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I start to choke. If she would just lower the hose to my legs or my lower back…
But it’s useless. She knows what she’s doing. I smack my hands against the wall as a plea to stop. My throat burns with the need to cough up the inhaled droplets, but I can’t. I try. My rib cage coils together, attempting to suck in enough air to cough, and I do, a little, but it’s not enough. My lungs will fill up. I’ll drown. I’ll die.
And as a natural human response, my eyes fill with tears. And animallike gagging noises combating the jet of water smacking against skin and tile.
I’m dying.
Stop, Goddammit!
My naked body splats down on the floor after slipping on the puddle of water and losing my balance. The water stops but the sensation of being beaten by a spiky club remains, prickling all over my body, flooding my ears and nose.
I don’t even have the strength to look up. But I can hear Meridei snickering. My eyes follow a stream of dirty water, circling around a drain by my face.
This is a great first day.
“Get up,” she orders. “Or I’ll start again.”
Suddenly my strength is revived. I peel my wet, heavy body from the floor, using the wall as leverage to hoist myself up.
But as I turn around to face her, my stomach collapses on itself.
The door is open and Dessin (along with five other orderlies) is watching the hydro-show. His chin is lowered, but he’s staring up at me from under his thick lashes. The only movement is his chest rising and falling heavily.
There are nine people now staring at my naked body. But only one set of eyes has me scrambling to cover my front with my shackled wrists, narrowing my arms to lay over my breasts.
“Don’t worry,”—Meridei nods at Dessin—“this won’t be the only treatment of hers you get to watch.”
His knuckles turn white, tightening around his chains.
“I can handle it.” I’m looking at Meridei but pointing my message at Dessin. He needs to know. It will take one wrong phrase, just one, and he’ll lose his grip on control. A volcanic eruption. An asylum apocalypse.
Meridei laughs. “We’ll see.”
~
My only saving grace now is that I am back in my room with fresh clothes.
A white patient’s gown that smells of bleach and elderly body odor.
And best of all, Meridei is forced to leave my room to attend an emergency meeting with a priest and the council. Dessin did it. He bought us time. I should be thankful, but truthfully, nothing makes me want to vomit more.
Time in this place is exactly what I don’t want.
I sleep most of the day and the rest of the night. No one comes to bring me food. But I don’t mind. The thought of eating anything makes me nauseated. At least I have a sink to drink from until they decide to start giving me basic human rights again.
The next morning I’m woken by the chanting of an elderly man. Through the fuzzy slits of my sleepy eyes, I see a black robe with a white collar.
Rosary.
The priest.
He’s waving the cross over my body, reciting verses from the Bible. Welp, that does it then. Dessin did his part. Now, I have to do mine.
“Amen,” the old man says, bowing his head. “You may inject her now.”
As he steps away from my bed, I notice the wide hands holding down my shoulders, then another set of hands on my ankles. Meridei kneels at my bedside with a wicked, alarming smirk on her face. A twitch of her thin lips that says, I’m going to enjoy this.
She waves a syringe in front of my face, ensuring I see what’s about to happen.
