Veeyel was banging his head against a wall. It was all he could really do right now, since he was wrapped up in a straight jacket and not really capable of movement. Maybe if he bashed his head in enough, he’d forget everything that was going on.
He knew exactly why he was there.
It all started with a stupid rebellion among another race entirely. Some fucking retard suggested that maybe Ksa would rebel as well, so they imprisoned pretty much everyone. Then nearly everyone escaped.
Everyone apart from Veeyel. He wasn’t in his cell when everyone magically teleported away. He was in the infirmary, since his pancreas no longer worked properly and he’d ended up with hyperglycaemia and a breath that smelled like acetone. Of course, to make matters worse, the person who did the teleporting turned out to be one of Veeyel’s closest friends, so everyone else was poking him and prodding him and asking him questions that he didn’t know the answer to.
“Where did they go?” a voice asked from behind one-way vision plastic.
Veeyel got up and stormed over to the window. “I told you. I DO NOT KNOW.”
“Kayel is known to be your best friend. You considered marrying him. Before he disappeared.”
“Don’t you have some fucking Threan-types there to read my fucking mind or something? I DON’T KNOW. I TOLD YOU ALREADY!” He shouted at the window, his breath steaming up against it. “By the fucking Light how many more times are you going to ask me? Are you TRYING to make me want to kill you all?”
There was no reply, but Veeyel could see something moving behind the glass. Goodness knows how many beings were in there. Veyeel leaned against the window, sighing.
“You know, this right here is everything wrong with Rethan culture…” Veeyel muttered. “Normal life is fine. Anyone special gets put through hell if something goes wrong. I was quite happy being retired, living off a minimal pension and farming my own little strip of land. You said I’d be home in three days…”
“Do you know anything?” a voice asked.
Rage built up inside Veeyel but he held it in, only raising his voice slightly. “No. I know nothing. I don’t know what Kayel is doing. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know where the rest of my class is. I haven’t seen sunlight in a very long time. I swear to you, that I know nothing. You have no idea how much I miss sunlight.”
“You’re lying.”
Veeyel growled. There was no way he could reply. He wasn’t lying. Did they not just hear what he said? He was exhausted. Hungry. Thirsty. Broken. They were never going to believe him. There was no way out.
“Tell us what you know.”
He couldn’t take it any more.
Veeyel started bashing his head on the window. Not lightly like before. Hard. Continuous. The window didn’t seem to care, wobbling slightly with each hit, stronger than the one before. He could feel his headshield starting to chip and crack.
“What are you doing?” voices shouted from the other side of the window.
There was no answer. Veeyel bashed harder, as cracks started to form in the plastic. Spatters of blood and shards of armour dug into the window, weakening both him and it further.
“Stop! You are harming yourself!”
He couldn’t feel pain any more. The window was definitely starting to break. His thoughts started slipping away. They were never going to free him. There was no way out but this way. Plastic, armour and flesh began to mix. Blood ran into his eyes and mouth. Tasted sweet. Closer now.
“Stop!”
There was no stopping now. Words no longer had meaning to him.
“Please!”
Something snapped. He fell forward. The window had shattered. He collapsed on the floor, in a puddle of blood, fractured plastic and bone. Consciousness left him as everything faded to black.
…
He woke up in a hospital bed. There was no movement to be had. No memories. No pain. Something was looking at him but he didn’t recognise what it was. It was making shapes with its mouth. It took him a moment to realise it was talking. Not to him, but about him. There was something else in the room. It too was talking.
“I tried my best, but it was too severe. Does he have any family? I must inform them of his condition.”
“No. No family. Nothing at all.”
“Poor thing.”
“Are you going to…”
“No. No relatives means I have no permission. Poor thing is trapped.”
“Just keep him here then.”
“Very well. It would be best if you left. If he has any memory left, he’d go into shock at the sight of you.”
The other thing left. The first thing tugged at the end of his bed, moving it towards an open window. The sky was blue outside, and grass hills could be seen in the distance. A cool breeze blew in, but he couldn’t feel it. The first thing started talking again, this time to him.
“It is disgusting how they treated you. You should have been left to your little home.”
It occurred to him that he couldn’t feel anything at all.
“Maybe, maybe in a few years, you might recover and get some movement back in your limbs. If you live that long. You probably only have a few days left in you, unfortunately. If only they had brought you here earlier… I am going to leave you to sleep now. You deserve some peace.”
The thing came over to his side, checking something on his arm, then turned to leave. As the medic left the room, Veeyel began to realise what had happened.
He was a prisoner, trapped inside his own body.