The door clicks shut behind him, and suddenly, surrounded by the all too familiar blank gray walls I feel like I’m suffocating. The feeling is like no panic attack I’ve ever experienced before. It’s hundreds of times more intense, it causes the light blonde hairs on my arms to stand on end, and a shiver to run through my eerily still body; from head to toe.

The bruises on my face have almost faded and the blood on my back that soaked through my gray t-shirt has been dried for weeks. I was doing so well at keeping my anger contained, they were leaving me alone. But this morning I woke up with a fighting, rebellious spirit that I haven’t felt since the morning before the last Punishment. I woke up, jumped off of the floor and I knew the mistake I was making as I made it. I yelled words of hate and disgust into the camera; I offered obscene gestures that couldn’t even begin to express the burning hatred I feel towards The Institution. I tell them that I’m not scared of them, that I’ve been here so long that nothing they do can hurt me anymore. I tell them that they will never be able to change me. This isn’t true of course, but I know how much it aggravates them to hear it. Every once in a while I’ll start to fight like this, when I first got here it was every day, soon it began to be once or twice a week. Then once or twice a month, now it’s about once every month and a half. The Institution wears you down, most days it leaves you hollow and free of all ambition. It wants to break you, so it does.

My Punisher steps closer to me, and I force myself to smile because I know it kills them. I sit in the center of my room and I say what I always say before a Punishment.





“Lay a finger on me and I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you experience more pain than I do.”

The threat means nothing to him of course, I am sickly thin and extremely, physically weak. My Punisher is twice my size, he could kill me with his bare hands if he so pleased, but he won’t. The Institution believes that death is the easy way out, and for some maybe it is. But I would be willing to endure more pain than this, if it meant getting anything close to my old life back. I had a good life, and I still have a mere shred of hope that I can get it back, or at least part of it. So I fight, I fight for the life that should be mine. The life The Institution ripped away from me two years ago. Because when we’re beaten down and broken our only choices are to fight or become a living corpse. I choose to hold onto my hope and fight.

He grabs at my ankles as he pulls the first set of restraints out of his back pocket. The minute is rough, calloused, tattooed hand touches my ankle I start to put up the fight that I promised. I kick and scream, my shaking hands hitting every piece of him I can reach. The blows are weak, and I can tell that he barely feels them. I am lethargic and slow, from lack of sleep and exercise.

I thrash as madly as my tired body will let me as he finishes tying my ankles together and moves to my wrists, pulling them behind my back. I try to keep my hands in front of me, but it’s no use, he pulls them behind my back and ties them with ease. He steps in front of me as I kick wildly, like a fish out of water. He grabs my head in his meaty hands and forces me to face him, holding me by the shoulders he begins to talk. This is the worst part of every Punishment, when they talk to me, like I’m a five year old who broke her mom’s best vase. I refuse to look at him as he begins.
“Kylee, you know why I’m here. You’ve misbehaved, and now you must face the consequences and accept your Punishment.”
“You’re a monster”, I yell in a hoarse voice as I spit on his face. He just laughs and his laugh echoes through the room as his fist connects with my face.

At first the only thing I can feel, the only thing I can think about is how much it hurts. He punches and kicks me, each blow harder than the last. When he gets tired of that he begins ramming his elbow into my gut over and over until I start vomiting up blood all over the concrete floor I call a bed, then he moves to my back and begins tearing at my skin, trying to rip it off my body. Everything stings and everything hurts, but this isn’t the first time, I’ve endured two-hundred Punishments just like this. So after the smell of blood and vomit become overwhelming and the pain threatens to kill me I go numb.
They say that once the pain becomes too much your body will shut down and you will go unconscious. The Institution knows this, so they’ve gotten it down to a science. They don’t want their prisoners to go unconscious; they want us to feel as much pain as possible. So they push us as far as we will go, they push us to the edge of consciences. So now after a horrible beating I rest on the edge of consciousness.

My Punisher leaves, a sickening look of satisfaction on his face. His evil smile shows me how twisted his mind is. He finds pleasure in beating the innocent. I can’t even fathom what could mess you up so badly you decided to become a punisher. I wouldn’t do it for all the money in the world. Although it’s probably not money that drives these horrible men and women, it’s probably just a glass of water.

As I lay on the old floor of my room, hot, silent tears rolling slowly down my bruised cheeks and mixing with the blood that still drips from my swollen lip I flash back to two years before; my last day of freedom and my first day at The Institution.

He tenderly brushes the loose strands of curly blond hair away from my face. Tilting my head to look at him I can’t help but smile. He holds me close and begs me to tell him what’s wrong, and I want to, but sometimes wanting isn’t enough.
“Kylee, I love you, and I hate to see you like this”, he says, a slight hint of desperation in his otherwise steady voice. “Just tell me what’s wrong, whatever it is I promise we can fix it.”
“No.” I say flatly, my voice threatens to crack as tears start to well up in my eyes “I can’t talk about it. Ok? I just can’t.” I say as forcefully as my shaky voice lets me.

I push him away from me as I stand up, refusing to look him in the eyes. I don’t want to get him more involved than he already is. I love him too much. He grabs my wrist and pulls me back to him, wrapping me in his arms and resting his chin on my head. He whispers softly into my hair.
“Kylee don’t do this. Don’t push me away, don’t put up walls. Just tell me.”
“Jake”, I say looking up at him, my voice weak and sad “I did something unfixable, they’re going to kill me.”

Fear engulfs Jake’s handsome face because he knows what I’m talking about. He knows that I told The Truth. He just doesn’t know how many people I told it to.
“Kylee,” he says frustration and terror in his voice. “What did you do?”
“I wrote it in an e-mail” I whimper because it kills me to see how scared he is. “I sent it to everyone I know. I told them to get the word out any way they could. And I told them to do it as fast as they can. Everyone will know by morning. I’ll be dead by the afternoon. That’s why you have to leave. I can’t let you get hurt because of what I did.”
“Kylee how could you be so stupid!” His words cut through me easier than any blade ever could and I get defensive.
“It wasn’t stupid!” I retort “Impulsive maybe, but I had a reason. I may die because of this but my death won’t be in vain. Don’t you see what is going to happen? The rebellion can start now, for real this time. We have the numbers, now all we have to do is wait. I mean, don’t you see how angry people are going to be?” I laugh because it’s like the skies are opening up. What I did wasn’t a mistake, but the start of something amazing. “I told everyone in the entire country that our government is lying to us. I told them that there are thousands of dead bodies piled up because 5 years ago Sarpino killed our former president and everyone else who threatened the power he so desperately wanted, then named himself dictator. I told them about the water too. I told them that for the last 5 years we’ve been drinking water that erased our memories, that made us think the way he wanted us to think and the only ones who got to know what actually happened and what is actually happening are the ones that work for him, all because he gave them a pill that cost thousands of dollars to make, money that could be feeding their hungry children. I told him about how I’ve been running for 3 years because I escaped him and all his evil. I told them that he wants me dead. But the most important thing I told them? I told them that they didn’t have to suffer anymore.”
Jake sighs deeply burring his head in his hands. He’s still upset. He can’t see how great this is all going to be.
“What if they don’t believe you?” he asks, his voice strained.
“I sent the files too, the old ones. The ones that show everything before Sarpino took control.”
“Yeah and what if they don’t believe those either? What if they are too brainwashed to believe anything but what Sarpino tells them?”
“I took a risk.” I reply simply. “I took a risk and I put everything on the line. But I believe in the power of suggestion, and the people know that they are miserable, they don’t know why, and they don’t know its Sarpino’s fault, and they don’t know that there is any other way to be, but they know that they are miserable. So when they hear The Truth, they’ll believe it, because if they’re misery has a reason behind it, they’ll be able to imagine a world without that misery, and as you and both know, that world exists, and everyone over the age of five once lived in it. They all want to be happy, so by giving them a reason to even imagine happiness, I’ve started the rebellion.” I pause and let out a deep breath, finally daring to look at Jake.

He smiles at me and puts his hands on my shoulders. “You are really brave, because they are going to want you dead. They already want the both of us for quitting our jobs and taking all of their secrets with us. But now, you’ve done what they feared most. You’ve threatened their power. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sarpino came looking for you himself. After all he trusted us when we said we wanted to work for him, he gave us access to everything. Now that you’ve ruined him, he’ll want you dead more than ever.”
“It’s his fault”, I smile weakly “He gave very important government jobs to two 15 year olds.”
“He didn’t think we were capable of defiance.”
“Well, wasn’t he mistaken?”

They came for me later that day, they drug me kicking and screaming out of the motel room I was staying in, they tied restraints around my hands and feet, then they put a cloth in my mouth so nobody could hear me scream.

The next morning I woke up in a small room with hauntingly dull gray walls. My hands and feet were still bound together and my body was heavy with sedatives. The last thing I remembered was the red cloth being shoved into my mouth by a tall slender woman with greasy black hair.

That day I spent hours fighting against my restraints with no luck. By the end of the day my wrists and ankles were bloody and sore from trying to fight the tightly bound restraints. When the lock on the door clicked I flinched with a mix of fear and excitement. It could be Jake, coming to bust me out of this awful place. Or it could be the lady with the greasy hair coming to torture me some more.

It was neither, a tall muscular man with unnaturally silver hair and, eyes that are so dark they are almost black. Sarpino.

I glare at the evil tyrant standing before me. The man who is driven by evil intentions and an extreme thirst for the power he already has.
“Kylee, Kylee, Kylee”, he says in a nauseatingly fake sweet voice “I miss seeing your beautiful face around headquarters. He strokes my cheek with his rough hand. I thrash madly, trying to bite him. I don’t want him touching me, or calling me beautiful.
“Not so beautiful now am I? Now that I’ve ruined you!”
“Oh Kylee”, he sneers “you have not ruined me; you have merely told The Truth. And The Truth, though powerful is not fatal. I can come back from this, rather easily. You and your childish little plan to start a rebellion can’t even touch a dictatorship as strong as mine.”
He smiles, flashing his ugly, yellow teeth. “But still, you did wrong by me. So you must be punished.”
I begin to scream words of hate at him, words I’ve wanted to say for a long time. I tell him how awful he is and how easy it was for me to put his power in jeopardy. He pulls a green rag out of his jacket pocket and shoves it in my mouth aggressively.
I try with no luck to force the gag back out of my mouth while Sarpino just chuckles lightly. He smiles down on me.
“Opal will be here shortly to tell you all about our lovely Institution.” With that he exits.

Opal is tall and very pretty. She is in her mid-thirties with dark hair and big brown eyes hidden by large black glasses. She smiles sweetly and even though I know she is just as evil as all the other people I’ve met I don’t fight or scream when she enters my room. I have to be nice to her. Why? Because she’s here to give me answers.
She tells me all about The Institution. About why I’m here and that if I act out I will be punished. As she motions to the camera on the wall she explains how I will be constantly monitored. She also tells me that the camera just so happens to be indestructible. She knows that I’m not going to make this easy.
She tells me that I won’t leave my room in the time that I’m here and that someone will come to my room twice a day with meals. She informs me that if I refuse to eat, that I will be force fed. When she finishes her vague explanation of The Institution she removes the gag from my chapped lips.
“You may ask questions”, she says sweetly.

I want to yell at her, now that I’m free from the gag, I want to try and fight again. I want these restraints off. But I push down my fighting spirit, because I need answers more than I need anything else.
“How long until I get out?” I croak, my throat soar from yelling and fighting the gag.
“You will be here until we’ve successfully changed you.”
“Changed me how?”
“For the better of course.”

This angers me. I am furious. How dare she have the nerve to say that they’re going to change me? I would never let them change me. I want to hit something, specifically Opal. But I don’t even try, I’m not stupid. I have more questions that need answering.
“Why don’t you just kill me? Why go to all this trouble, when you could just get rid of me for good?”
I know that it’s dangerous to ask, I could give them ideas. But I have to know, it just doesn’t make any sense.
“So you can be proactive of course. Our ultimate goal is to mold you into the perfect employee. After all those little purple pills are expensive, and irreversible. We wouldn’t like to think we might have wasted one. Now would we?


Her words leave me numb. They’re going to make me work for him. I am going to be actively working for the worst man on the planet. It all hits me like a ton of bricks and suddenly I am over come with fear. I have never been more scared in my entire life. Because for the first time something scares me more than the water, and that something just happens to be my own fate.

I gather my thought. My fate is scary, what they want to do to me is horrible, but the one promising thing about an all-but-promising situation is the fact that my fate though horrible is not inevitable. I can still fight this. I can still fight them.
“You can’t change me! I won’t let you!”
Five minutes later my first Punisher walks through the door.

The memory of that punishment draws me back to the pain of the present. They have changed me, not completely, but they’ve stolen most of my ambition and will to live. Because of them I have force myself to believe that things are going to get better. That things are going to change. But honestly most of the time I don’t believe in anything. I can’t see how things could possibly turn around. I can’t see how all my suffering will be worth it. Especially if I’m just going to end up working for Sarpino.

I sit and wallow in despair and hopelessness. When the door handle clicks again. But I haven’t done anything wrong. Not since the last Punishment. I haven’t yelled or fought or done anything at all. Tears begin to sting my eyes when I realize that this is it. The ultimate Punishment. They think they’ve finally changed me and they’re taking me to work for Sarpino. I can’t let them do this. I stand up shakily. Ready to put up another fight. Show them that I’m not ready to go. The door swings open, revealing a wonderfully familiar face. At first I think I must be hallucinating, from pain or fatigue, but then I see the corners of his lips turn up like they always do when he’s happy, and I know it’s him. He’s older looking and horribly bruised, but still Jake, my Jake. He looks sad, and dark circles under his eyes show me how tired he is. His face hasn’t been shaved for weeks, and whatever has happened in the two years that I’ve been here has defiantly done a number on him, but he’s still here. I want to run towards him, hug him, kiss him, and let him bust me out of here. But I don’t do anything because he only does one thing; grabs my hand and tells me to run. So I do.