Cell 25 was located at the end of the first corridor of the GP prison, the first floor below ground and one floor above level D, where Hatch had taken me for my “test.” Even from the outside the cell looked different than the rest. The door was gray-black and broader than the others with a large, hydraulic latch. There were peculiar hatches and hinges and a panel of flashing lights.
The guards opened the door with a key, pushed me inside, and the thick, metal door sealed the world shut behind me. The room was completely dark except for my own soft glow. There was no sound but my heart pounding in my ears. I wondered what Nichelle had meant by “terror.” I found out soon enough.
It was maybe an hour after they’d thrown me in the cell that I was suddenly filled with fear like I had never felt before. Something evil was crawling around in the cell. Even though I couldn’t see it, I was sure of it. Something frightening beyond words. I was so paralyzed with fear I struggled to inhale the dry, hot air. Venomous snakes? Spiders? Thousands of spiders? “What’s in here?” I shouted.
The room was dead space and there was no sound, not even the trace of an echo from my screaming. Trembling, I reached out and felt the cell wall but there was nothing there, just smooth, warm metal. I couldn’t see or hear anything, but somehow I just knew something was in the room with me.
“Let me out of here!” I screamed, pounding on the walls. I screamed until I was hoarse. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I probed a corner of the cell with my foot. “It’s nothing,” I told myself. “There’s nothing’s here.” I slowly slunk down in the corner, my arms huddled around myself. “There’s nothing here,” I repeated over and over.
I tried to force my mind to think of other things but the fear was too powerful. I began screaming again. Black widow spiders. Crocodiles. No, sharks. Great whites. “No, that’s impossible,” I told myself. “I’m not in water.” And yet the absurd was somehow believable. What was going on in my head?
Peculiarly, about an hour after my panic had begun, the feelings vanished as suddenly as they had come, as if I’d suddenly awoken from a nightmare. Not all my fear was gone, of course, but the extreme aspect of it had vanished.
After a few minutes I slowly stood, venturing out of my corner. I felt my way around the cell. There was no bed or even a mat, just a slick concrete floor and a porcelain toilet in one corner of the room. I went back to the same corner and sat down again. I wondered how long I would survive.
The next few days (or what I thought were days, since I was quickly losing track of time) passed in pain and discomfort. The cell’s temperature was usually high enough that I was covered with my own sweat, then it would abruptly drop until I was shivering with cold.
Food, when I got it, was also served sporadically. The food came to me through a hatch door that did not allow light into the cell, as the door on my side only opened after the outer door was sealed. I guessed that my feeding schedule was irregular to throw off my body’s natural sense of timing. The food stunk, literally, and the first time I ate it I spit it out. I don’t know what it was, I couldn’t see it, but the texture and smell reminded me of canned dog food. I was given no water and as I began to thirst I realized that my only option was to drink from the toilet, which I’m sure was their intent from the beginning.
Then there was the sound—a consistent, loud, electronic beep that began shortly after my first panic attack and chirped every thirty seconds without cease. The sound began to occupy my sleep and dreams and eventually became incredibly painful as it filled my every thought. I had read about tortures like this before, like the water torture, where a single drop of water falls consistently on a bound man’s head. They say that after a while the tiny drop begins to feel like a sledgehammer. I believed it. After several days of the sound my head felt like it might explode.
What made it even more unbearable was the uncertainty of it all. I was kept in the dark, figuratively as well as literally. Were they ever going to release me? Would it be minutes or days or years? I had no idea. I thought of Hatch’s “promise.” You will never disobey me again. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll beg for the privilege of electrocuting your own mother. I wondered if he was right. Could one be so physically and emotionally broken that he no longer cared about anyone or anything except survival? I didn’t want to find out.
Intermingled with my terror and pain were thoughts of my mother. On the screen she had looked so small and frail. I doubted that she could have survived the shock if Hatch had followed through with his threat. Had he pushed the button or not? The thought of it filled me with both hate and guilt. I wished that he had just killed me instead. Didn’t he say that I was dying anyway?
I realized that the panic attacks I was having seemed to be on a type of schedule and I wondered if it was possible that Hatch and his scientists had actually perfected a process to generate fear.
Thirteen meals had passed. (That’s how I kept track of time.) My fear attack had just ended and I lay on the ground, drenched in sweat and trembling. I heard myself mumbling, “I can’t do it anymore. You win, I can’t do it anymore.” I felt the watch on my arm, the one my mother had given me. I couldn’t read the words in the dark but I didn’t have to. I’m sure Hatch had let me keep the watch to keep my mind on my mother. Nothing Hatch did was by accident and it certainly wasn’t out of kindness. I began to cry. “I’m sorry I failed you, Mom.”
I had lost weight and it felt as if every cell of my body ached. If they meant to break me, they knew exactly what they were doing. Of course they did. They were scientists.
As I lay on the ground, I noticed something very peculiar. In the corner of the room there was a dim light. The metal pipe that ran from the wall to the toilet began to lightly glow, not consistently, but intermittently. It’s happening, I thought. I’m losing my mind. I’m hallucinating. I looked away. A moment later I looked back. The pipe was still glowing, though slightly brighter now. I crawled over to the toilet and cautiously put out my hand to touch it. The moment I touched it, it went dark. Then a feeling came over me that cannot be accurately described to anyone who hasn’t felt it. I felt pure peace. It felt as if some power were pulsing through my body, pushing out the fear and hurt and replacing it with perfect tranquility. I felt as comfortable as if I were lying on my own bed at home listening to my music. Even the constant chirp sounded pleasant.
I let go of the pipe and my pain, exhaustion, and fear instantly returned. I quickly grabbed it again. Maybe I was losing my mind, but if holding on to a toilet pipe could make me feel good, I was going to hold on to that pipe.
Suddenly I understood. The cell with Taylor, Ian, Abigail, and McKenna was somewhere on the floor below mine. Abigail could take away pain. Abigail must be touching a pipe that ran between the two cells, conducting her power to me, much the same way I had shocked Cody Applebaum in school detention. But how would she even know I was here?
She didn’t. Ian did. Ian had probably been watching me all along. He knew I was here. Was it possible that he, Abigail, and McKenna were working together to save me? They didn’t even know me. Yet it made sense. McKenna could have made the pipe glow to lead me to it. My eyes watered and I began to cry. It was not the first time since I’d been placed in the cell—but the first time that I had cried for something other than pain. For the first time in days I had hope that I might survive.
From that point on, whenever things got bad, I went to the pipe and grasped it and immediately the pain ceased. During the “terror sessions” my invisible friends were always waiting. I deduced that Ian must be able to see when and how they were torturing me.
I was filled with gratitude for my unseen friends and I learned that harboring an emotion as powerful as gratitude has power of its own. My greatest fear was that they might be discovered and moved to a different cell. I knew Hatch and his guards were watching me, so I was discreet in how I held to the pipe. I usually pretended to be throwing up or drinking.
Actually, their discovery was my second-greatest fear. My greatest fear was that my mother was dead. Not even Abigail’s power could take that pain from my heart.
