Michelle's Curse

She wasn’t sure how long she had waited. There we no longer any sounds coming in from outside. This room was obviously soundproofed, and the unusual silence allowed her to calm her thoughts, and soothe herself into a state where she could think more clearly and rationally than she had for days. She had to get a grip on herself or she was going to end up killed in this place. She was no hardened criminal, but she needed to keep a level head and be smart about this as best as she could.

When the door finally opened, it wasn’t the guards she had been expecting but a prettyish young blonde woman.
“Hello. Feeling comfortable?” she asked pleasantly.
The tone and question threw Michelle. She’d been expecting nastiness, violence or at best a lack of concern. “Um, not so much, but as well as can be expected, thank you miss.”
The woman flicked through a paper file and tossed it carelessly onto a nearby table. “I’m Thea. I’m going to be working on your case. I see you were arrested for theft?”
Michelle swallowed hard, there was no point denying that. She’d been caught red handed in the building. “Yes miss, I was. Sorry.”
She walked over and touched some of the straps, testing how tight they were. “I’m going to be turning you into an Avox, do you know what that is?”
Michelle shook her head, utterly unfamiliar with the word.
“Well, I’m going to do some things to you, mostly painful things. And by the end of it, I’ll have turned you from a traitorous thief, into, well... Not exactly a productive member of society, you’re past that now, but something useful.” She chuckled sweetly, as though they were school friends sharing a private joke.
MIchelle pressed her lips together and pushed down the fear as best she could, attempting a smile at the woman. “About the pain part. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, please don’t hurt me. I honestly don’t know if I’ll survive actual torture.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I haven’t lost anyone yet. I’m very VERY good at what I do.” She smoothed Michelle’s hair back from her face. “Nice to hear you so compliant though. Try to keep a hold of that. It might be hard, but when I’m done you’ll be so eager to do anything you’re told.” She laughed again, excited now, the sound eager. “Shall we?”
“You don’t understand,” Michelle sobbed, “I’m a freak, my grandfather said. You can’t do this, please.”
“I can,” Thea assured her. “I can and I will.” she stepped away, out of Michelle’s sight and began to fiddle with something on a table, “Now, what’s this about you being a freak?”
“I feel pain at the slightest touch. He said there’s something wrong with my nerves or something.” Michelle’s voice had an edge of panic in it.
“Really?” Thea slid back into view, holding a small scalpel. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. I thought I was going to have to give you drugs to heighten your senses.” She reached out to press a fingernail to Michelle’s jaw, “So, those restraints must be hurting a lot?”
Michelle winced trying to pull away from the fingernail that felt like a hot poker against her jaw but unable to move because of the restraints. “Yes miss, they are. Please let me go? I’ll be obedient and useful, I swear.”

An hour later Thea stepped back and huffed in annoyance. “I barely touch you and you’re screaming. You weren’t kidding, were you? How am I going to torture you properly like this? I might as well not bother with the really hard stuff.”

Michelle’s entire body was on fire, and she had lost consciousness several times throughout the ordeal, only to be woken by more pain. Sweat ran down her face and into her eyes, “I wasn’t...kidding.” She panted, struggling to draw breath as her lungs and throat felt they were closing over with inflammation from the screaming. “You’re going to kill me, please just do it quickly.”
“I don’t want to kill you. Haven’t you been listening?”
“Have you?” Michelle spat back with vitriol against her better judgement. “I can’t take it and it WILL kill me. Stupid bitch!”
Thea backhanded her hard. “You’re the stupid bitch. I can drag this on for weeks, years if I have to. Just hurting you a little, not enough to kill you. You could be my own private pet. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
Michelle couldn’t answer that at first, and just sobbed and cried struggling futilely against her bonds feeling utterly powerless. Eventually she exclaimed, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I’m not a person, I understand. Your pet humbly begs you to stop though, so that she can live to serve you.”
“Ooh, that’s nice, although I don’t know if I believe it.” Thea cooed. “What if what I want is to keep hurting you?”
Michelle swallowed hard, “Then I humbly beg once more that you allow me to recover for a few hours first. My heart is thumping so hard I worry it might give out.”
“Do you think your new owners are going to give you lots of rest breaks? You’re really going to have to be tougher than this.
“I don’t know how to stop feeling, please! It’s like a toothache, I’m told, but I feel it all over. Shooting pains up every nerve when you press so hard.”
“I’m barely touching you.” Thea grumbled. “That’s no fun at all.”

“Good, Avox.” Thea noted. She clipped a lead to the collar, seemingly thrilled with her new plan. “We’re going for a little walk now. Let’s see if you can work out your place. Unless you’d like to ask nicely for some hints? See? Aren’t I nice, not to have taken your tongue yet.”
“Very nice, thank you, Miss,”Michelle forced herself to say the words as sweetly as she could. “I would very much appreciate some tips, from someone as clever and kind as you, Miss, please.”
“Very good. Eyes down, posture respectful, maintain a subservient attitude. Don’t draw attention to yourself, obey all orders, but mine above all else. Ready?” She barely waited for a response, turning and marching out into the corridor and dragging Michelle along behind her. The guards in the corridor drew themselves to attention but she barely gave them a glance either. She led the way with brisk steps to a room full of peacekeepers, sitting around, relaxing and eating.
Michelle tensed at the sight of all those white uniforms. She’d been taught to fear the sight of them more than almost anything in the world. Thea was quickly replacing them at the top of her list of scary things, but she was probably a peacekeeper too, just a specialist at whatever they were doing to her.
Thea didn’t wait to give Michelle time to adjust to the room full of people, simply strode over to get some food, and then back to a table to sit down. She didn’t seem to notice the looks that some of the peacekeepers were giving her and simply pointed at the floor behind her for Michelle to sit.
Michelle scurried to obey, looking pale and stressed.

One of the braver peacekeepers spoke up, addressing Thea. “What are you doing, Special Agent? You can’t bring a prisoner in here.”
Thea looked at him, then down at Michelle and noted, “Apparently I can. Don’t worry. If she gets free I’m sure you lot will manage to somehow subdue her.”
Michelle tried to curl herself into a smaller ball, hoping that they’d all stop looking at her soon.
“Seriously, I’m having to use some unconventional strategies. Want to try giving her an order?”
The man left his meal and wandered over curiously. “She doesn’t look like a hard nut to crack. What’s her deal?”
“Hypersensitive to pain. It’s making torture difficult.”
Several peacekeepers laughed, thinking Thea was joking. The same man continued speaking, “Wouldn’t that make it easier, not harder?” He crouched next to Michelle and tentatively wiped the hair away from her face so that he could see her better.
“Yeah, you’d think so, but I barely touch her and she’s having some kind of pain seizure and passing out,” Thea pulled a face.
He chuckled softly, and stood back up. “That IS annoying. Wastes your talents.”

Michelle found the training to become an Avox pretty easy after the horrific tortures of the Detention Centre and the Peacekeepers trying to make her life hell there. She knew she’d gotten off pretty lightly in some ways though; most Avoxes as far as she could gather were tortured until they broke, and their personality was reformed from an empty shell, into a useful drone, capable of mindlessly going about boring tasks endlessly.

Perhaps she was unlucky in that case, when she thought about it. She didn’t have the reassurance of not caring about what happened to her. Her personality and thoughts were still intact, despite what she had worked to convince Thea of during her stay in the DC.
(ooc: word count 122)