Nonconformity | Henry Creel

Missed Call

The walk back to my room may as well have been a walk to my own execution, feet dragging along the floor. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, throbbing in alignment with my footsteps. The ground and I maintained incessant eye contact-- I was too humiliated to risk looking up and catching someone's eye. Unshed tears made my bedroom door appear as one endless, watery block of grey.

I closed it behind me, safely returned to the bosom of the one place where I could cry as much as I pleased. The moment that the hallway disappeared behind opaque, ash-colored metal, I held a hand over my mouth. A stifled cry fell from my lips as I, too, fell to the floor. The ground cradled me in it's tiled arms, coolness offering me a moment of respite from the humiliated burning of my skin. The tears cascading down my face were not tears of sadness.

I was furious.

Furious enough to sit on the floor in a heap, trembling violently enough to send seismic waves through the lab. How stupid I was... To believe I could get away with hurting Two when the universe never failed to pelt me with its divine justice. How many times had it taught me this lesson, and how many times had I ignored it? Of course something like this would happen.

Of course.

And now, because of me, an innocent group of children was going to get punished for a crime they had no part in. They were going to know the pain of electricity coursing through their veins, frying them from the inside out. I pictured them all in my head, teary-eyed, screaming, begging for mercy while Papa watched over them with his sovereign gaze. I hated him. I hated him so much I couldn't breathe.

Sitting there, on the floor, I heaved deep breaths. Somehow, each inhale only made me more starved for air. I clawed at my throat, fingers slick with tears and I tried to will myself into calming down. All of the lights in my room flashed on and off, plunging the room in darkness before pulling it right back out. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed to a God I knew wasn't there, begging for salvation or escape or anything that wasn't this.

Those metal chains I had been so vehemently fighting against grew at such a velocity, wrapping around my throat, cutting off my airways with their insensible metal hands.

This was all my fault. This was all my fault.

I was going to kill 'Papa'. I was going to string his innards from the ceiling like streamers, break his bones until his screams echoed down every single hallway. He would know what it is to be afraid, to be utterly helpless. He was going to fall on his knees and beg for mercy like I was God, only for me to laugh in his face and deny him.

My eyes snapped open.

What was I becoming?

I blew gentle, shaking breaths from my lungs, desperately trying to pull myself together. "It's fine," I whispered to the stillness of my surroundings, "I'm fine. I'm fine. It's fine." Part of me expected the walls to suddenly come to life and prove me wrong. To tell me that this, in fact, wasn't fine. But they didn't, because I wasn't going insane.

I wasn't going insane.

That phrase played on repeat in my head over and over-- a desperate attempt to ward off the panic attack which had just snuck into my body and temporarily robbed me of my sanity. I was smart. I had little else, but I would always have that. I could find a way out of this. I could save the kids and myself. A week is a long, long time. Perhaps I could force Four into a confession using similar methods, or simply talk Papa out of it. He was a rational man, on occasion. He could be reasoned with.

He loved us, after all.

Bile filled my throat at the thought. If that was love, then perhaps I'd be better off without it.