The memory of freedom
***'What do you remember of being*** ***free?***
The team of men and women around me shuffle forward, eager to hear my answer and I sigh. It's like this every night, each day a different person is chosen to recount their lives before they were thrown into this hellhole for good. I guess now it's my turn.
'Not much,' I answer, not wanting to delve into the memories I have.
'Come on, you must have something you can tell us'. It's the same man who asked the question in the first place. Little does he know, by being the one to speak, he's stuck himself at the top of my Death List. Which, by the way, is a literal list of people I want to kill.
'There's nothing.' That I want to say... to remember.
Without looking up from the ground where I sit, knees curled up to my well-muscled chest, I know that the man and possibly a few others have rolled their eyes. This only infuriates me even more and I glance up for a second, my eyes narrowed as I scan them through the crowd.
You, and you, and you. You're all going to die.
Three more for the Death List, the ones who think I'm being ridiculous. But no, they're the ridiculous ones, the ones who want to remember.
'All of us have told our stories, boy,' the old man says. 'We're not going to judge you. You don't have to be afraid of us.'
My lips turn up into a sneer and the small rumble of a chuckle escapes me as he finishes his sentences, and I move the line of my vision so that our eyes meet. 'Afraid?' I repeat. 'You think I'm afraid of you?' Incredulous. I suppose that's the word to describe how I'm feeling.
And amused.
The man falters a little, I can see it in his eyes. 'Well, I-'
'Assumed I was weak? Oh yes, you think I'm the harmless little boy, scared out of my wits being dumped in here with all the big adults, alone away from my family.' I laugh, although there's no humour in the tone. 'You're all practically a church group. "Let's all be together and pray for better things. Share your life story, boy", I mimic bitterly, feeling disappointed by the people around me, all of them looking wary but still obviously not grasping fully my true nature. The nature of a killer.
'Leave me alone.'
This time they back off, returning to what is, as I said, practically, a church group. A church Group in a place like this. I doubt many of them were religious before they got here, in fact I'd be willing to bet that the only reason most of them pray and share together is that they're desperate, pleading with God to give them a second chance they don't deserve.
I stand up and pick up a rock smirking at the thought and make my way over to their circle, seating myself between a middle aged lady and a similarly aged man. The old man who spoke, the leader of the group, smiles at me as I sit, though most of them look anxious.
'I want to share,' I say, feeling all the anger I've felt over the last few weeks reach through my body, begging to be set free. 'But not about me. I want to share my thoughts on all of you.'
There's silence for a moment as they all wonder how to react. I ignore this and decide to take the opening as an assent to talk. 'You're weak-so very, very weak. Every one of you turns to God, or whoever you choose to believe in at the end of your boring and meaningless existences, and yet it is only out of desperation not to die the deaths you all deserve. And by golly, you know you deserve them. You say so every night.' I'm standing by now, treading slowly around the circle, smiling at just how scared each and every one of them looks. It's always this way, all my victims are scared, struck dumb by the truth of my words as they're spoken. The rock in my hand twists through my fingers.
'You, you, you and you.' I point to the old man and the three others I marked out earlier.
'You're not going to die those deaths, the execution that's supposed to come to all of us'. I smile and kneel down in front of one of the three, a thirty-something lady, and grip her face between my hands. 'You'll be gone long before then.'
And then my hand moves and to the others in the room it must seem weird that despite my hand not coming in contact with the lady's neck, the skin there is cut and blood pours out from the wound. Cries of alarm rise up and half the people rush to the lady to help her and the other half come at me, fury written plainly over their features as they see the blood stained rock in my hand.
But I don't care, even as they beat me bloody and my skin is bruised every inch. Even as I start to slip out of consciousness, none of it matters to me. I won't die from this; I will come back to kill them, no matter what.
'You know what?' I mumble as darkness slips over my eyes. I'm not sure if I'm imagining things or not when a gruff, 'what?' Is spoken through the black. I smile, a real, genuine smile, for the first time since I got to this place. 'You really shouldn't try to get me to talk about my past.' I laugh weakly, 'It makes me angry.'
I'm still smiling even as my body is consumed and everything is gone.
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Sugar (1000 word flash fiction)
Sugar sits, alone and waiting, in a dark hotel room. She's been waiting for forty minutes to meet a man, a client. She thinks of clients as friends, and of what she does in this hotel room as simply a meeting. This friend is named Bertrand, and she wonders what he will be like.
Sugar hears steps in the hallway. The doorknob turns, the door opens slowly, and a man enters the room. This is Bertrand, her new friend. He is looking at the carpet as he walks in. He's wearing a black suit and holding a briefcase. Bertrand looks up slowly. A partial smile dies on his lips. He is not sure how to relate to her. This is his first meeting.
Sugar smiles and says, "Hello, Bertrand?"
He replies, in a faltering voice, "Uh, yeah, hell-hello."
Sugar wants to laugh at his coyness, but won't because he might leave if he's embarrassed. "Come on in," she says.
"I've, uh, got some things for you to wear," says Bertrand. He sets his briefcase down on the desk and opens it. Sugar remembers the web post. Someone willing to engage in light religious role-play.
"Okay-babe," she says. She watches him take items out of his briefcase. A bible, a crucifix, a rosary. She thinks, never done catholic girl. Bertrand turns and sugar sees that he is wearing a white collar . "Are you a real priest?"
Bertrand smiles shyly, says "Uh, yeah. Not the kind you're used to." He moves towards her and Sugar smiles at him. He lifts his hand and strikes her in the face.
Sugar is reeling. This has never happened before. What is this bastard doing? He is hitting her, again and again. She falls backwards onto the bed and the priest climbs on top of her, straddles her, punches her in the face and stomach. She lifts her hands but he swats them away. She tries to tell him to stop but her mouth is full of blood. She tries to scream but he hits her again, a backhand blow that knocks her senseless. She feels like she is falling, spinning. She swallows blood.
He's off her now, standing beside the bed bent over and panting. Her mind is running on two tracks, one part noticing that he is overweight and clearly out of shape, the other part screaming at her, telling her to get the fuck up, get the fuck out! She needs to call the cops, run away, find a weapon, fucking do something!
She knew this would happen eventually, but failed to make a plan. Sugar lashes out with her foot, her boot catching Bertrand squarely in the crotch. He cries out and stumbles backwards. Sugar rolls off the bed and snatches a lamp from the bedside table, hoping to use it as a weapon. Bertrand comes at her and she swings the lamp at his head, forgetting that it's still plugged in. The electric cord jerks taut and the lamp is yanked clean out of her hands. She is defenseless again.
Bertrand takes hold of Sugar by the neck and throws her to the floor. She cries out, then yelps as he kicks her in the stomach. The air is violently expelled from her lungs and Sugar gasps for breath. Bertrand takes hold of her hair and drags into the middle of the room. Her body is pain all over, fiery and red where her hair is pulling loose from her scalp. Bertrand drops her and her head strikes the floor hard. she blanks out.
She comes back. Bertrand is sitting on her, tying her up. He has a bible clenched in his teeth and is winding a rosary around her wrists. She looks down and through a blur of tears and blood she notices that there is a crucifix around her neck. On both the rosary and the crucifix the christ figure is upside down. Bertrand gets up. Sugar is too tired and too beaten to resist anymore, too exhausted to scream. She is thoroughly subdued. All she can do is watched as Bertrand walks to the bathroom and opens the door.
The dark room is suddenly illuminated by a dull red glow. Her eyes widen, and she is struck by the smell of sickness and road kill. Bertrand backs away and kneels down. A thing steps from the bathroom. A thing that is horror embodied. The top part of her mind is reeling, panicked, frenzied. It cannot make sense of what it perceives. The bottom part of her mind thinks, I've been sitting in this room for nearly an hour. That thing was in here with me the whole time?
She wonders, as she watches the red thing approaching, inhumanly long and sinuous tongue brushing over its yellowed fangs, what the hell is going on?
The thing bends and flicks its tongue, brushing her face. Sugar sees Bertrand smiling, eyes rolled back, one hand in his pants working furiously. She opens her mouth and screams, and is abruptly cut short.
Next morning.
It's blood. Gabriella is sure that it's blood she's been scrubbing it for ten minutes and it doesn't come out. She knows she should go to management and tell them, maybe have them call the police. Someone was hurt here, robbed or even killed. But if the cops get involved they might asked her personal questions, questions about her legal status. She can't let that happen. She needs this job, need the money.
No, she will just scrub harder and get the damn stain out somehow. She longs to be done for the day, go home to Manuel and relax. She sniffs and catches a whiff of something rank. She's smelled something funny, even disgusting, since she entered this room. She looks up and sees the bathroom door ajar, and thinks the smell is coming from there. Oh, christ, she thinks, now what mess is in there?.
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Author's Note: Hello dear!. ❤ I hope you enjoy this article. I am newbie here, this is my first ever article to write. Thanks. for reading. ❤😊
@Turquoise_17
