House of Skin

MEMOIRS OF THE TEMPLAR SOCIETY (7)

When Stadtler woke, he was in darkness.

It took him some time to orient himself and remember exactly what had happened. His head was throbbing. Zero had drugged him. He knew that much. And now he was chained-up in one of the rooms upstairs. He was about to become a guinea pig. Zero wanted to cleanse his mind of identity and memory. But why? None of it made sense.

Stadtler was a reasoning man.

He wouldn’t beg.

He wouldn’t be broken.

Every cage had a hole and he’d find it and press himself through.

But how long might that take to find said hole? Hours? Weeks? Months? And in the meantime, what of his sanity? Would it begin to come apart? Like a house of cards would it slowly weaken and finally collapse, unable to endure its own uneasy weight?

Alone.

He was alone and would be for some time. He’d never really been alone before with just his thoughts and memories for companionship. Few people ever were, he figured. There’s always the sounds of life nearby: the blaring of a TV, the passing of a car, voices shouting in the distance, birds singing in the trees… but where he was there was nothing but silence and utter darkness. No sensory input, no distractions whatsoever. Only silence and thinking and nothing to get in the way of either.

Stadtler began to panic.

He was naked and chained to the floor. He began to pull at his leash, straining against it with all his might while his tongue betrayed him and began to shout and curse. He hammered at the mirrors on the wall and called Zero’s name until his throat was hoarse.

Stop it, he told himself, this is exactly what he wants you to do.

But he couldn’t help himself. He’d seen the indignities Gina had suffered first hand. The cloying, terrible loneliness; the barbarity of living like a caged animal; the scraps of food tossed to her as if she were a mad dog. And although he’d told himself he would never, under the same circumstances, lower himself to begging or crying, he was doing just that now.

And the most infuriating part of it all was that Zero was watching it all. And soon, the bastard would flip the switch and the light overhead—a single bulb painted red—would begin to flash on and off without end. Then there’d be days of darkness. Then would come the starvation, days upon days of it. And when a few scraps of meat were tossed to him, they would be full of psychotropic drugs that would further unhinge his already weakening mind. Gina had refused the meat at first… but eventually hunger had gotten the best of her as it would get the best of him.

Everything carefully calculated to break his will.

To wipe his mind clean.

After a week or so of nothing but the bulb flashing, Zero would begin playing the first recording. It was nothing but dead air recorded from the radio. Mindless static. And that would be played softly for days, gradually the volume would be increased until… until… until—

Until I go mad.

Stadtler couldn’t accept the possibility of that. He started fighting at the chains anew and bashing at the walls with his fists and finally his head until the mirrors shattered and he fell broken and bloody to the floor.

And lost consciousness.

And time dragged on and on and on.