You waken, realize you're tied down, and there's someone standing over you with a small knife, making tiny cuts all over you. You struggle to see more and realize you're covered in leeches. Blackout. The next time you waken, you're chained upright to a wall at your waist and wrists. You can move about a foot away from the wall, but no more. Your shoulders burn from holding your dead weight. You're in a cell about 5 feet square, with straw on the floor and an open window. You realize you're hungry and try to call out for help, but all that comes out is a croak.
A man comes to the cell, unlocks the chains, and gives you a bowl of something hot. You gratefully sit down and eat. But he's not the savior you thought, because as soon as you're done, you're chained to the wall again. And not long after, it occurs to you that there was something in that food. Everything you've consumed in the past week, it seems, starts to evacuate with the speed of lightning. With vomit dribbling down your chin and even nastier stuff running down your legs, you feel worse than ever.
The man comes with food every day: moldy or stale bread, gruel, or some kind of stew-like stuff with what appears to be beetles. You have no way to clean yourself or your cell. He won't speak to you. It occurs to you that you've been injured at some point, because you have recurring headaches, sometimes so bad they interfere with your vision. But this is no hospital. It's no prison, either, although you're being treated worse than an inmate. You hear weird bursts of laughter, moaning, and crying from other cells, but nobody speaks. After the leeching, the purgatives and emetics in the food, no ability to rest, and poor state of hygiene, your immune system is beyond compromised. It's getting uncomfortably cold at night and there's no sign of blankets or even clean clothing.
After a month, with oozing and infected sores around your wrists and waist, you are unchained from the wall permanently. For a second, it is blissful to lie down in the straw, until you realize it's also been your toilet since the first day. It's much colder now, even during the daytime. You get sick and develop a high fever, which causes you to hallucinate a little. You rave in your sleep, and someone comes to get you, binds your hands behind your back, and ducks your head repeatedly in a huge tub of icy water. The cold is almost a cool comfort against your raging fever, but you can't breathe. The shock and lack of air cause you to lose consciousness.
You awaken in a frigid cell again, seeing things you're pretty sure aren't there. You hear gurgling sounds when you breathe deeply, but there are worse things to worry about. You hear groans, shrieks, and sometimes screaming, followed by laughter. The sounds get closer. Soon a small group of people stand in front of your cell, staring. You stare back, wondering what's going on. Before you can react, a boy in front throws a rock at you. You yelp in surprise and flinch back; the group laughs and moves on out of sight.
In the new cell, you're able to keep the straw clean and dry for bedding by using the far corner for your toilet. As hygienic as that may be, the rattle in your lungs hasn't improved, so you're taken for another leech treatment and returned to the cell without any bandages. It's so cold now you aren't sure whether the blood oozing from the leech sites is scabbing or simply freezing. You burrow into the straw for warmth. There was no food today. If not for the straw for some protection from the cold, you don't know if you could survive.
The next day, another group comes along and finally stops at your cell. You remain curled in the straw. There is no boy with a rock, thankfully. People in the group begin to insult you, but it's easy to ignore them. Finally, the man who used to bring food comes along. He's carrying a torch. Your normal reactions have been dulled by cold, illness, blood loss, and malnutrition, so you don't realize the potential threat until it's nearly too late. He sets fire to the edge of your straw bedding.
You jump up screeching and narrowly avoid being singed. In a panic, you move as much unburned straw as you can from the fire. The crowd roars with laughter at your desperate movements. The man with the torch steps back with a smug smile and you realize you're probably safe enough as long as you entertain the crowd. You are outraged that somehow you've been made a circus animal, still without any idea how it happened. But faced with the choice of either humiliation or death, animal instinct takes over.
You're horrified by what you're willing to do to preserve the shreds of your life: act insane, scare children, eat spoiled or moldy food - and a few things that aren't food, and survive the occasional bleeding, ducking, and even beating. The hallucinations are fewer and farther between but you'd prefer them to this existence. You question your sanity for preferring to be delusional. The primal instinct to preserve life is one thing, but now you have to convince your rational mind that such a basic drive is worth the effort.
Eventually you learn that the people who come to see you begin their day by taking their children out for entertainment, where the whole family can enjoy violent murders carried out before their eyes. Coming to see you is just the icing on the cake, so to speak, since you don't die and end the show. Although by now you truly wish you could.
Surely you had family or friends out there. Are they like the groups that stare at you? Heaven forbid, have they been in the groups that stare at you? A new worry now constantly circles in your thoughts. Who really belongs in the cage - you, or the strange ones on the other side of the bars?
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