A Glitch in Reality - Chapter 0052

Chapter 52

Kimiko woke up imprisoned once again, and in a different place. Her body was slow to respond, as always happened after the milky liquid they injected into her arm, only this time the delay was longer. Her mouth was dry, her tongue thick, tasting like old coins, and when she tried to close her hand, her fingers obeyed belatedly, without any strength. They must have used a dose of horse tranquilizer to keep her unconscious during transport, and it seemed they had overdone it. She remained still for a while, eyes closed, waiting for her strength to return and paying attention to the sounds around her. She knew that if she tried to get up too quickly, she would end up vomiting. She was very thirsty. The last thing she remembered was the old cell, the three men with the stun batons, and the needle going into her arm.

She remained lying on her side, her face pressed against the floor, and soon noticed that this floor was different. The floor of the old cell was raw, rough concrete, full of undulations she knew from sleeping on it so many times. This one was smooth, covered in a thick paint, the kind used on workshop floors, cold and a little sticky where her skin touched it. Near her feet was a round drain with an iron grate, and the entire floor sloped gently towards it. She was barefoot, as always, and the cold paint rose up the soles of her feet.

The smell was different too. The old cell smelled of mold and rust. There, the strongest smell was of bleach, which someone had thrown on the floor without rinsing properly and which burned deep in the nose. Beneath it came a smell of motor oil and wet cardboard. Somewhere beyond the walls there was a machine running, with a deep hum that never stopped, so regular that after a while you had to pay attention to keep hearing it.

He opened his eyes and had to close them again because of the light. The second time he was more careful, and little by little the room appeared. It was smaller than the other and had a higher ceiling. A fluorescent lamp attached to a wire grid made everything very white and occasionally flickered with a crackling sound before returning to normal. The walls were made of concrete blocks painted gray, with the paint peeling off in pieces near the floor. On the front wall was the metal door, without a peephole or a handle on the inside, with dark handprints near the latch. There was no water in sight.

There wasn’t a window, not even a crack, and she missed that more than she expected. A little daylight entered the old cell through a narrow slit above the door, and it was by watching that strip of light move along the wall that she knew if it was morning or late afternoon. The light there would stay the same at any time. Not that it changed much. Kimiko no longer knew how long she had been imprisoned. She had stopped counting the days when the number became too large, and since then she had lost track of time. It could have been a year, it could have been more.

When she finally tried to sit up, she felt the tug of the chains. Her wrists were still bound, each in a steel shackle, and the chains, as thick as before, went down to an eye bolted to the floor, near the wall. Her ankles were bound at the same point, in a separate chain. They were all much shorter than those in the other cell and left very little room to move. She wrapped the chain around her right hand and pulled hard, as she had done before. The eye bolt didn’t budge. In a few seconds her arm began to tremble, a cold sweat trickled down her neck, and she let go of the chain.

As she adjusted her body against the wall, she felt something strange in her abdomen, a tug on her right side, just below her ribs. She lifted her shirt, a loose, dirty t-shirt she didn’t remember wearing, and twisted her torso as far as the chains would allow. At kidney level, there was a cut about a hand’s length, slightly angled, already healed. The skin over it was pink and shiny, pulled at the edges. She followed the scar with her finger, from one end to the other, and pressed lightly. It hurt a little, deep down. From the location of the cut, she knew that this time they had taken a kidney. She ran her hands over her stomach and back, as far as she could reach, searching for another mark, but found none.

She lowered her blouse without being startled. She was already used to it. She had woken up with the same mark, in the same place, other times, and with other marks in other places. Ever since they had put that blue liquid in her veins, it was always the same. She would pass out and wake up without some organ, sometimes in the same place where they had taken it from, sometimes in a different place, like now. She had never seen any of the surgeries, she only woke up when they were finished. And she continued to live, breathing, her body closing the incision and slowly rebuilding what had been taken away.

However, this was taking a huge toll, and with the little food they gave her, her body grew weaker and weaker. Kimiko looked at her arms under the white light. The bone of her wrist was digging into the skin inside the shackles, and her forearm had thinned so much that you could see the tendons moving when she opened and closed her hand. Her legs, bent against her chest, were thin, and her knees seemed too big for her. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had eaten until she was full.

Even the healing process was slower. In the first few days after the blue light, a cut on her hand would close in seconds while she watched, leaving no mark. Now, that scar on the side remained pink and still hurt when she moved too quickly.

She remembered the beginning well, especially the first night. She had woken up from the IV drip feeling powerful, with a strength she had never had before, her muscles warm and her whole body wanting to move. What had held her back that night she didn’t remember exactly. She remembered breaking free and getting up without feeling any pain, and standing behind the door when she heard footsteps in the hallway.

That same night she killed four men, easily. The first one came in to see what the noise was, and she broke his neck before he understood what was happening. She didn’t think. She just did what she had learned at camp, now with that newfound strength. The second and third came together down a long corridor with dim lights, and one of them shot. The bullet entered just below her collarbone. She felt the impact and the burn, but before it reached the man, the hole was already closing. More shots came, in her thigh and arm, and none managed to truly wound her. The flesh closed around the bullet and pushed the lead out, and she heard the bullets falling to the ground behind her, clinking like firebrands. Everything healed in a matter of seconds. When she reached the two, she grabbed the one who was shooting and threw him against the other with such force that neither of them got up.

She hit the room with a kick to the chest. The wall behind him gave way, and he tumbled into the other room amidst a cloud of plaster and didn’t move again. After that, the hallway fell silent. She remained standing there for a moment, breathing deeply, without a scratch.

At that moment she felt invincible. She had spent her whole life in the hands of others, ever since they took her from her mother, and for the first time no one could hold her back. She ran down the hallway chasing the outside air, which was coming from some door ahead, so fast that the ceiling lights flashed past her like streaks, and she even felt like laughing as she ran. Her bare feet slipped on the floor, but she didn’t slow down. She could already see the door at the end of the hallway.

Even so, she was stopped. Kimiko wasn’t the only one with powers in there. There was another, more powerful than her and, in a way, stranger, and she never got to see his face. She only felt the blow coming from a side she wasn’t looking at. She hit her face on the ground, and a hand grabbed the back of her neck and pinned her head against the floor. She felt his weight on her back, but could only see the ground. She struggled as much as she could, scratched, tried to bite, but couldn’t get that hand away. Then she passed out, and when she opened her eyes again she was already chained. They never left her without chains again after that.

Since then, her life had become torture. She underwent numerous surgeries to remove organs, and yet she never truly died. She always recovered, but each time she grew a little weaker, until she ended up there, on that floor, an empty shell of what she once was. Kimiko sighed and curled up against the wall, hugging her legs. She closed her eyes and remained still, thinking of nothing, waiting for whatever came, as always.

It was then that she began to hear a strange noise. Her senses remained sharp, but after so much time eating bad food, her mind was clouded, and everything seemed weaker and slower than before. Even so, she managed to hear it. It was a thin, distant sound that rose until it became high-pitched and then descended, without stopping, and with each turn it seemed a little closer. The walls there let in far more noise than the thick concrete of the old cell. Kimiko raised her head to listen better. She knew that sound from somewhere. She had heard it from inside trucks, passing through ports and roads, always from afar and following other people. It took her a while to remember that it was called a siren. In none of the places she had passed had a siren meant help, and she didn’t expect it to be different now.

Then came the gunshots, loud and clear. She knew them well. She had learned to handle weapons at camp as a young girl, and even with a troubled mind she managed to distinguish one sound from another. There were rifles firing in short bursts and a number of pistols firing erratically, rapidly, from people shooting out of fear. A shotgun exploded twice. From time to time a different shot would appear, deeper and heavier, unlike any weapon she had ever held, and after each one someone on the other side would stop firing. Some shots came from so close that she could hear the empty cartridges hitting the ground.

His head was resting against the wall when he felt the first tremors. At first they were small, a vibration that passed through the blocks and arrived before the sound. Then they grew stronger. In one of them, the lightbulb swayed inside the grate and flickered, and dust fell from the ceiling onto it. Another shook the floor with such force that the chain attached to the eyelet rattled. The tremors had a heavy rhythm, as if something very large were walking outside or being thrown against the walls, and each time one came, the shots changed location.

It lasted for a time she couldn’t measure. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. She only knew that the gunshots were getting louder and closer, and the tremors along with them. At a certain point, someone shouted from the other side of the wall, a few meters from her, and the shout stopped suddenly after a bang that made the door shake. Kimiko crawled to the corner where the chains allowed and stayed there with stiff shoulders and clenched hands, breathing short and low, as she had learned to breathe when she needed to hide from someone. She thought that if the men holding her won that fight, they would come and take her somewhere else, as always. If they lost, she had no idea who would appear at that door, and that was also frightening.

Suddenly, the noise stopped. The gunshots and the tremors ended almost simultaneously, and for a moment everything was quiet. Only the hum of the machine, which had been there the whole time, the click of the lamp, and her own breathing could be heard. She waited without moving, unsure if that silence was better or worse than the gunshots. She tried to recognize the voice of one of the men she knew, but heard none.

Then she heard footsteps in the hallway, coming towards the room. She listened carefully to be sure and realized it was just one person, wearing hard-soled shoes, walking at a steady, unhurried pace. The men who came to get her never arrived alone. They came in groups of three or four, dragging their boots and laughing, and you could hear the crackling of their stun batons even before they opened the door. This one was silent, and she didn’t know what to make of it. She counted their steps one by one as they approached the door and shrank even further.

The footsteps stopped outside. At that same moment, the metal door was struck. The noise was loud and deep; she felt it against her teeth, and the door trembled all over, denting inward right in the middle, but it remained closed. Cement dust fell from the edges. Kimiko stared at the dent, waiting, and no one on the other side said anything. Then came the second blow. This time the lock snapped open, and the door slammed shut on its hinges, hitting the wall hard. Through the opening came a smell of gunpowder and smoke, along with the yellowish light of the hallway, which made her squint.

What Kimiko saw at the door was something strange, disconnected. Standing there, looking at her, was a man in a suit, and a nice suit at that. He was tall, much taller than her, blond, with his hair combed back, and he wore an open beige overcoat over his dark suit, with a white shirt and tie. His glasses had a thin, gold frame. He looked young, younger than she would have guessed from his clothes. There was dust on the shoulders of his overcoat, but apart from that he was clean, without a drop of blood, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. After all that shooting, it didn’t make sense to see someone dressed like that inside.

They looked at each other, and the man frowned. He had green eyes, a dark green, and his gaze quickly scanned the chains and then her. He spoke in a low, firm voice, but Kimiko didn’t understand anything. It was a language she didn’t know.

Soon after, he entered and came towards her. When the light from the lamp hit his face directly, Kimiko saw his eyes widen behind his glasses, as if he had seen something unexpected in her. He spoke again, now more slowly, and from his tone she realized it was a question, but she didn’t understand and didn’t answer.

As he drew closer, Kimiko cowered in fear and pressed her back against the wall. She didn’t recognize the man. His clothes were different, and so was his gait, but that didn’t mean anything. He could very well be one of the men who came to hurt her, or even someone those men worked for.

He crouched in front of her and slipped his hand inside his overcoat. When he pulled it out, he was holding a dagger, and Kimiko clenched her fists, anticipating the cut. The blade was narrow and slightly curved, barely reflecting the lamplight. Along it was writing, thin lines that seemed to move when she tried to read. He grasped her left wrist, without squeezing, and with a short, precise movement cut the shackle, which split in two and fell to the ground. The blade didn’t even touch her skin. Kimiko was impressed. He did the same to her other wrist and then to her ankles, always with a single movement, with a mastery she had never seen in anyone, not even in the camp, where many people knew how to use a knife.

Within seconds she was free. She rubbed her wrists unconsciously, looking at the purple marks the shackles had left. She couldn’t remember the last time her hands had been free without being drugged. She thought about running for the door right then, but her legs were still weak, and he was in her way.

He stood up and continued speaking. Kimiko still didn’t understand and tilted her head to the side. He stopped mid-sentence and exhaled through his nose, and from his expression it was clear he had realized she didn’t understand anything. He remained quiet for a moment, as if searching for another way to explain himself, and then extended his hand to her, palm open, facing upwards, and waited. It was a large hand, with long fingers, and it was empty. She looked from his hand to his face, searching there for the same mocking smile she saw on the faces of the men with the batons, and found none.

She remembered how the jailers used to approach her. They would come with stun batons and press the tips against her ribs until she stopped moving. Then they would stick the needle in her arm, and only then would they release the chains and carry her to the room from which she would return with a new cut. They always restrained her, always drugged her before taking her away. This man had done everything differently. He released the chains first and now he was there, hand outstretched, waiting for her to decide what to do.

But she couldn’t trust him. She had learned very early on that some of the worst men were precisely those who approached calmly. And the door was open behind him. A different, colder air entered the hallway, and she remembered the night she had chased after a similar breeze.

He gathered what strength he had left, planted his feet firmly on the ground, and leaped at him with a punch aimed at the throat, using all the speed of his jump. He was much smaller than him, barely reaching his chest, but he was still strong enough to hurt a man that size.

But the man, as if he had been expecting it, easily moved out of the way, taking a half-step to the side. Kimiko was quick, but he seemed to read her movement before she finished. He grabbed her arm mid-blow, locked it in a hold, and threw her to the ground. She fell on her back, and all the air escaped her lungs. The scar on her side pulled with the fall, and she felt a deep pain. She lay there for a few seconds, staring at the lamp, her mouth open, unable to catch her breath. He didn’t take the opportunity to restrain her. He released her arm, took two steps back, and spoke to her in a calm tone, without raising his voice.

Then Kimiko roared and stood up once more. She charged at him with a series of punches and kicks, one after the other, without pausing to breathe, using everything she had learned at camp. She aimed for his face, then the knee of his supporting leg. She tried to grab his overcoat to pull him down, but he twisted his body and the fabric slipped from her fingers. With one of the kicks, she lost her balance, and he grabbed her elbow just enough to keep her from falling before letting go. None of the blows landed. The man dodged easily, moving only as much as necessary. He tilted his head, twisted his hip, took a short step back, or deflected her arm with his hand, almost without force. He didn’t retaliate once. Behind his glasses, his eyes calmly followed everything, and that made her even angrier.

Then something strange began to happen. Kimiko’s mind grew heavy, similar to what she felt after the milky liquid, except no one had stuck a needle in her. The floor tilted. The ceiling became entangled with the walls, and everything began to spin, taking the lamp and the open door with them, and disorientation took over her senses. Even the man’s voice, when he spoke, seemed to come from very far away. She no longer knew where was up and where was down. She knew she was standing because she felt her feet on the ground, but what she saw said otherwise. She reached out to lean against the wall, and the wall wasn’t where she thought it was.

She tried to attack again, but her movements were strange. The punch landed in mid-air, far from where he was, and when she tried to kick his leg, it wouldn’t obey. She couldn’t even walk. She took a step and fell to her knees. The disorientation only increased. She braced herself with her hands on the ground, which continued to spin, and her empty stomach churned. She almost vomited. She was becoming increasingly dizzy and weak, to the point where she couldn’t even support herself on her hands.

The man approached calmly. Because of her dizziness, she saw his legs coming in crooked, sometimes upside down, sometimes sideways. Once again he spoke, softly, and she didn’t understand.

At that moment she heard a noise in the hallway, the sound of bare feet tapping on the floor, many short, quick steps, like a child running through the house. Then, through the wide-open door, something entered that she couldn’t understand, especially with her mind so heavy. It was a dark wooden chest, with rusty metal corners, walking on short legs that moved so fast she couldn’t count how many there were. The lid was ajar, and on the edge were teeth, many white and crooked teeth. From inside, a large, pink tongue hung out, dripping and leaving a trail of drool on the floor.

The trunk crossed the room, its lid banging lightly with a dry, wooden crack, and stopped beside the man, leaning against his leg, the way a dog does to its owner. For a moment the lid opened a little more, and Kimiko saw that inside it was pitch black, bottomless. She swallowed hard, trying to understand what was in front of her. She thought it might be the effect of the dizziness, but she could smell it, of old wood and saliva. She tried to understand and couldn’t. Her mind was too heavy for that.

The man she had attacked knelt beside her. Kimiko waited for the needle, because it always came after she fell. Instead, he placed his hand on her head and began to gently stroke her hair, slowly, from her forehead to the nape of her neck. His hand was warm and didn’t squeeze. No one had touched her like that since she was little. Meanwhile, he spoke things she didn’t understand, in a low, calm voice, and occasionally repeated the same word.

And she felt she could trust him. It was strange, because just seconds before, the only thing she wanted was to escape, even if she had to step over him. Now she no longer had the will to fight, nor the strength to distrust him. The only thing she could do was surrender. Her shoulders relaxed, her hands spread open on the floor, and she stopped resisting.

Her body went limp, and he caught her before she hit the ground, one arm under her shoulders. Her head rested on his arm, turned upwards. His overcoat smelled of gunpowder. Once again her mind grew heavy. Her eyes closed slowly, and the last thing she saw was the man’s face, looking at her from behind his gold-rimmed glasses. And then, darkness.