章節 24: In The Killer's Dollhouse

Dreams can be of many types- it can take you to places you have never imagined, it can dive into your subconscious and manifest in the form of your deepest repressed desires, or it could simply behold to you memories that you try to suppress with every thread of your being. It reveals to you the essence of your existence.

My dreams don't reflect places that I have never seen. They don't reveal my deepest repressed desires. Instead, they replay my past; in painful detail, I relive my torment.

The passions I had felt, the pain of being abandoned, the pain of having to turn on people who you were surviving with. These moments come back in stark clarity.

I remember the time I had woken up, eyes bleary, throat aching from dryness. Terror gripped me as memories flooded back to me. The pool of blood under my mother's body, the sound of violent stabbing, and the regret I felt for having abandoned my family when I should have run out and tried to protect them.

In my dream, I revisited the dreary grey room, a mammoth structure which loomed over its prisoners. The sounds of the rattling chain, the wails, and groans of the others littered all over the vast room came back to me.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim lights, I squeaked out a protest. The room seemed to come alive, with low murmurs and pleas for help. I realized where I was, what I had turned onto. From that day on, I would not be treated as human, just a pig ready to be slaughtered at their owner's pleasure. And this room was the pen, the pen where all Alice's toys were promptly set up and left for her to return to when she was bored.

And she was bored often.

There were infants.

There were elderly couples locked up together, sitting in uncomfortable chairs.

There were toddlers.

There were high schoolers.

White collar workers.

Businesswomen.

There was no pattern to her choice. They came and they went.

No, that was not the best way to put the situation.

There were people brought in before I arrived, but they didn't last very long. There were those that came after me, but they, too, didn't last very long. Though time was ungraspable in captivity, it felt like an eternity had passed since I had other people in the room with me. It was a strange sense of comfort.

Alice allowed me to speak to them, she praised me for how caring and gentle I was. She made me reassure them that everything would be alright, that they would get out of that hellhole very soon, but I was never able to answer their questions.

"How long have you been here?" a ten-year-old girl had asked. I had not had the chance to ask for her name. She had not the mind to ask for mine. As she cried for her parents, I remember telling her that someone will find us, and her question baffled me.

How long had I been there? It could have been mere days. It could have been years, for all I knew and her questioned lay with trepidation.

'You were here before me. Why haven't they found you yet?'

And it was true. There was no one to search for me. No one remained in this world that would actually care about me. But this girl had been taken from her home as she was coming back from school, something Alice had meticulously planned out. And chance was on her side.

"Because I had to be here for you," I told her sluggishly. The conversation dragged on, with her telling me that she wanted to be a veterinary doctor, how much she loved her pet hamster and that her father was the best one in the world. I smiled through it, encouraging her to speak, to forget the fear.

I could do nothing more to help her.

Alice grew bored with the girl very soon. Apparently, she was too noisy. She started taking pieces of her soon. Thank god she used sedatives on the child. I cannot imagine such a sweet girl having to go through such excruciating pain.

This was the third death I had seen since Alice brought me there. I felt glad for them, that their suffering had stopped.

I wondered what it would feel like to be dead. It would be more peaceful, I imagined, but death didn't come to me.

I soon realized that death came in a pattern. Alice liked weaving stories, creating images of the tortured family, but she grew bored with playing with the dolls in her dollhouse.

She grew bored when I spoke to them and listened to them confess to their gravest sins and simple facts of their lives. Once she knew who they were, the perfect character she had built in her mind around them shattered. She grew angry at them for disillusioning her. And she sliced them open bit by bit as punishment. I didn't know what she did with their bodies, but that too soon became clear to me.

She set up a portable kitchen in the room. It was within the eyesight of the people captive in it. She had all the fancy utensils people have in their kitchens. She started sharpening her tools in front of me one day.

She had a gleeful smile plastered on her face throughout. It unsettled me.

My companion that day was an elderly couple. They seemed resigned to their fate. They had spent fifty years married to each other, had kids who had grown up to be distinguished individuals, but they lived alone in a gated community until their abduction.

"The Lord will protect you," the sweet woman told me while she was there.

I had understood that speaking to them just lessened their chance of survival. I had not spoken in a while. I didn't remember what food I had been served, but I did remember the tears rolling down my face as I imagined my innocent grandparents being slaughtered. They had lived until a ripe age, they were prepared for death. But what was this ending? What did they deserve to be punished so?

Alice was gentle on them. She killed them with a single blow each.

As they lay limp near me, I wondered what had caused her to be so merciful to them.

"Oh, old age. I respect those that live uneventful lives and remain happy," she sighed as she closed in the space between us. "Do you know why I killed them, though?" I refused to answer her.

"Stop being so stubborn," she whined. "You're no fun."

I didn't want to be any fun for her. The more interest she gained in me, the harder she tried to break me.

She just couldn't find my story; I didn't break character, so she kept me.

But I wanted to break character and I had finally decided to do just that.

So I defied her. I fought her to the fullest.

"I'll tell you the answer, anyway," she chirped. "I want to cook you a wonderful meal today and I was an ingredient short. Food is a priority, right?" she giggled as she skipped away.

I stared at her back in horror and she approached the couple with a butcher knife.

I couldn't believe my eyes. I couldn't even close them.

I stared and stared.

I screamed as I saw her detach limb from limb and place them on a plate she had brought with her. She went on to scrape the meat from the bones and clean it out with her hands.

"Don't worry, I will wash the blood off," she told me.

But what did that mean?

"Remember, Evie. You must cook your meal in a sanitary manner."

As she walked back to the portable kitchen I saw her wrap some of her carvings into a box and store it for later.

I remember the distinct smell of her cooking. I remember how she wretched my mouth open and forced forkful of her 'meal' into my mouth. I remember the churning of my gut, the stench of puke and the feeling of stickiness on my skin as she made me eat every single piece of meat she had cooked.

I remember her laughing and telling me that I was pretending not to enjoy the unique taste. That I was just like her, a little girl with a big appetite.

I remember her eyes as she glared at me when I refused to hold the fork. I remember the feeling of lashes on my back, my thighs, the color of blood soaking through the white shirt she put me in ever so often.

I remember shakily taking the spoon and wailing as I tried to stomach it all, as I tried to not be in pain.

I hated the pain.

I really hated it.

I just wanted it to end.

"Please kill me," I begged her one day when I saw her taking out a limb wrapped in plastic.

"What's the fun in that? I want you to try my cooking, I am just learning and I need someone to give me tips."

'Why me?' I kept asking myself.

"Now, we will defrost the meat and then you will help me prepare the ingredients," I remember sobbing as I protested. I remember her slicing at my arm with the knife she was cutting the vegetables with. I remember her mixing salt with water and my eyes widening in horrified anticipation.

The drops felt like death.

I gave in.

She handed me the bloodied knife she had hurt me with. She made me chop carrots and onions with it. I tasted a disgusting metallic tang in the food that day.

And that was only the beginning.

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