Broken Barbies

The corridors all look the same, each dark and damp. There was water dripping down to the cement floor making it slippy as I ran in circles from the beast behind me. Every struggling breath I took burned through me as the monster followed me in the dark. The pipes on the walls hissed out hot steam, heating my body and slowing me down as more sweat drenched and weighed down my clothing, or what was left of it. My grey t-shirt has turned black from the sweat it had absorbed and showed by bruised and scarred stomach through the numerous rips on it. My once muscled stomach now caved in, the skin stretched over broken ribs and hip bones. I had lost my body and taken on a skeleton. My running shorts have become nearly non-existent in the six months I have been here but they were my only protection.

The sound of metal scratching the floor came from behind, I pushed on not stupid enough to slow myself down by looking behind. I knew what was there. I ran from it every day. I knew what was going to happen. The beast behind me had been employed after my eleventh run from imprisonment. It was tall even with its hunched back and always shrouded in darkness. The smell of sweat and blood dispersed from its thick body. No one else ever tried to run, they couldn’t. Its sharp nails caught me around the stomach grazing my skin causing more blood to stain my t-shirt. I know now screaming was no use. The thing couldn’t hear. It had no effect. I was slowly dragged back past the dripping water and rooms of whimpers. My room was number 26 coincidently also my age as of two weeks ago. Long nails and bare skin is a great way to keep track of passing days. I have been in here for a shorter time than most of the others but I also know I’ll be the first to go, 216 escape attempts are sure to have gotten on someone’s nerves.

My room like the corridors is made of cement and dripping water, a dangerous combination with the swinging lightbulb. The steel door slams shut leaving me sitting in the middle alone like every other day. I would have been getting married in twelve days. Ayla Mellet. It would have sounded beautiful from his lips. Never again will I hear him say my name or anyone else’s. I am left remembering his murder, just like every other day. In our bedroom, closed curtains, lights on, throat slit, legs broken. Then the chloroform cloth slowly turning his mutilated body into darkness. Insomnia has become a welcomed friend since that day.

The rattling of doors jolts me from my thoughts. My door opens and I join the whimpering skeletal people outside. We get taken to the showers every three or so days, not for our care, no for presentation. We fill the old prison showers with scarred bodies and minds. The room is full of silent cries as we are watched get rid of the grime on our bodies. Many of the arms are so injured they can’t move but you don’t dare help out. You won’t move for weeks. They enjoy watching the silent tears and struggling of their prisoners. All female, all under thirty, all dead inside. The only feelings in this room were fear and pleasure. Us and them. They couldn’t touch us now, we were marked enough and there was no need to make it worse right now. How would they sell us then?

As with each time before an older woman came in after our shower to make our bodies and faces presentable. Cover marred skin, paint our nails and remove any unneeded hairs.  We became broken Barbie’s ready for the wrong people to play with. Only the most broken were sold however, their bruises were few and their minds empty. The men would come in their sharp suits and charming smiles that made my stomach turn. The most important thing they had however was money. Truly broken women were hard to come by and our dealer had the best. Each body he had could be tailor fitted to fit your preference. Fat. Thin. Blonde. Red. Black. White. He had everything you could ever want and if you disagreed he solved that the best way possible, a slit throat.

I found the best time to run is straight after presentation and selling. The men would be tired from their ferocious activities and the beast would be sleeping. It may be the time. The men left us wrecked in the presentation room, many of the bodies knocked out or tied somewhere. Ropes became easy to get out of after some practice and the door was never locked. I ran in silent fear someone or something would catch me. The drips of water echoed through the halls, the only sound as my bare soles hit the ground like a feather. My escape was halted quickly when a shadow flooded the space in front of me. The figure of the shadow was tall and thin but the man behind it was no bigger than me. He was however carrying a knife.

My breath was coming out short and quick, the mix of fear and adrenaline from running shook my body. The man in front of me with thick brown hair and hazel eyes was the reason I stayed up at night. He was the eye watching over the chloroform cloth and the soft hands gifting women with slits on their partner’s throats. Maybe he will present my neck with a gift from his blade. Death is the only from of freedom I want. Just let it be quick. His face was sweet and childlike with a single dimple on his left cheek.  How could a man like this do something so horrid? He took my frozen state of fear for advantage and pulled me into an unknown room. The lights were bright and the furniture plush. The room had two large velvet sofas and a dark wood table in the centre. I was pulled to the low table and gently pushed on it. The wood was smooth and cold against my bare skin. So were the handcuffs he quickly attached to me. That brought me out of my frozen state.

The knife in his hand glimmered in the yellow light while his eyes shone with a childlike glee. Soon my legs lay in crimson pools of my own blood as he cut each of my thighs slowly. The blade ran over them gracefully causing little pain but a downpour of blood. My voice was lost as my breath came out in pants and hisses. His face was full of concentration with his rosy lip trapped between his teeth. He look like a painter trying to reclaim a ruined masterpiece, any wrong stroke would anger him. The wet blade slowly travelled up my body getting closer to my neck and in turn my freedom. It stopped. Blood continued to flow from his masterpiece the steady drops from the table mixed with my gasps creating the sound of death in the air. He stood from his bent positon to watch with glazed over eyes as life slowly left my body. My body became weightless as I stopped feeling each limb, my vision was taken over with blackness and only after all was gone did his blade present my neck with its gift.