Prologue - "Headspace"
I didn’t ask for this, nor did I have another choice. Well, that’s not true, but this was the only choice that I could live with, even if it meant the end of me. Honestly, I had no idea what was about to happen, but it was an unnerving feeling. The silver lining was that I only had to endure a few more minutes of this mental torture before becoming unconscious again, oozed into an uncomfortable state of vulnerability. A wave of darkness pulled through me, pulsing. But I was still there.
My wrists, tied down by leather straps and laces, hurt, as they would chafe against the roughly textured armrest. And the straps themselves were anything but soft. My gaze followed the length of my forearm to where I felt the cold, solid needles docked in my bruised and delicate flesh. Trying to breathe slowly and deeply, down into my stomach and not into my chest, I strived to prevent any movement. An aching sensation was already present in my arms, but moving my upper limbs to any degree made me feel the needles pressing into and against me. I started to feel faint. The blood in my head slowly began to drain downwards, causing lightheadedness and the loss of my senses. This wasn’t the effect of the drugs being dripped into my blood stream, it was just the way my body responded to bodily harm. Good thing I was sitting in a chair. The padding it was lined with was worn out, possibly, by a number of other subjects before me, but thankfully, there was nowhere to fall. Somehow I had to take my mind off of the needles and the pain.
The ambient operational sounds around me became distorted, followed by a drop of high frequencies. Everything was just a hollow, dizzying hole of noise. My vision became grainy, as if I was inside of a television that was losing its signal. Looking to my surroundings, I tried to take my mind off of the things that made me uneasy, but that failed. There was nothing to see. The space appeared to be vast and dark, with no objects anywhere in sight. Not even structural pillars, walls or ceilings. I’m sure they were there, somewhere, but I could not recognize anything past my knees, but a deep black canvas, as my lower legs and feet were tucked and strapped to the base of the chair. There was only one light, shining down upon me, illuminating my presence and stopping short of anything else. This room... this room was meant to make you feel lost in emptiness, in nothingness. And how could you find your way out of nothingness?
I shut my eyes, blocking out all visual information, or lack thereof. In my mind I created my own surroundings. There she was, my beloved Alma. Picturing seeing her again and spending every lasting moment in the comfort of her embrace was gracefully easing. Looking into her beautiful hazel eyes, my fingers ran down through her soft brown hair until my thumb gently rested just in front of her ear while I cupped her head, lifting it towards my lips. Alma had much softer lips. Her saliva tasted sweet, her soothing breath felt warm against my skin. She pushed her face into mine, brushing her cheeks against my cheeks. I went and softly rolled my lips down the side of her neck, hiding my face in her long hair. Now I was calm. This...this is how I found my way through the darkness. She was the light at the end of the tunnel.
Slowly I drifted away as the drugs kicked in, but I held onto the image of Alma as long as I could. There were so many decisions in my life that ended me up here, away from a normal life, away from her. But now I had a chance to be free of those decisions. I was betting on it...and so were they.
