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One

Victoria Jane Montgomery

I wake up in the dark, alone, cold…and restrained: leather belts on ht they are chaffing I feel groggy and sick and quite frankly scared I lift own and robe

My head throbs relentlessly, but I widenpain and cast them at the shadows and shapes around me As my eyes become accustomed to the darkness I see that I a in There are no s, only a large metal door with a covered peephole

I listen intently Not a single sound Evenseerate of a key in a metal lock A woman wails down a corridor The sound echoes eerily A heavy door sla sound and the impenetrable silence returns

I cough The sound is loud and unnatural in the bare coldness of s

They have cut hter, and abandoned me here, in this mad house Why did I not expect this? Why am I so surprised? Because I’ht and alive Razor sharp

‘You’re here for a rest,’ the large, spectacularly ugly nurse said, when two orderlies hauledShe sounded conciliatory

As an answer I bit her like a wild ani mistake She screamed like a banshee, they stuck a needle into u, disbelief etched on his horrified face

‘Take me home, please,’ I whispered to hinored my plea

And now, here I aather in my eyes and flon es until it beco, powerless sorro in it until a sound inside the room rouses me

My senses on high alert, I jerkfro, but it sounds like the flapping of wings Bats or birds Adrenaline puh my body Strapped down, I am easy prey for whatever is in the room with me For the first time in my life I feel terrified The temperature in the roo cold descends upon me

Utterly terrified, I begin to shiver violently

I scream when my shackles are suddenly andli so hard I can hearintricks onthe blackness

My pupils are so widely dilated and my retinas so exposed by the blackness that I have to shieldfrom what appears to be another entrance—one I had not noticed before It is covered by floor length, thick red curtains I drop round The floor is ice cold, damp and clammy I stand slowly The room reeks of old metal As if in a trance I walk towards the concealed entrance and draw the curtains back I stand before antique, etched, leaded and stained glass doors Through the glass I see a full, blood-redin an unrelievedly black sky

I experience no fear

I push open the beautiful doors and enter a stone balcony It is decorated with gothic friezes and gargoyles, and it is totally alien to, totally at odds with the bare, functional room I have been in It almost feels as if I have stepped back in ti cold on ht My breath frosts in the wintery air, and yet I feel as warm as a sunned cat