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We’re in an elevator.
The doors slide open with a whoosh. Their grips seem to tighten if that’s possible. I’m hauled along at a pace that’s double my natural stride.
The tile is glazed plastic that feels like stepping on ice. It doesn’t help that I’m barefoot.
Panic clogs inside my chest and sets me off. I buck in their hold. My struggles make no difference, but it makes me feel like I’m doing something—I’m putting up a fight against wherever they’re taking me.
Whoevertheyare.
I jerk and twist and kick out my legs. At certain points both of my feet leave the ground altogether and I’m beingcarriedby these unknown people at my side. They’re holding me off the ground, still walking forward as if I’m just a bag of supplies or some other object to carry somewhere.
A strangled scream leaves me. My desperation grows alongside the panic.
I don’t like this. I don’t want this. Where the hell am I going? Who the hell are these people and why the hell are my wrists bound?
Why the fuck am I wearing a blindfold? Where the fuck are my shoes?
My tantrum must agitate them. The one on my right grabs the nape of my neck and pinches the skin between strong fingers. An insect’s pinchers would hurt less. I cry out as pain sears in the spot he’s gripped, and they drag me onward. No obstacle will stop them.
A depressing fact I realize as they shove me into a room.
Still blindfolded. Still bound.
A brutal cold rushes past me as I stand in what feels like a darker, more enclosed space, and shiver.
Then bright, fluorescent lights flick on. Even with my blindfold on I can tell.
I’m trembling, my bare feet standing in a wet puddle ofsomething.
Hearing becomes the only real way to tell what’s going on. The steady stream of running water meets my ears. Am I in a bathroom?
My blindfold is torn away from me.
I’m face to face with a wiry-haired woman with a severe scowl slashed across her thin lips. She can only otherwise be described as gray—at least as I squint against the bright light and try to make sense of what’s happening—gray hair, bland and muted clothes, skin so pale it might as well be its own shade of gray.
She reaches for me with pointy, gnarled fingers, cold like a corpse. Her grip is stronger than I expect as she yanks me forward.
Every moment with her feels like an annoyance. My mere presence bothers her. She throws me filthy looks up and down and then cuts my zip ties. I’m barely registering what she’s doing before she shoves me toward a concrete wall lined with shower heads and drains.
“What—”
I interrupt myself with a scream as she tears away the robe that I’ve been changed into. My arms fly up in an attempt to cover myself, but it’s no use. The woman anticipates my modesty, smacking my arms away and shoving me back again.
My feet slip on the slick surface, and I try to catch myself before hitting the floor. I save myself from the fall but wind up smacking into the concrete wall instead. The shower head spurts on and drenches me in icy water.
So does a hose the woman withdraws, spraying me down with chilling water that pricks my skin like glass shards.
The air leaves my lungs. I gasp and sputter, back against the concrete, so ambushed I can’t even shield myself. Let alonecovermyself.
But that’s by design. The faucet to the shower head is twisted off, the heavy stream from above disappearing, as I cough and my ribs clench. My sinuses are flooded, and I can barely breathe. I’m freezing cold, skin pruned, my body shaking on the spot.
Too weak to protest as I’m jostled into the next stage.
The woman yanks me forward and towels me off. No time is wasted on being gentle. The Terrycloth scrapes against my skin in the most abrasive fashion possible. Private parts aren’t spared. I’m shoved and herded along.
For the first time, I’m aware I’m not the only one being subjected to this kind of inhumane treatment.
On my way out, I hear snippets of other women suffering the same handling—shocked gasps and the sudden spray of water, their splashed footsteps as they struggle to maintain balance in the shower area.
