The Anarchist

10. Enter Truth

Contents retrieved from cell 012b. Date Unknown.

This is Annie, and I am not sure what to think anymore.

Something has happened at last, something which broke the tedium of this place. I should be thrilled.

I am not.

It began with another conversation with Samantha. There had been many of those in the past days, but they had all ended up as a colossal waste of time. Not this one. This one was ominous. This one made my skin prickle.

She was not crying this time. She was hiding in the darkest corner of her cell, her breaths ragged and uneven.

I enquired as to what was wrong. She only said, "She's here. She's here and she's really angry. I'm scared, Annie. I'm really scared."

I wanted to know more than the gibbering I'd just heard, so I pressed her.

"Who? Who is coming? What the Hell are you on about?"

"You mean, you've never seen her before?"

"I would think that my frustrated confusion would be a good indicator that I haven't."

"Okay... Okay then I have to tell you. I have to tell you what happened to my friend."

She crawled forward into the light. Her eyes looked dark, probably because they were raw.

"I told you about my friend Sarah. She was my best friend once. But she had a bad life. Bad things happened to her when they shouldn't have. She was very sad, just like me. When we were together, we made each other feel happy again. We didn't feel all alone, so we stayed together as much as possible.

"But then someone else started trying to play with us. She was a horrible girl. She hated me, and she always took Sarah away from me..."

She started sobbing. Again. It took a while at least.

"And it kept happening. She kept on showing up and taking my friend away. I got sad again. Sarah did too. And I couldn't..." She sobbed, interrupting herself. "I couldn't help her. Then one day, Sarah never came back. It was only this girl. She told me Sarah was gone forever. She said it to me with this... horrible smile on her face. Then she started trying to hurt me too."

"Who was this girl? What was her name? Why does any of this matter?"

"She didn't have a name," was the answer. "She just gave herself this stupid nickname. Like it was going to fool anyone. You don't understand. She only hurts people. That's all she wants to do. She pretends to help, but she just hurts you. And now she's back, and she's coming for you, and I'm so scared and I just don't want to be here anymore!"

With that, she scurried back into the darkness and went silent. I tried to prod her further but she jsut whispered, "Don't listen to her when she gets here. Don't listen."

I haven't heard from her after that.

That was just the start. The next night was the main event.

I awoke with a start in the witching hours of the morning, with dread weighing the pit of my stomach down like a lump of crude iron. I had a feeling that someone else was there.

Watching me.

I rolled over and, in the streak of moonlight which streamed through the window, there sat a figure, arms calmly hanging on its knees. I could only make out a single feature on its face: A smile. A toothy, sadistic grin, so broad as to seem to be too big for its own face. Its teeth stood out more than anything, so white that it looked like they were shining.

It spoke, and I knew instinctively that it was a woman, despite the fact that its voice sounded as if its throat were being torn by thousands of rusty blades with every breath.

"Hello, my dear liar," it said, wheezing with the effort of its own words. "I trust that you have been enjoying yourself."

"Liar?" I retorted, my voice shaking just the slightest bit. "Who are you to call me 'liar'? I've never met you before in my life."

The woman let out a long, slow sigh, and when she spoke, her voice rasped with barely contained rage.

"Don't patronise me, you wretched facsimile of a human being! You may have fooled yourself with your own manipulations, but I know you. I know you from the cells of your feet to the tiniest synapses in your mind, and I have been waiting for this day longer than you could ever understand."

"Well I have no clue who you are," I said, truthfully, "but if you think you're going to intimidate me, then you are mistaken."

"Intimidate? You misunderstand. I don't intimidate. I elucidate."

I needed more from this clown, so I pestered her with questions.

"Then elucidate. Who are you? Who moved you here? Where did you come from? Where is Samantha?"

The woman took in several deep, laboured breaths, her lungs seeming to struggle to fill themselves. The breathing sped up gradually until the air in her throat whined like an over-stressed engine. It was only after several seconds of this that I realised, with not a little bit of disgust, that it was not breathing. It was laughter.

"I think you mistake yourself as being in charge, here," she said eventually. "Let me make it clear. Everything you need to know, you shall know. No more, no less. And you shall know it as and when I decide, because I have waited, Liar, as I have said, for a very long time, and I want to drag out your suffering for as long as possible. I want to enjoy your final days like the delicate flavours of spices, dancing on my tongue.

"As for the weeping wretch, she is indisposed, and there is no need for me to tell you where she is at this time. She is... safe. That's what you need to know."

I was not going to have any of this. I tried to get more out of her, tried to at least get a name if nothing else. But the smile returned.

"Here is what I am going to tell you now, Liar: In the next few days, I will tell you three truths, three facts that will answer every question you have about yourself; How did you get here? Why don't you remember what came before? Where are all your blackouts coming from and what happens in the parts where you are gone? All this you will know at the end of it all. When I decide you get to know."

A chill ran through my body for the first time that I can remember.

"How do you know about all of this?" I asked her.

"Because it's true, and I see all truths for what they are. That was the name I was given, after all."

"Truth?"

"Yes. Truth. And after this week, you will never forget it."

With that, she slunk into the shadows and left me be. For the first time in weeks, it was quiet, yet I didn't want it that way anymore.

I have to prepare now for my next meeting with "Truth". I was caught out, before, but I have to push back. No one threatens me.

No one.