Escaping

You look up at the stars, thinking about what you walked away from, what you ran away from, what you desperately needed to get away from.

What would you have done otherwise? It’s not like you had a choice. You didn’t want to do it anymore. You just couldn’t. People using you and exploiting you, you just had enough. You needed to get out, even if that meant risking your own life in the process. But if you didn’t escape, they would have killed you anyway. Think about it, this was the only way to safe your life.

You grew up in that horrible place filled with pain, agony and torture. They called it ‘The Cult Of Isolation’. It doesn’t only mean that they isolate themselves from the world but they also believe that an individual is destined to be alone. So, from the moment you were born, they took you away from your parents and siblings, if you even had any. No-one exactly knew that for sure, only your parents and the leaders of the cult. Isn’t it sad that you knew who the leaders were but you were not allowed to know who your parents were?

You grew up in one of the nursing homes where every nurse nurtured at least ten different babies. There was no bond there, and you could feel that. You never felt loved, did you? No, you didn’t, because that’s the feeling they give you from day one, the feeling of loneliness. But that wasn’t your only faith, was it? No, you were special, different from all the others, except for a select group of children within the cult. They were just a handful of others like you, at least that’s what they told you. From the age of three, you were put in a special room. They called it a ‘royal room’. A better name for it would have been ‘torture room’ though. This place is where you were destined to grow up. But what was so special about your room? What made it different from the other rooms normal people had to live in? It was both equally as isolating but yours had something special. One of the walls was actually one-way glass and the room was filled with cameras. That way, the leaders could see your every move. You asked yourself why you were special, why you got such a privileged room. Well, at least you thought it was a privilege. You were way too young and gullible to fully understand it at the time. But it didn’t take you that long before you started asking questions. You were actually a smart and clever little girl.

Every day, a lady dressed in a ballet-pink dress visited you. You weren’t allowed to know her name so you called her ‘Rose’ because she always had a rose pinned to her dress. She brought you dinner and read you a bedtime story. When you got too old for bedtime stories, she brought other stuff for you to do like colouring books and board games. It was always fun when she came in. She was the closest to a mother you ever had, even though you didn’t know what ‘a mother’ was back then. You learned that you were fallen out of space and led to the cult by the upper hand. Who the upper hand was, you had no idea, but you did know that you couldn’t make it mad or else terrible things were going to happen. They were always very clear about that.

When you were about to turn six years old, everything changed and you were suddenly faced with a gruelling truth. You were special, you were different, but that wasn’t something good, totally not a blessing, at least not for you anyway. For them, it was amazing because they had another lab rat to test on. You see, you had some pretty extraordinary gifts.

Ever since your sixth birthday, each morning at exactly 7 a.m., they opened up the door of your room and led you to a white room with a big bed, two chairs and a whole lot of wires connected to machinery. The first time, they strapped you into the chair. One of the leaders walked into the room with a boy, about your age, by his side. The leader strapped the boy into the other chair, opposite yours before he connected a whole bunch of wires to your head. He left the room and stood behind the glass, staring at you and that boy when suddenly a tall man wearing a blue hazmat suit entered. He walked over to the boy and threw hot boiling water all over his legs. You didn’t know what happened but you started screaming out in pain, just like the boy sitting opposite you, crying his eyes out. Your legs were on fire, but how could that be? You weren’t the one that got hurt. So how come you cried out in pain then? You were so extremely confused and you felt so bad for the boy but you yourself were in such tremendous pain that the cries of the boy faded into the background of you conscious. This went on for days. It was always the same boy but they hurt him in a different way every time he got dragged through that door. They pinched him, cut him, beat him, you name it. And even though you weren’t the one they physically touched, you were also in a tremendous amount of pain. You didn’t understand it. You didn’t understand why they were doing this to that little boy, and to you.

After weeks of torturing that innocent boy, they started doing something else. They actually moved you to that big white room for you to stay in. Every hour, loud screeching noises were to be heard, even during the night. You couldn’t handle it and you both mentally and physically broke down. Of course, that’s not what they wanted. If you would die, they wouldn’t have anyone to experiment on anymore. So they didn’t let that happen, unfortunately… They moved you back to your own room and gave you some time to heal and get some strength back.

When you were fully recovered and strong enough again, they took you back into that horrifying room. This time, they strapped you to the bed. The same man in the blue hazmat suit came in with needles and different sized drills. You got extremely scared but there was no way for you to get out of there. The man came closer and started putting needles into your body, as well as drilling holes into your arms, stomach and feet. You didn’t feel anything. You were terrified but you weren’t in pain. You saw all the blood, but you weren’t in pain. How could that be?

Apparently, the leaders found this discovery very interesting. That’s why they started experimenting with different drugs. They already knew you weren’t experiencing any physical pain, so they wanted to see what happened inside of your body. The results were remarkable. Okay yeah, you had a few internal bleedings and you almost died three times but other than that, a new discovery was made. Every time the man in the blue hazmat suit came in, you blurted out exactly what he was thinking. You could see the excitement in the leader’s eyes and you knew what it meant, more tests, more experiments.

They started testing your mind-reading abilities. They placed you in that white room together with prisoners of the cult. Their intentions were to let you find out what the prisoners were up to. Escaping? Killing? It was a smart plan but unfortunately for you, it was also extremely terrifying.

So shortly summarized, you were special and over the years of childhood, you found out why. You felt the physical pain of others, but you didn’t feel your own. You did, however, have a mental break down which told you that you did have feelings. You weren’t heartless like the leaders kept telling you. You also discovered that you could read peoples minds which sounded cool at first but because of everything they did to you, your opinion on that had changed quite quickly.

All this testing and experimenting made you tired, so extremely tired. You started getting depressed and at one point you didn’t even want to live anymore. Then, one day, you tried to read Rose’s mind. You didn’t know why but that was always a hard task. You never seemed to get through to her, not without a fight. But that evening, you actually did it. You entered her mind and were shocked by what you discovered. Rose knew everything. She knew about the outside world. She knew about the intentions of the cult. And, most importantly, she knew what was going to happen to you. You subtly asked her about it but she wouldn’t tell you anything.

The following day, she came in and gave you a book. It looked like a normal fairy tale children’s book but once you opened it, you were in disbelief. You looked at Rose in shock. She gave you a wink and told you, with her mind, that you needed to read it. Rose stopped visiting you that day. You had no idea why but you didn’t have a good feeling about it. You read every single word and couldn’t believe what they were doing to you and to everyone else inside the cult. They told you that this was the only way of life, they lied. They told you ‘family’ wasn’t real, they lied. They told you that you’re meant to be alone, they lied. They told you they weren’t going to let anything happen to you, and that was their biggest lie. Rose had written down everything that you needed to know, including what the leaders were planning to do with you.

They believed that children with special powers, children just like you, could be the answer to eternal living, being immortal. You weren’t the first case. They experiment to see what the child can do. They test their limits until they know enough, until they know of that child qualifies or not. And yes, you were a lucky winner. It wouldn’t have been long before they would have killed you and claim your heart. Those idiots believed that your heart contained some kind of superpower. Even though every science in the world had proven that the brain is the organ responsible for the specialities you had, the leaders still believed it was something magical inside your heart. They believed that the heart was the organ who made the brain function the way it did.

And that’s where you drew the line. That’s why you decided to get out of there. You waited for the perfect moment. You faked a seizure and they had no other choice than to take you out of your room and rush you over to the hospital inside the cult. And that’s when you did it. That’s when you escaped. You started freaking out in the car. They had to pull over and that’s when you jumped out and ran as fast as you could. You kept running, as far away as you could, not looking back. This was it. This was the end of uncountable experiments, the end of isolation, the end of your suffering. This was the end of your past.

You look up at the stars, trying to forget about what you walked away from, what you ran away from, what you desperately needed to get away from.