed which I was slowly eased onto.

I didn't know if it was from the movement or from the new environment I was in, but my head spun. I remember the men talking to me, providing their names and instructions, but I didn't hear any of it. They sighed, asking a question and I never replied to it. "We'll be back in the morning, rest now," one decided to say to me as they worked on resting my head comfortably on a feather pillow and pulling the white and red comforter up over me. They left, the door closing behind them and the lights automatically turned off.