It’s dark.

It’s quiet.

I don’t know where I am.

I bolt upwards, sitting up on the rigid mattress.

I barely make out my surroundings, a suspended room surrounded by triangular outcroppings, out of reach through the mesh walls that contain me.

I call out.

“______”

No sound escapes my lips, not even the breath of my.

I can’t.

I can’t breathe.

It’s as if my diaphragm won’t respond, much like my vocal cords.

I would hyperventilate, probably.

If I could.

I fall off the bed, onto the mesh below.

My back hits the ground, and I notice it then.

A collar, wrapped around my neck, much like the so called sleep aid.

I reach up to detach it, and a single strip of metal sits where the clasp used to be.

My hands feel around, trying to loosen it, and they meet a protrusion below, where the collar links to something else.

A metal ridge, where I used to feel my spine.

Another, on the back of my skull.

I call out, again.

To Her.

“_________”

My mouth forms pleas that never come to be.

I can hear the blood rushing to my ears.

It’s rhythmic.

My heart pounds, and I hear each contraction it makes within my chest.

I hear all of it, and nothing else.