Quietus

I try to steady my breathing, for no good reason I can think of in my muddled head, but it's no use: I can't keep from trembling, my heart thumping loud, all the way into my teeth. I close my eyes, this can't be it, this can't be it, this can't be it! Someone is going to save me.

I open my eyes. No one is going to save me.

They strap my wrists, ankles, waist, forehead--everything--to the chair, the cold white men without faces. Stark, wide, brown leather straps with dark metal buckles which they pull tightly over my bones. Oh god, and I can see with horror the creases in the leather, how they've been tugged at, frantically, but have never given way.

Now the men leave me alone, and the last of them closes the giant metal door behind him. Then I hear the deathly sound of a lock sliding into place. My teeth chatter nervously, I feel cold. I can hear myself echo in the cylindrical chamber, the flat, laconic sound of the buckles; I'm testing them experimentally, just as I know I'll be testing them for real in a minute or two. That's the worst part--waiting in relative comfort when you know the agony is coming.

I hear a hiss, and I jump in my chair, the binds pulling me back down. Was that it?! No, just the sound of my breathing, raspy with mucus. I imagine she'd probably chuckle at that. I close my eyes again, swallow, and wait for the inevitable. I can't even shake my head.

There is no fear like the last fear.