EVE

 The cold winter breeze gushed into the room from the opened window, causing me to shiver. I reached for my cover sheet and hugged it more tightly. As usual, a nightmare woke me up from sleep. I never seem to be able to recollect the dream when I wake. The only things I remember are the emotions I felt in the dream, which are usually “fear and despair”. It keeps me awake the rest of the night and the fear of having another nightmare keeps me awake at night a couple more nights until I succumb to my body and sleep again. Then the cycle begins all over again.

    Sighing deeply, I try to turn over to my left as I laid on my bed. Lying on my back wasn’t working out for me anymore. Wrong move. My attempt at moving only multiplied the pains I was feeling all over my body, courtesy of the day’s work.

    My slave driver worked me like crazy today even though I tried my best not to provoke him. I hope he is in a better mood tomorrow, even though I doubt he would. His mood seems to worsen daily because of his accelerated decay process in my personal opinion and I, unfortunately, have had to deal with it.

     Begrudgingly, I made another attempt to turn over to my right. Grunting through the painful and slow process, I successfully turn this time.

    Looking out through the opened window, I noticed it was pitch black outside. Not even a single star could be seen in the sky. More surprising to me was the noticeable silence. I spent most of my nights wishing sleep away thanks to my nightmares, so am always awake at this time of night and am quite familiar with the sounds of the night. The usual chipping sounds of the birds were gone, so were the quiet sobs and morphed screams.

    I try to ignore does every single time, and I must admit that am quite good at it now. It never does me any good pondering on what or who was crying or why they were crying. These are questions that are best left unanswered.

    On very few occasions, the sobs are from my hall mates and I know what was being done to them. Each time the slave drivers came into our hall at night, I snored louder. Everyone did. It was a failed attempt to convince ourselves that we could do nothing to help because we were fast asleep, but the shame it brought the next morning was undeniable.

    As long as I did not know who was abused, I didn’t have to avoid anyone’s gaze. I can pretend it never happened, but at the back of my mind, am hoping I wouldn’t be next to be visited. Thankfully, I was unusually healthy, so they stayed away from me. They always went for the deteriorating ones because no one would question why they spiralled so low so quickly during the monthly screening. That was expected from someone who had lost control of their decay process.

    The mate lying beside me suddenly whispered something in her sleep. She must be having a pleasant dream with that grin on her face. Don’t ask how I know she grinning, I just do. I fought the urge to wake her up. Being green with envy was clouding my judgement because even if I woke her up, it still wouldn’t help me sleep. Her ability to sleep so peacefully was a superpower I wished I had. Sleep was the only relief we got in this terrible place. After an entire day filled with hard labour, the six hours of sleep are our most valued treasure, but for obvious reason, I couldn’t sleep, and it wasn’t because of lack of trying.

    I have tried every trick there is in the book to chase away nightmares, but to no avail. All my attempts have failed miserably, leaving me very frustrated with myself. But tonight was very different. The dream felt different as well. So was the fear. It was more intense, more personal, and more real. I tried to wish it away, but I couldn’t. It was that knowing feeling all over again. Something bad was about to happen and this time, it was about to happen to me.

     I lay silently, hoping the morning never came. There was a certainty, unlike anything I had ever experienced before, that it was going to be my worst nightmare manifesting itself in real life. There was going to be another roll call, and my number was going to be on it. My instincts have never been wrong, it was what has kept me alive all this while.

    In the eleven years I’ve been here, there have been 120 roll calls. There has never been a fixed date for it. It could happen any day of the week, but it was usually within a 4-6 weeks interval. Living in constant fear of being called, especially when you had no idea when it was going to be, was exhausting.

  Glancing at my hall mate lying beside me. I try to recall her number, but fail. I try to recall anyone’s number, anyone at all, but come up with nothing. Everyone here is a step away from death. Names and numbers are irrelevant. Speech itself was a waste of strength.

  I haven’t spoken to anyone ever since Mama Nancy was taken away, well, except arguing with my slave drivers, which happens a lot. This is probably why he has been so cruel to me lately. Added to the fact that he was on a downward spiral. I was a nuisance to the slave drivers, and I did that because I knew they couldn’t hurt me. Not as much as they do the others. I hadn’t begun decaying, and the council knew that. If any unusual spike showed up in my reading, it would be easy to detect, and my slave driver would have to answer for it.    

    I wondered if I would be missed after I’m gone. Would anyone remember me? I still remember Mama Nancy. She had been my only friend here. I had literarily forced her to start speaking to me. These days, I miss her more than ever. On nights like this, when I couldn’t sleep, she usually sang me lullabies. They never helped, but the gesture was appreciated.

    I concluded a while ago that my slave driver had been right when he said befriending one another was a bad idea. They usually discouraged inmate conversations and punished us if they found us communicating with one another for too long. Making friends was a horrible idea, because when they are taken away, you are left with all these memories to deal with, which was why I stayed away from any and everybody after Mama Nancy was taken. I had learnt my lesson the hard way. But now that my end was arriving, a small part of me wished I had made more friends. At least, I wouldn’t be forgotten too soon. There would be someone silently grieving for me the same way I was grieving for Mama Nancy.

    I hope her death came quickly enough, even though I know having your organs harvested couldn’t have been pleasurable, I choose to believe she died blissfully and painlessly and I will take this belief with me to my grave, which is not so far away anymore, for my own sanity.

    I doubt they found any healthy enough organ to harvest from her anyway. She was already so weak. Considering the unfavourable condition we were kept in., her organs were most likely irredeemable.