Chapter 16
Peter is released back to his cell with a sling. Three guards escort him, and his unbroken arm is fastened to the wall. He assumes he must have proved himself dangerous tonight as he’s usually only escorted by one guard. His manager is waiting for him at his cell, with her six guards. He walks inside, arm still stuck to the wall.
“Have you given it any thought?” the woman inquires.
“Bedding,” Peter replies quickly, before he can lose his nerve. “I- please,” he says, adding a quiet, “Ma’am.” he doesn’t meet her eyes.
The woman makes a noncommittal noise and walks away. Peter’s cuff disengages and he falls to his knees. He’s sure he wasted the favor until a guard comes by his cell and sends a pillow and blanket through the food tray. The pillow is pretty flat and the blanket is thin, but Peter luxuriates in them, wrapping himself in the blanket and falling asleep almost the moment his head hits the pillow.
He wakes feeling more refreshed than he has the entire time he’s been in the facility, drinking the bowl of grayish thick liquid with near elation. He has a rare day off, no training, no experiments, and he spends the day wrapped in the blanket, in his blanket, laying on his pillow. His arm aches and his regrowing tooth aches, but he’s borderline warm, and it’s the best day of his life.
Peter eats the midday meal– which can’t really be called lunch because it’s the same as breakfast and dinner– not to mention that Peter hasn’t seen the sun in literal months. It’s just as he’s setting down the bowl that the situation hits him. A flat pillow and a flimsy blanket aren’t enough to hold out the tide of realization. It’s like his memories are coming back after he’s been wiped, but he wasn’t wiped. It’s worse than that. This is the way that bad memories seem to seep out of the relaxed mind. He remembers beating the monster from last night, not stopping and not wanting to stop.
A masochistic part of Peter wonders what kind of day the beast is having. It probably didn’t get a blanket or a pillow. Peter had broken its ribs and its finger. He tries to remember its face, if he’d also broken it nose, but all he can remember is rage so white hot that his mind went still. He scrambles out of the blanket, suddenly disgusted with himself. I’m a monster, he reminds himself, I can’t be happy, I have to remember. The cold is unpleasant, irritating his healing shoulder joint, making his trembling hand’s tremors worse. His teeth chatter, highlighting the soreness in his two empty sockets. Finally, he snatches the blanket back to himself, draping it a little awkwardly with one arm.
The day, which shouldn’t have been perfect but tried to be anyways, is tainted. He stares at the wall, rage and shame and pain boiling into a nauseating concoction in his stomach. The night meal is delivered, but he doesn’t move. There’s no way Peter could eat right now, and he’s sure that if he lets himself have one movement, he’ll take more. He’ll punch the walls and the door, scream and rage in a way that always ends with him unconscious, one way or another.
“Eat.”
The command comes in a robotic tone, and is accompanied with a painful shock. Peter is still trying to contain more emotion than can fit in his body, every muscle tense.
“Eat.”
The shock is worse this time, but Peter can’t pull his eyes away from the wall. If he moves even an inch, the events of however long he’s been here will finally be too much. A million thoughts are racing through his head, all of them destructive, none of them carrying a good ending. Peter relished the brief moment when he was winning, when he was in control, and he hates himself for it. He’s terrified of the next time he’ll be dragged to the scientists, the kind of terror that ties his stomach in knots and carve crescents into his palms from fists so tight his nails dig in. He wants, desperately, not to be here anymore, and not being here is starting to feel further and further away.
Peter feels like he’s in a tunnel, one long enough that there isn’t light on either end. His past feels gone, nothing more than a glimmer that he may have imagined, too far to get to before his strength runs out. On the other hand, what lies ahead is a pinprick of light, slowly being choked by the dark.
There’s barely a moment of dread as the scent fills the room. Peter’s sense didn’t bother to warn him, probably aware that he would welcome the chance to be nobody, or it did its job and he was too distracted to notice. Either way, when the scent fades, Peter remembers not remembering. He remembers the brief few moments when the slate was wiped clean, and he wanted more.
Peter falls to his knees and wills himself to cry, but he’s left blinking dry eyes at smooth cement and wishing to be nobody again.