The Beast And Me

by D. S. Wrights

  That time was as if I was functioning automatically, like my body was awake but my mind had gone back to sleep, tucking in tightly my emotions along with it. I didn’t worry and I guess I wouldn’t have been able to even if I tried. I just crawled my way through without thinking twice, without hesitating, or pondering if I turned in a wrong direction, as if I had gone there a thousand times, but it was only the third time I had to remember the way. Third time is a charm.

  When I saw him lying there, my mind and heart snapped wide awake as I exhaled slowly, carefully, in relief. Jay was almost fully healed. I was only able to see little scurf, which of course was because of what he is. And probably that was why he hadn’t been in his cell the night before: they still were patching him together. That thought strangely made me think of Doc. I hadn’t seen her in quite a while, but I was wondering if she was also the one who sewed the Beasts together.

  Jay woke just a breath after me taking in air again and blinked. He can look so cute, just like the complete opposite of what he can be, the way he was when we first met. Instantly he looked up at me, his eyes flashing mint for a moment. It makes my heart jump.

  In a good way. Like always.

  Quickly he looked at the door – I guess this was just a reflex – and hesitated, obviously not sure if he should get up or not.

  “Hi”, I smiled at him.

  Jay he sat up, looking at me with the corners of his mouth slowly lifting. I knew he could hear how my pulse was speeding up. I never thought that he would flee my glance by dropping his to the ground shyly.

  Shyly. Can you imagine that he’s like that? No one would expect him to be. Even I didn’t. But as a matter of fact, he’s more insecure than me and somehow I understand that.

  “How are you?” I asked lowly and he looked at me again, still a tiny smile on his lips, which made me ache to touch him, to hug him, caress his face.

  “Better”, he answered the obvious huskily and my body remembered how much it loved his voice. “Did Severin say something about your suggestion?” he wondered and tilted his head just a bit, leaving me in surprise:

  “You heard that?”

  “Yeah”, he chuckled almost inaudibly, and still my bones were humming, resonating that sound, “Comes along with the package.”

  This humor, I just love it.

  “He sent me some medical books, but I doubt that he will agree”, I responded and made myself comfortable in the square venting tunnel.

  “Well, at least you’ve got some”, Jay answered and I felt sorry, but even more: bad.

  Yes, I’ve every right to whine about my situation, how I am being treated, but I have a room, a shower, a decent bed, books, pictures on the wall. And what does he have?

  A mattress, a half-broken basin, a toilet, a locker and that’s it. Even my walls are cheerfully white compared to his dull gray ones. Everything gray in gray. His room is just a bit bigger than my bathroom. And I don’t want to begin to imagine what he goes through every day.

  “I could... read to you”, I offered.

  The smile he gave me was so sad that my heart wanted to hide in my chest.

  “You shouldn’t come here that often” was his reply and I knew that he must have smelled that I had been there the night before.

  My cheeks flushed and I looked away: “I know, I just... needed to know that you are okay and I... hate not to see you every day."

  It simply tumbled out of my mouth before I realized it and I wish, I wish I could describe the way he looked at me when I looked at him again. As if it was too good to be true, as if he couldn’t believe I had the guts to lie like that, as if he was sure he was just imagining my words, as if he wanted to tear off that vent and kiss the life out of me.

  Jay kept completely immobile, like a statue. Yet, I swear I could feel his tension electrifying the air, his body tremble, and his eyes changed color again. I hadn’t even noticed that they had turned back to normal, before they flashed in that unreal color.

  “I mean it”, I breathed out.

  “I know”, he answered, staring at the ground, and I reasoned that he could hear it by the way I breathed and the way my heart was beating.

  “I know it’s crazy because we don’t even know each other”, I started but choked and he glanced up at me again with his beautiful misty green eyes.

  “Me too”, he gave back slowly. “I hate not seeing you too. I hate it that Peter gets to see you almost every day. I hate it that he’s the one telling me how tired you look or how sad, or how worn out, or worried. I hate him telling me that you touched him accidentally. I hate him eating with you, talking to you... I...”

  With every word he seemed just to get more and madder and it... it didn’t scare me, I was just afraid what it would mean to him, and even more it hurt me for him.

  “Jay”, I cut him off. “Jay, I told you to trust me, remember? Please look at me.”

  And he did.

  He was changing, but I didn’t need to see him to know that.

  “He tells you all this to make you angry”, I told him and his chest was heaving dramatically, while he clenched his trembling hands. “He’s jealous of you. Don’t let him get into your head.”

  “Why should he be?” he asked, his voice sounding distorted, and he swallowed, wanting to change that.

  “Because you have me and he doesn’t.”

  I know that saying this wasn’t the best idea, to tell him this, in the state he was in, but it was the truth. And that was what we both were about: the truth.

  “I could live without that if I had you around every day”, he answered after and eternity of silence.

  “I couldn’t.” Again, my mouth was faster than me.

  But it was worth it, because I could see him blush in embarrassment despite the dim light, just like I did.

  Good to know that he gets me right.

  “I mean, I...” I still stammered quickly. “I wish that this was different too, I just...”

  “I’m sorry I got you here”, he cut me off pressing his eyes shut and dropping his head. “I’m so sorry”, his voice trailed off.

  “No, no, don’t be”, I pressed my hands against the grate without realizing it first. “You didn’t know that they would take me. It’s not your fault that I am here. Jay, please. Please, look at me.”

  And he did, tears twinkling in his eyes, stealing my breath and all the words I was preparing, which were supposed to convince him.

  “It’s not your fault”, I repeated instead.

  “It is, because I chose this”, he negated, “and you.”

  And then he told me how he got here. I already knew that he was a soldier, an officer even. His parents had been doctors, just like his elder brother and sister were, or at least that was what she had been until she was killed in Afghanistan being part of Doctors Without Borders. Something that was hushed up by the local government. She had simply vanished. So Jay broke off his studies to become a doctor himself and enlisted to become an officer, despite his family’s disapproval. Quickly he had gotten the opportunity to become part of a Special Forces group because of his commitment and determination.

  He had no idea that signing in to this special operation would end up like this: that he and others would become guinea pigs for modern warfare.

  Still, I don’t think that it’s his fault and I told him.

  They had been lying to him, yet he insisted that he should have asked questions, that he had learned enough in his studies to figure out that they weren’t giving them vaccines, but a virus, because all of them were becoming sick, and for longer than they should have.

  And still, the explanation, of that it was some stronger vaccine than they had anticipated had been enough for him, to accept it.

  “How can you expect someone to be reasonable after losing his sister?” I asked him and all he could answer to that was looking at me, broken as he was, hopeless and devastated.

  How I wish that I would have been able to touch him in that moment, but al
l I had were my words.

  “I’m here with you now”, I told him, “And I want to be here with you. I don’t care how we got here. But we will get out of here. Together.”

  The most perfect thing was that he didn’t doubt my words, that he didn’t say it was impossible. Jay kept silent, because he wanted my words to be true.

  At least I believed that.

  Now, retrospectively, I think there was something else he had wanted to tell me. And I didn’t need long to guess what it probably was: why he had picked me. White said something about me knowing him before all of this. Did I know his sister? But she had been older than him, and I never really had real friends. Did we really know each other before all of this?

  Normally it should be the other way around. Normally you get to know each other first before you... get intimate. Especially the way we have.

  But then again: what is normal?

  Even if we weren’t in a situation like this - probably we would have never met, or he wouldn’t have been aware of me...

  The point is, even in the real world, the outside world, people meet like that. Have sex and then... fall in love.

  Yes, I know it’s stupid to say. And I probably feel what I feel because of the situation I’m in, but... it’s not that I need... it’s not that I need him for that... I need him, all of him. I need to talk to him. I need to hear his voice. The slight differences, variances when he speaks, expressing his emotions. That faint roughness in his voice, when he becomes emotional. I need to hear it. I need him to look at me, because it feels like he sees me, really sees me. Who I am. Who I was. Who I have become. He still sees me for who I really am. It’s so hard to explain.

  And then... we have met before and I... I believe that not only because White mentioned that, but because he feels so familiar. Maybe it’s simply some sort of connection we have, maybe my mind is trying to romanticize all of this. However, it doesn’t make any difference, not to me, not now. Maybe we’re star-crossed, maybe we are meant to be, maybe there is really something like fate, like destiny, maybe we are simply meant to save each other.

  Day 88

  I’ll try to stay away from Peter, because he torments Jay like that. It’s not fair. I wish I could say something about that yet I’m not supposed to know. So what else can I do?

  It’s all I could think about as he brought me Breakfast. And now I keep asking myself if my reasoning is true, if it was him who had slashed up Jay, and I keep wondering why that happened in the first place. I didn’t ask Jay, I could ask Peter, but I won’t speak a single word to him anymore unless necessary, I won’t touch him, I won’t even look at him. It’s the last and only thing I can do for Jay.

  When he checked on me, to get my tray, which I practically inhaled, Peter said something very strange to me. I didn’t expect him to say anything at all because seemingly we were back to ‘I-won’t-talk-until-you-start-talking’, but he looked straight at me, like I had paralyzed him, and I couldn’t help it but to glance up at him and stare back.

  “You smell different.”

  Probably he would have turned away and leave if my only reaction had been a confused, bewildered expression, but my heart jumped as if he sniffed out a secret. So he hesitated and I noticed that for a brief moment the tiny ring around his iris had expanded.

  I really wonder if they read this or if White does, but I know better. It’s because of what Peter said. I just can’t... I can’t believe that he would report anything about me. And I know I should feel stupid for still believing that there is something good in him, that he has a reason for his behavior. God, it’s as if I know that there is something broken in him, which needs to be fixed. Like with Jay, but I am not the one, I can’t be, I won’t.

  They took me to Doc, not to that room I had been in when Jay injured me that badly, no, the room I thought would be an interrogation room. Gray and Peter brought me there and Peter didn’t give me a single glance, stared straight ahead the whole way.

  Somehow I guess I sensed that they wouldn’t get me to Jay. Maybe because it was the wrong time, maybe I have developed some sort of sixth sense, but most certainly it was because Peter was tensed differently, as if he was nervous.

  I got a full examination.

  The hours I spent there, with different doctors. Doc stayed with me the whole time, but she wasn’t the only one. Apart from the fact that she didn’t behave like we had met before, she was being all professional. Even though I didn’t want it to, that hurt. Can you imagine: at first, when I saw her, I thought that I had been taken there to actually learn something that White had agreed. I cannot believe that I actually am that naïve still.

  I don’t really want to go into any details. I don’t really want to remember it, or put it down into words. I know that’s not typical, because it usually helps me cope, but... I feel so sick, so dirty, so used.

  No matter how hard I scrub my skin... I know I’m clean and I feel clean, but only on the outside.

  Who is that girl in the mirror? She looks like me, but she is so different, on the inside. Everything about me is on the inside. For them. For him, White – Doctor Severin, the big boss. He was there.

  It might be an interrogation room, but it’s a medical room as well. Maybe when torture becomes too messy, maybe when they need the subject to come back to consciousness or life, quickly... There’s everything there, everything that they need to do their examinations on me and on my insides.

  How do I put this into words? It’s so different when someone forces that, like this guy in my cell, the one who maybe was ordered to do that, the one I still intend to kill. So different when you actually have to stay calm and silent and just get it over with. Take the yearly visit by the lady’s doctor and add being surprised by some creepy old guy and you might imagine what it felt like. Now replace that creeper with White.

  I don’t care about needles, about blood and urine samples, about going on the treadmill. But again, that’s something on the outside of me. X-ray, fine. Ultrasound, sure. Again, just something on the outside. I can scrub that off. You know how it works when you go to the gynecologist. I doubt that he is one, yet he was still there and I can’t erase it, even though I closed my eyes. I wish I was good at acting.

  I knew it. They all just want to get inside of me.

  I showered so long. So long until the lights went out. I still don’t feel clean. Inside. And for the first time I hope that they don’t take me to Jay.

  I just can’t. I barely keep it together right now. With him around I probably would break. And I cannot break. I have to be strong. Now more than ever.

  White would never... I think I thought that. I doubt it now. But in the end, I’m just a subject, barely human in his eyes, worth less than what he has created. I’m Jay’s reward. Nothing more, nothing less. At least I was. What I am now, I can’t say. I mean... they didn’t tell me anything. What this was about, if they think what I think. If I am really...

  Jay and I did it often enough that I have to be filthy and unclean for White and I hope, I pray and I beg that examining me was enough for him...

  I hope that this won’t happen again soon. It’s been 88 days. That’s not three months. But it’s almost. Was it too early? Was it too late? I think they examined me when I was out after three weeks. So I have to go through this every two months?

  No... Peter said that I smelled different.

  And I feel different.

  I try to tell myself that if I was pregnant, if that’s what it’s all about, which I am seemingly not, the examinations would be different. I know that they want me to be. I know that sooner or later I have to be. Or they would replace me. At least that’s what I reason from what White had said that night.

  Then again, maybe I’m too important. But do I really have to be that important to White? I think if I continue to try to gain his affection it will become worse. I don’t want it to become worse. I know I wrote before that I am willing to accept his... ‘attention’ but now, somehow I can�
��t risk it, somehow I’m afraid.

  It can’t be, can it?

  I can’t concentrate on anything. Not even eating or workout. I force-fed myself Breakfast, forgot my Yoga and Tai Chi.

  Jay... he told me not to visit every night and I really hope that he just thought I would stay true to that. I don’t want him to worry. I don’t want Peter to talk to him about it. I can only imagine what Jay’s going through and I don’t want to wonder about how often.

  Why can’t we just share a room? Wouldn’t it make more sense? Do we have to earn it? Is that even possible? Or why does White keep us separate? I mean, he wants me to get pregnant. Isn’t the best way to lock us in together? Or doesn’t he trust Jay? Or me? Or we both combined? Is Jay that uncontrollable? Or... do they keep us separate so that they can play with our fears? He could still punish Jay by taking me away from him. Why does he separate us? I think it’s really that: controlling us through fear for each other.

  Day 89

  White came to visit me after Breakfast. Doctor Severin, still I prefer White. Giving him such a name degrades him just like he degrades Jay with calling him ‘Ten’.

  I really try to keep up the facade, but it’s wearing me down, especially if I don’t know which reaction to expect. He’s freaking me out and honestly I would love to simply kill him.

  Me. Thinking of actually killing someone, writing it down like that. It sounds so wrong, no one ever would believe it. I am the nice girl, the silent one, that doesn’t even step on a spider.

  I had no idea what he wanted from me, and I got so tense that he could see my knuckles. My movements were robotic as he told me to sit down.

  White ignored it.

  “You have made some remarkable progress with Ten, I have to admit that”, he told me. “I am very proud of you.”