We Are All Prisoners

We Are All Prisoners

The wings of the angel flap and it lifts up into the air.
The sun shines in my eyes and I cover the glare with a hand.
I can see the angel and she is beautiful.
She looks down at me and she smiles.
She flies around over me and beckons me to join her.
I hold up my hand and she takes it in hers.
She smiles down at me and we start to lift up from the ground.
I look down and the ground is moving further and further away.
I look up at her and her face is changed.
She is not smiling and she is not beautiful.
She lets go of my hand and I fall.
The ground is getting closer and closer and I can’t look away.
She laughs and all I can hear is the screech of her voice.
I manage to look back up above me and she is not an angel anymore.
She is a Pokémon.

The white gloves slam my head down into the cold stone floor, once, twice.
I black out again.

I don’t know how long I’ve been locked in this small room.
Every now and then Nurse Joy returns to check on my hand.
It is healing.
She thinks the wounds on my head are some kind of suicide bid.
She has ordered twenty four hour guard by Pokémon.
They wake me up in the night by pissing on my face and beating me in the stomach.
It doesn’t matter how bad they hurt me, Chansey can heal the wounds they give me.

Night.
The door opens again.
The footsteps on the floor approach me.
I am not sleeping, not tonight.
The footsteps stop at my head.
I can hear Mr Mime getting ready to piss on me again.
I reach up and land a heavy punch right in his balls.
He gives a muffled cry and staggers back.
I’m up on my feet, rushing towards him, ready to fight.
Something heavy across my shoulders.
I’m brought to my knees by the force.
I forgot about Chansey.
I look up at the two of them.
Chansey gives Mr Mime an egg.
It heals his injured balls.
Mr Mime looks at me with a steely gaze.
They walk towards me.
They beat me to the floor.
Chansey kicks my legs.
Mr Mime punches me in the stomach.
I want to pass out.
Chansey heals me, just enough to keep me conscious.
Mr Mime moves around me to my injured hand.
Chansey holds me down, smiling serenely into my face the whole time.
Mr Mime lifts up one heavy clown boot.
Smiles at me.
Brings the boot down onto my hand.
Nothingness.

The crawling wakes me up
The scratching on my flesh.
Another poisonous bug crawls across me.
I open my eyes.
The dead eyes look back at me.
The Wurmple is sat on my face.
Its stinger poised behind it.
It cocks its head.
This is it, it’s telling me.
I open my mouth.
The creature’s midsection falls into my mouth.
I bite down, hard.
It shrieks and my mouth fills up with the hideous black goo. It’s thick like oil and tastes the same.
I spit its corpse onto the floor.
It wriggles still, the two halves moving pathetically.
I crawl away from it.
Where the hell are they coming from?
I look around me.
The window.
I crawl painfully towards it, stopping to spit out more black goo.
I use the wall to help me get to my feet.
I examine the little barred window.
There is dirt underneath the window frame.
I scratch away at it.
There’s a very small tunnel designed for bugs to come in and out of here.
It’s been dug underneath the window to get around the wire mesh that covers the outside.
I scratch away at it.
I can make the tunnel wider.
I stretch it along the width of the window.
I rip the small lining of dirt away.
I can get my fingers underneath the window.
I can touch the wire mesh.
I tear the wore, a strip coming off in my hand.
I pull the strip back inside to me.
A jagged weapon.
I wait in my cell for the chance to strike back.

Early morning light filters through the bars.
I hear footsteps.
Chansey will be coming in to heal me before Nurse Joy arrives.
I wait behind the door, the jagged wire a garrotte in my hands.
This is it.
The door scrapes open.
The pink creature waddles into the cell.
I slam the door shut as I rush towards it.
I wrap the wire about where I think its throat should be.
With all that remains of my strength, I pull.
The soft skin of the Chansey seems to be taking the wire with no problems.
It smiles at me, enjoying my efforts.
Rage flows through me.
I pull as tight as possible.
It keeps smiling.
It’s not working.
I pull tighter and tighter until the wire cuts into my hands and my blood starts to drip to the floor.
It’s not working.
I realise something–
Chansey is a healer.
Eggs are healing.
Chansey has an egg in the pouch on its stomach.
I spin the bitch around and before it can come to its senses, I punch as hard as I can, right in the egg.
It shatters.
Chansey screeches.
The egg bursts with the black goo. It runs own my hand, across the floor.
The Chansey puts a foot off balance. Black goo starts pouring from its eyes.
I step in behind it with the garrotte ready.
I wrap the wire around its neck.
I pull.
This time the wire slices through the pink foam and tears a rent through the soft skin. The black ooze flows freely all over the Chansey, all over me.
When it finally stops kicking, I drop it to the floor.
I spit on it.
Slowly I open the door a crack and look out into the corridor.
I can see a desk off to one side. Familiar shocking pink hair is visible. Nurse Joy! Finally!
I start to open the door but then I see it.
Mr Mime.
It approaches Nurse Joy from behind. Something glints in its hand.
I scream.
Nurse Joy looks at me for an instant, the look of shock frozen on her face.
Forever.
Mr Mime grabs her hair in one hand and pulls her head back.
The glinting in its hand becomes a knife as it slashes across her pretty throat.
Her hands go up to her throat and try to stop the pretty red blood from flowing out, across the floor, across her pretty white apron, across her pretty hands.
It lets go of her hair and she falls to the floor, face down in the deepening pools of violence, one eye fixed on me. Her mouth opens uselessly. Her hands grab and claw at the floor tiles.
Then she stops moving.
Mr Mime licks the blood off the knife and looks over at me. It smiles.
It points the knife at me and starts walking towards me.

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