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You are in a glass cage, open, transparent. You refuse to pace. There's a camera in the corner, watching you, always. You deliberately lay back on your cot, arms behind your head, chest open, relaxed. The instinct to curl up is there, insistent, but it won't help you. You can't hide. You can't show them that you want to hide.
You regulate your breathing, let your eyes remain closed.
-
You made a mistake of waking up disoriented right after you recovered from your concussion. You asked, "Who are you? Why am I tied to this bed?"
The woman with red lipstick stopped, gave you a calculating look. She asked, "How much do you remember?"
Alarm bells finally went off in your head. "Enough," you said. You could see that given the chance, she'd like to pry you open and rearrange you from the inside. "How many tests would I have to go through before you free me?"
"Oh, I don't think you'd be going anywhere," she said, pity mixed with dark satisfaction.
Since then, you haven't told anyone just how much you remembered, which was nothing. You curbed your questions and observed. Better to make them assume than to confirm your ignorance.
You shade the dark curl of Dr. Bloom's hair on the paper with tiny strokes, smudge the line just a little bit around the stubborn tilt of her jaw. You think you would have liked conversing with Dr. Bloom when you had your memory. But she's too sharp, too dangerous. There's a history between you and her, and you can see her mentally ticking off some boxes whenever she interacts with you.
You'll keep your silence until Dr. Chilton comes in. Dr. Bloom was smart enough to keep her name from you. It was Chilton who blubbered.
-
This is a test. The flour, the plastic knife, the blood.
The orderlies are standing by, tense with their hands on their weapon. Chilton is behind them, watching you with fearful, hungry anticipation.
There's a monster in the middle of the room and everyone is staring at it. They don't see you. You side step without their notice and stand beside them, a captive audience.
The monster is graceful on the stage, its muscle sleek, always in control, just outside of your grasps, tempting, smiling. The Devil, smoke, fogging your senses.
You like it. Everyone wants it. Why not give it to them? You're not going to give yourself and they won't withdraw their grabby hands unless something fall on them.
Your memory is blank but your hands still know their way around knife. You smile, relieved.
Jesus, he's Hannibal the cannibal. What the fuck are we doing? One of the newbies whisper nervously.
Your ears are sharp. You pick it up.
You ask yourself, Are you a cannibal?
You're not sure. You dreamed of slicing a leg off of a dead girl, your hands small and shaking. You dreamed of sinking whirling blades into someone's head, mouth pulled tight. Were they dreams or memories? In either case, you didn't feel particularly happy in them. Just grimly determined.
Still, everyone is looking at you as if you'll gladly slit an infant's throat and lap at their blood, crunching their tiny wrists between your teeth.
If nothing else, you know just what to make.
-
There is precisely little you can do while you're incarcerated, limiting what you can explore about who you are and who you have been.
It's distasteful, but you reconstruct yourself with disjointed images you have, little things you can do, and the information that others sometimes carelessly drop around you.
You like cooking. You like reading and drawing. You like beautiful things. You think that some of the crime scene photos that have been shown to you might actually be yours.
Chilton often looks at you like you're driving him mad. His face is mostly set on a mixture of fear and frustration, wounded ego desperate to be inflated. It looks ugly on him, but the way he loses his control is amusing. As he keeps coming back for more, you feel obliged to poke him back.
You're not letting them influence you. You're still choosing what you want about yourself.
You don't ask yourself why you're not planning an escape.
-
Scent is the strongest trigger for memory. You recall this fact as you get a whiff of the aftershave. It's cheap, mingled with the scent of dogs and heat, and you see yourself sitting across a man in a place with rush red walls, books stacked all around, a ladder in the corner. Your office. You feel contentment and fascination and burning feeling in your belly.
You blink your eyes rapidly, almost dizzy as your emotions buckle wildly under your control.
"Hello, Dr. Lecter," a voice says, terribly familiar.
You slowly turn around. Your eyes take on a meandering journey across the coat draped across the man's arm, lean torso, the pale flesh above the collar, neatly trimmed beard, hair curling around the ear, and finally, to the bright blue eyes that seem both brittle and strong.
You have no words. You don't remember him. At least nothing concrete. And your ignorance is no longer a lowgrade irritant but a festering wound that refuse to be cleaned.
The man says, "I heard that you were planning something."
"Am I?" You somehow find your voice.
"Oh, you always are." The man's voice is almost convincing in its nonchalance. His eyes, however, betray him with their intence study. "You don't remember me, do you?"
"No," you say. It's the first time you've ever admitted it out loud. You know that you're not that convincing enough an actor to show the man what he wants. "Did I do that?" You point at the small scar on the man's forehead.
"Yes."
To your surprise, this makes you respond with, "I felt like I had to, but I wasn't happy about it."
The man swallows. "No one was."
Silence descends. You're thinking. You're thinking. Yet the void inside you remains uncooperative. You wonder what more you can throw to make the man stay. He doesn't want the monster, that much you can see.
The man steps forward. To better look, you assume. You step forward as well. There's something exhilarating about the idea of the man seeing you.
The man leans in, hand on the glass pane that separates the two of you. It would leave a smudged handprint soon to be disappeared. The gesture is important. No one comes near your cage.
Your attention goes back to the man's eyes. They're searching, like they know exactly what they want to find. You let him look. You're at a loss when suddenly anger lits up and he slams the glass. The vibration travels across the surface.
"How dare you," he whispers.
You want to keep him.