The Place the Eye Does Not See

Chapter One

What will become of me now? Will I ever see the people that I held dear to me a few days ago again? Will I ever return to the place I used to call home? I awoke in a dark, damp cell, with no light, and nothing in it but the cold hard floor on which I rested. My memory was a complete blur of orange flames and peoples’ screams around me as they trampled each other on the streets. And then darkness, as if a blindfold rushed over my eyes in a flash of black.

Let me tell you my story; my name is Adela. I am an 18 year old shape shifter, who was supposed to be the next chief of her tribe, Kevera. We shape shifters have been hiding from the humans for centuries, so that our village is not raided and our tribes people captured, to be brainwashed and forced to work in an army, or whatever else they might want us for. There have been terrible stories of the place, the grey solemn place with no life or colour. The Reformatory. In this place, you will face months, perhaps years of unbearable torture in which they try to break you like a horse. Only few have escaped and lived to tell the tale. They call it the place the eye does not see. I never understood why though. They said that one would stop living a long time before they died. The eye would stop seeing, the mind stop dreaming, the body stop feeling. This place, I now fear I am trapped in. I continued to lie numbly on the floor of my cell. My mind stayed blank. I felt as if, even if I wanted to (which I did not), I couldn’t think, speak, move, even feel. My senses were completely cut off. I couldn’t pull anything from my old life into view, my family or my village, nothing. I should be afraid, I told myself, I should be terrified. But, there was just nothing. My emotions felt numb. While lying here, I was suddenly aware to the fact that it was perfectly quiet. I could not hear a thing, not even my own breathing. I couldn’t even think to wonder if my hearing had been lost when my village was raided. I could barely remember anything of that night, and it felt like too much of a strain to try. 

After what seemed like days of numbness and silence, I heard a creek, then a small sliver of light appeared on the floor beside me. I froze where I lay, fearing danger. I heard the hard clunk of something dropping on the cement floor. Then another creak and the sliver of light disappeared. I raised my upper body slightly to see what the object was that had been laid in my cell, hoping it was something to eat or drink, I had not eaten since I got here. It was, or at least, it was supposed to be, some food. It was a small plastic bowl, plain and white, filled with some sort of beige paste, and, beside it, a small bowl of water. Having lost all my appetite, I ate it anyways, only using my mouth, and not bothering to waste the energy needed to raise my hands. I drank the water, which filled my empty stomach a little more and quenched my dry thirst, then went back to lying on the floor. There was nothing else to do anyways, and I knew I was going to be trapped in here for a long time. From the stories of those who had escaped, they said that pacing and moving around was a waste of energy, and I’d need all of my energy for what was to come. I lay there until the next feeding time, and the next after that. Not thinking, not feeling, and just lying. I felt like it was all a nightmare, a twisted hallucination. I wanted nothing more than to wake up. 

One day, the door was opened like usual, but nothing was dropped into my cell. “Get up!” a rough, gravely man’s voice shouted. I began to numbly climb to my feet. 

“Faster!” said the gravelly voice again, and this time accompanied by the sound of a whip cracking. It took a while for the noise and the impact to transmit to pain, because of the numbness. Finally, one hot flash of pain drove me quickly to my feet. After days of just lying there, I had never realised until now that my hands were tied behind my back by something cold and metallic. It felt good to stretch my muscles after weeks of stillness. Now that I was up, it all started to hit me. Fear, panic, stress. I had no time for that now. I had to be strong. The man led me and some others who had been in the cells beside mine into a large, blindingly bright room with a high ceiling, and no windows. It smelled like sweat, dirt, and a strange, chemical sent I couldn’t place. I couldn't help but notice that The stories of this place were unnervingly accurate. Everything was in black and grey, no color but the faded eyes of other shape shifters. Everyone was dressed in shades: all the prisoners in grey canvas jumpsuits, and the grunts in black clothes. After my eyes adjusted to the bright light, I saw that there were a few other men holding whips like the man who led me here standing at the far side of the room, in a small cleared area. After a few minutes, one man with long, ugly red scars down his face stepped forward and began to speak.