The Strangeling Part XV - (Freewrite # 150 - sizzling)

Greetings fellow Steemians! Here is my 19th "5" minute* freewrite. The prompt is: "sizzling"

*Not 5 minute this time, 60 minute ;)

This piece is a continuation of my last freewrite, and the fifteenth installment in an ongoing story. Let's see how long I can keep this up, using the prompts provided!

Part I: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/freewrite-129-fingernail

Part II: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-ii-freewrite-130-wasps

Part III: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-iii-freewrite-131-solitude

Part IV: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-iv-freewrite-132-gardening

Part V: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-v-freewrite-132-the-attic

Part VI: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-vi-freewrite-132-plaid

Part VII: https://steemit.com/weekendfreewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-vii-weekend-freewrite-3-3-2018

Part VIII: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-viii-weekend-freewrite-3-3-2018-apricot

Part IX: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-ix-freewrite-137-witches

Part X: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-x-freewrite-138-syrup

Part XI: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-xi-freewrite-139-artichoke

Part XII: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-xii-freewrite-146-monkey

Part XIII: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-xiii-freewrite-147-witch-with-apple

Part XIV: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-xiv-weekend-freewrite-03-17-2018-crazy

Freewriting is a daily practice for most poets and fiction writers, designed to loosen up and get things flowing, like stretching before exercise. Visual artists, especially those who draw or paint from life (figures, landscapes, still lives, etc) do something similar in "gesture drawings". After reading several of @poetrybyjeremy's freewrite posts, I got excited to try these again. Many thanks to @mariannewest for hosting this daily freewrite! https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-150-5-minute-freewrite-sunday-prompt-sizzling

https://pixabay.com/en/medium-psychic-female-fantasy-woman-goth-1726601/

The Attic.

And in The Attic: The Room.

A horror that was taking up residence inside of me, becoming part of me. Even when I wasn't in The Room, The Room was in me.

Its blank walls, painted with something that was so non-reflective it actually ate light, devoured it, leaving a blank slate for the eyes. The sound absorbent material of the walls made your voice sound like nothing, like the feeble, dull, husk of something that might or might not once have been alive. And the state of the art lights which desensitized the skin and blocked proprioception, making it difficult to feel your body. Impaired ability to hear and see and sense things on a physical level was meant to facilitate the conditionings.

These were not Trauma Conditionings, those happened elsewhere. As heartbreakingly, soul-destroyingly sadistic as TCs were, these were worse. There were no mind altering drugs used, no restraints, no physical pain. There was nobody twisting you until you broke. There was just the room... and the shock.

It wasn't electroshock. Nothing that rudimentary. This stuff was powered by a proprietary energy source which only the Company had access to. It hurt... and the hurt never really went away. The horror of it was that every time you went in, you knew you would come out fundamentally altered, and that the alterations were irreversible. Trauma Conditionings did something like this, so did Genetic Manipulations. But The Room did something to you at a molecular level, an atomic level, a quantum physics level. Something you knew in your bones that even the scientists who ran the experiments didn't understand, something nobody would ever be able to help you come back from.

I walked into the room, unable to stop myself...

Wait.

I could stop myself if I wanted.

I did. I stopped, turned back toward the hallway. The Handler was there, beaming her warm, affectionate smile at me. In spite of everything, in spite of all the ways I'd been altered, the increased sensitivity, the progressively stronger ability to Feel... in spite of all that, I was still unable to register anything other than warmth and affection when she smiled at me. It always sickened me afterward, sometimes to the point of actually vomiting. But not in the moment. And definitely not after a fresh bag of Philtre™.

"You don't want to do that, dear", she said.

And I didn't.

I turned and walked through the doors. Straight into the fire. As if I craved it, as if it scratched some itch in me, to feel myself sizzle and pop and burn and melt, like being burnt at the stake. As if I hated myself that much. Powerless witch.

I walked in. The doors closed. And it started.

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