Java's Week Skip ((Featuring Line's Week Skip in Comments!))
Day 10: Having been injected with powerful stimulants, Java finds no sleep, and spends the night of the ninth putting herself back together. The sun rises on the tenth, and she does not see it, locked away in the basement, alone with her anger and a few surviving cockroaches. By the time Line returns to her, her mind is free of everything save her hatred for him, and while she knows it's better to simply cooperate with him, she has regained a bit of her pride, and can't seem to keep her voice polite enough to please him. He asks her a few condescending questions, and she gives him short, curt answers, immediately lecturing herself for it as he begins the day's lesson. It is in many regards a repeat of the day before, complete with physical torture, mind games, and verbal jabs, and the shell of herself that Java pieced back together the night before collapses very quickly under Line's expert hand. She's starving, cold, and exhausted, and Java is disgusted to find herself crying for him once again. She is forced to choose another vial from his collection, but is pleasantly surprised to feel no immediate effects. As she ponders this, her eyes watching Line's face for a clue, the door opens, and her father walks in. Line does not seem to notice. Java's father is painfully, visibly dead, his flesh hanging in dark clumps from his broad, grey skeleton, and it is clear from the molded remnants of his clothing that he did not receive a proper burial. The smell is unbearable; he smells of death and rot and sick sweetness, and it turns her stomach. He takes a seat beside her, and has a lengthy conversation with Java about the horrors he's endured since they last met, about how disappointed he is with her, how disgusted he is with what she's become, and he reminds her once again that she and her mother are both whores. As her father speaks, Line listens attentively, although Java notices that he never seems to look at her father. On some level, Java knows her father can't be real, and yet he knows things that only he would know... And nothing seems real; her father, at least, existed outside of this place; he alone must be real. As he begins informing her of her husband's whereabouts (with a virt girl, who is apparently carrying Ram's child), Line leaves, and Java barely notices the new loyal subjects he leaves for her, and the tiny clicking sounds that they make. One of the beetles approaches her, then her father, and Java's father does not seem to notice when it begins to devour his ankle, just as Java does not seem to notice that she can see everything in spite of her blindfold. She tries to warn her father, but he is busy explaining her failures as a daughter, as a wife, as a woman, and does not hear her. As the beetle moves up his leg, she screams, cries, orders, but to no avail, and her father's body has been reduced to a talking skull when Java hears the door open. Someone enters, and she can see him through the blindfold; it's the man from before, the gentle man, and she realizes that he is really a bird, covered in short, bloody feathers, his beak full of shiny, sharp teeth. She shies away from him, sobbing, but is too hungry to refuse food when it's offered to her, and eats from his bird-hand yet again, and allows him to put something on her wrists. Her father's skull continues to speak throughout the meeting, though the bird doesn't seem to notice, and the chatter keeps her awake all night.
Day 11: Her father's skull becomes quiet in the morning, although Java has long since lost all concept of time, and she listens instead to the clicking of the beetles. She becomes aware of the blindfold, gradually, and realizes that the skull is gone, and that she has no idea how much of the previous day was real. It seems like a dream, but the pain is real, and she's too tired to have gotten any sleep; it-- it must have been real. She remembers a bird, who smelled familiar and gave her a sandwich, and this also bothers her; it was supposed to be a man, not a bird, and she remembers that he's been kind to her. She gradually decides she's fairly certain that there was no bird, that it was all imagined, but she's too exhausted and sore to think clearly, and everything begins to blur in her mind, though she cannot sleep. Line pays her another visit, and Java finds that she no longer feels like fighting him; all she wants is for her kidnappers to either kill or release her, to make these games stop however they can. She makes small talk with Line as best she can, the majority of which features the same themes her father discussed with her, but she no longer has anything to say, and is forcibly reminded that Line does not enjoy her silence. Blunt pain no longer seems to hurt as it once did, however, and her wrists are feeling a bit better, but that, like all things, could be the lack of sleep and food talking. Line resorts to little physical pain this time, stressing instead the lessons she's already learned, and Java finds that she really no longer disagrees with him. He leaves, and she listens to the beetles chewing on something, her head pounding and tears occasionally running down her face. The gentle man comes back to her again, though she still cannot see him, and Java is genuinely relieved to feel the flesh of a man and not a bird when he touches her. The man still refuses to speak to her, but Java no longer cares; she eats from his hand, allows him to dress her wounds, and then, exhausted, falls asleep against his shoulder as he holds her.
Day 12: Java sleeps well into the day, still bound to the chair and blindfolded, and wakes feeling much more coherent. Her wrists no longer hurt unless they brush against the ropes, though her entire body is stiff and cramped from being kept in a seated position for so long. She's been allowed five minutes a day to herself, to move and use the restroom, always under supervision, and today is no exception, but five minutes simply isn't enough to stretch and keep her muscles from locking up during the day. Her feet and hands are beginning to occasionally go numb, and she finds that her mind is as frozen as her body; all of her fear, anger, love, and everything else is gone now, and all that remains is a vague, apathetic wish for death. She no longer believes that she will be released; she's just a toy, an experiment, like all of the kids in the old Techno centers, and Java has come to believe that such an end is almost just. The clicking of the beetles, she notices, has stopped. In the evening, Line pays her another visit, reminding her that she is still alive, at least physically, by showing her a new kind of suffering. She endures it by thinking of the gentle, pleasant-smelling man who will perhaps visit her afterwards, and prays that the spider Line leaves on her lap when he leaves is poisonous. It crawls up her torso, along her arms, and pauses at the cracked substance on her wrists, poking around. This is too much, and Java jerks her hands to the side, tearing at the skin again but succeeding in flinging the creature to the floor. She sits, covered in wet towels and shivering violently, until the silent man returns to her. She hears a frustrated, very familiar sigh, then a satisfying squish as spider meets boot, and then the man's warm, gentle hands are upon her, removing the towels, drying her off. His touch would perhaps have seemed lecherous a few days ago, but Java no longer has any objections; he is her one friend in this Hell, and she is freezing; so long as he warms her up and is gentle, he may do as he likes. He unties her shaking body from the chair, wrapping a blanket around her, and Java curls up against him like a lover, his arms around her. Nothing is real anymore, nothing save pain and him, and though Line's talk of loyalty has brought up old wounds, Ram is now little more than a distant memory from another woman's life. Java falls asleep against the man without eating anything, and she continues to shiver slightly long after she is lost to dreams.
Day 13: With her current mental state and the utter lack of calories in her system, Java has no trouble sleeping until late evening. She wakes retied to her chair, and the pleasantries of her dreams rapidly disintegrate into the painful reality of the present. Line comes later than usual today, although Java, believing Line to be a man of particularly strict schedule, believes that it simply her sense of time that is changing. He speaks to her very politely, gives her another injection, and then leaves, which both pleases and worries Java. The injection seems to have no effect, but she remembers all too well what happened the last time a chemical was slow-acting. She wonders about this for perhaps an hour before realizing that she has, indeed, chosen the harmless substance. She waits for her second guest with a strange sort of pleasure, and is warm and thoroughly responsive when he finally returns to her. He still refuses to speak, and Java no longer has strength enough to say much, but she is as affectionate to the man as she can be, given the current situation, and his touch is still warm and comforting. The part of her mind that remembers that he is perhaps the one running everything has long since died, and his aftershave smells pleasant. He feeds her, treats her wrists, and caresses her face, her arms, her shoulders, then leaves her to sleep. Tonight, she dreams of Ram, and the dreams move her more than she cares to admit.
Day 14: Java wakes fairly early from a nightmare in which Ram is dead and gutted, and she sits, shivering and crying, in the dark, for several hours before Line comes to see her. He unties her blindfold, as usual, and sits down beside her, asking her questions and watching her face as though she were a test subject-- which, she reminds herself, she is. His questions are mostly straightforward, and Java sees no point whatsoever in lying to him or fighting him; all she wants is to die or, in the absence of that possibility, to be back with the gentle guest who cares for her. Line injects her with another substance, and Java chokes back a few quiet whimpers as it takes effect, focusing her thoughts on the gentle man and tonight's visit. Line repeats his questions, and Java finds that she has no choice but to be as honest as she'd been previously. He seems satisfied, and, after retying her blindfold, leaves. The second guest soon follows, and Java tries once more, quietly, politely, to ask him his name. He is her best friend, her only friend, and she adores him, but he won't answer her question. He feeds her a cheese sandwich and half a plum, which she takes a particular joy in eating, then leaves her alone. After a few hours, Java slips into a dreamless sleep.
Day 15: Java is awakened by Line this time, for the first time since her arrival, and answers his inquiry about her evening with the subdued voice of one who knows her place. He selects a vial without her input, and searches her face as if seeking an answer there, then gives her an injection. He repeats the lessons she's come to know by heart, and Java finds herself listening with rapt attention, every syllable of his words sounding like the voice of God in the cold room. She feels her mind begin to lock down, and her heart begin to pound against her chest; it feels like the final step in a test, somehow, like the grand coup de grace that will render her forever helpless, lifeless, inanimate. All she can hear is Line's words, the catch-phrases that have been so deeply ingrained in her during her time with him; "Loyalty is the only thing worth dying for," "Responsibilities cannot be ignored," "You have failed him," "Disobedience leads to suffering," and so forth. It is all true, and she listens, speechless and wide-eyed, and feels the words lock themselves in her mind, blocking out everything else. Every nerve feels strangely awake, strangely alert, and Java understands with perfect clarity the truth behind Line's words; it is all true, it is from the mouth of God, and she will obey. When he finishes speaking, Java opens her mouth to agree, but her mouth will no longer form words, her mind can no longer process words, she can do nothing but think of his words, which repeat themselves over and over again in her mind. Line gets up and leaves, and Java does not notice. The hours pass, and Java does not notice. "Loyalty is the only thing worth dying for." Several hours later, she finds that the intensity of God's words is beginning to subside; while they are still the only thing she can think of, her lips are now able to mouth the words. "I have failed him. I have failed him. Loyalty is the only thing worth dying for. I have failed him. Responsibilities cannot be ignored. I have failed him. Disobedience leads to suffering." She mouths the words over and over again, her mouth dry, until the silent man returns to her. She can't focus on him, however, only on the words, but her love for him carries through in her voice as she speaks to him, as she tells him what she's learned, her voice distant and thin. "I have failed him. Responsibilities cannot be ignored." She is quiet long enough to be fed, but when the man leaves, Java begins her chanting again, taking strange comfort in the way the words feel leaving her lips. "I have failed him." She does not sleep tonight.