These Memories, They Sting And Throb

Nightmares

Those haunting gray eyes, they bore into Peter.

A voice, emotionless and raspy, spit out of dry and cracked lips.

"More sedative. Stop his squirming! We must get every last drop, every single morsel we must drag out."

A prick in his elbow. Hands, cold, gloves hands that smell of rust and chemicals, slicked with jell, touch his arms, push his head back. He struggles, trying to lift his arms, his head, his feet.

The restraints tighten, cutting off circulation. His hands clench. Unclench. He tries to call out, to force air from his lungs, but he can't speak, can't move, can only watch, eyes glazed over with tears and fogged from sedation.

He wants his Daddy. So much. So much so much so much.

White lab coats bustle about.

They rustle at the ankles, pulled taunt around the hands, stretched as thin and warn as the bleached skin of the wearers. Back and forth across the room, eyes blank, unseeing of the horrors in front of them as they pace.

Around and around they go. When they stop, when they stop and see, no one knows.

The IV lines drips overhead. It counts the seconds, one after another, an endless hour glass of every second Peter misses.

Every second he is forced to endure. To suffer. To bleed and cry. To scream.

Red.

A splash of it, as dark as night, almost black. It streams out of the tubes, out of his arms and legs, into a machine, a box of metal and plastic. They never stop, never cease even when the loss of it makes Peter's head spin and his arms weigh heavy against the restraints.

By that time he is too tired to struggle.

A head band, hard, made of black metal and covered in small wires, gets shoved onto his face. The edge of it cuts against his forehead, shaping his skin to the imprint, molding him into something that he doesn't want to be.

The same gray eyes watch. He can see them out of the corner of his eye, dark on pale skin, ghostly, a haunting white under the fluorescent bulbs overhead.

A sharp grin.

Lips so dry they bleed, soaking into the edges and dripping down, down into the impeccable whiteness of the lab coat.

A shriveled rose in the snow. The far away sight of a blazing fire in the pale haze of dawn.

The same voice, cooing right into his ear, ruffling the sweaty hair and soaking through the sponge of sedatives that crush his willpower.

"We need all of this, boy. All of those smarts you have up there." A heavy pat to the head, rattling his teeth and shaking the bed. "We need them out here, so we can use them. So we can use you."

The hand cups his face, turns his eyes upwards until he is forced to stare at the blank gray ones floating above.

"We need to drain you of them all."

A click.

Something hums, vibrating the air around them like the final second before a lightning strike. The gray eyes crinkle, moving above him to look to the side.

"More power. We need to drain and prod. Remember: drain and prod. Force it all out."

The humming gets louder, the restraints and headband tightening. A snap, like elastic. The headband vibrates.

The gray eyes twinkle, lips stretching.

"Perfect." A purr.

A flash. Gone. Movements around, people speeding, bumping into each other. A smell, like burning rubber and the singe of heated metal.

A jolt.

Then the pain hits and Peter's whole world lights up like the dying of a million stars.