(October, 2075)
Myriah bit her lip so hard she drew blood when the oversized needle with metallic medication was injected into her body.... It was similar to being branded from the inside out. The metallic substance gave her a temporary jolt of energy and then left her dizzy and weak. Sometimes she would be unable to eat or move…
'This has been going on for hours... surely death would be easier…' Her routine had become one of daily tortures and various pains.
Myriah would wake up, and have a meal that consisted of a watered down soup and a slice of stale bread. For the fist few days the cup and silverware burned her hands, the soup burned her throat from the inside out, and the bread would make her choke. At first she would outright reject the food.
This resulted in severe beatings.
Eventually she would struggle to keep the food down. This resulted in her being strapped to her bed and force fed.
It was only a week or so ago that she learned to breathe through the pain of eating. After all her survival depended on any nutritional value that her body could consume.
They would collect the bowl and then another person clad in white with two intimidating soldiers at their sides would come and instruct her to put her hands on the metal bars that burned her as well. They would put thick metal cuffs on her wrists that left her hissing in pain. The cuffs were a thick metal that was magnetic; making it easy to confine her to the cell door and remove her. Then they would open the cell door and the soldiers would each take one of Myriahs arms and drag her behind the "Professional" in white.
The first time the cell door was opened, Myriah lunged at the soldiers, attack perfectly planned, having been thoroughly trained to defend herself from opponents over three times her size… Her blows came as little more than a light nudge, which was met with a heavy punch to her stomach. Myriah would still try to struggle, and she would attempt to fight, but the following days she found herself sleeping more than naught. She'd often wonder: 'why can't I fight?'
Until the day came that she didn't.
They would strap Myriah to a silver chair that would wake her weary senses. The chair was cold and stale on her burning skin. Whispered screams and pleas shook Myriah's cloudy mind; with her hands and feet strapped down by heavy metal cuffs, Myriah could only try to squirm away as the Person in white would inject a fluid, take some notes then they would come with an even bigger syringe that contained thick silver goo... and they would inject that into her...
The silver goo felt like she was being branded from the inside out. As if her skin was dissolving from the inside out. Myriah would dare to say it resembled acid, it made her feel like her muscles were being deteriorated cell by cell.
'Much like the dream before I woke up here…'
The first injections would be on muscular spots: her arms, her legs; they would jam the needle into the muscle and then tear it out, uncaring of the wounds they left... at first she would scream and cry and attempt to free herself of her bonds.
The next session, they would take tissue, marrow, and blood from her.
She would fight and thrash… and by the end of a session, she could only cry and beg them to stop. Her exhausted body would be too tired to aid her ever hazy mind to fight the haunted memories of the many others who were on this table before and after her...
'Am I losing my mind? Why can't I think straight?'
Myriah quickly learned that her fighting resulted in the pain lasting longer.
The altercations would result in her powers lashing out and destroying the medical rooms she was taken to. Sometimes she would manage to mortally wound the so called doctor and staff.
Retaliation came in the form of savage beatings, broken limbs, torturous procedures that left her pale from blood loss. Myriah was starting to wish that they would just kill her already. She internally hoped that one day she would die on this table so that the torment would stop.
'Anything is better than this hell…'
Sometimes they would take her to a bloodied room that smelt repulsive..
The stench brought tears to once mortal girl. The air in the room was heavy and toxic, as though the stench burned her senses with every inhale. The sensory overload made Myriah wonder if they burned people alive in here… 'is this what hell smells like?'
Myriah shook her head, trying to ignore the stench, so repulsive and dark. It burned her nose and throat, she was forced to open her mouth in favor in favor of tormenting the weakest of her senses: taste.
But the smell tasted even worse…
'This is the stench of death.'
The Spirit within her whispered.
Myriahs mind was plagued with pleas and screams.... 'it has to be from others that were brought here…' she watched what seamed to be the memories this room held flash before her eyes. She could almost taste the cravings that it developed...
It was these screams and pleas that kept her will to live going. She would get out, and she would free these people… she would avenge them.
'This is the taint of the darkness, child. Do not let it infect you.'
And with that, the spirit's voice was gone...
Myriah was left to endure what seamed like endless beatings, lashings, or whatever creative, painful enlightenment they could come up with...
When she was in that room, Myriah was certain God was not.
'Did God abandon me for being a monster? For hearing the agony of those before me? For being born?'
In that room rested her greatest fears and her worst nightmares. That room took her to a time when she was a little girl and she laid her eyes on death for the very first time. It took her to a time when she would cry and cling to her mother in hopes of her father not coming for her… to a time when her very own father was the nightmare that plagued her at night...
If there was anything Psychology books had taught her...it was to dissociate.
That escaping the torment... at least mentally will help one to survive and if they wouldn't survive...at least the mind would. And so Myriah would go into her head.
She would go to a time when this torture wasn't a thought in her head... to a time when she was able to talk to her mother and siblings… to a time when she was just a girl with dreams and a family.