Abduction

"Dammit," I say to myself, walking around in a circle in the common area of the ward. If you don't know me, my name is Stephen and I've been locked up in this infernal place for, well I don't know how long.

My body aches and my mind races as I walk around in this circle, going nowhere really, but at least I'm not locked in my room. My path takes me from the nurse's station around the tabled area and to the windows. I would stop there again, except the view never changes. Every time I stop to look at the outside world, the cars are in the same place. They all must be assigned to the drivers. There are of course some nicer than average cars. I spot a BMW, a Lexus, and one of those newer Teslas; you know the ones, the self-driving sports models. I assume it's one of the doctors' cars, based on the price and the fact they're still relatively rare to see on the roads. Maybe I'm wrong about that, maybe they're a regular thing now. It's been at least a month since I was locked in this place and in that time a lot can happen in the world. There are never any birds outside, something that I find irritating. I always enjoyed watching the birds flutter around the trees at home, their chirping song reminding me that the weather is nice. Why aren't there any birds? The nighttime view is the same, usually the same cars in the same place, disappearing at the same time every day, like clockwork. These people are far too habitual, far too disciplined to be government types.

My two friends are watching me. They are the meatheads that escort us around and keep tabs on what we do each day. Meathead number one, who I call Connor, from hearing one of the nurses talking to him, is especially dull. It's nothing personal, some people are just that way. From his buzz-cut hair all the way down his pressed uniform and to his overly shined boots, Connor resembles someone with more hamburger between his ears than brains. Sure, he probably does well with the ladies. He gets the cool black uniform, has a waist too small for his overly muscled frame, and acts like someone that has seen some real combat even though I am quite certain he's too young to have seen much. Meathead number one looks like he is only a few years older than me, maybe twenty-five. The last time I checked, the harsher parts of the terror-wars occurred when someone his age would have been in high school. Besides, every time Connor takes off his jacket and sits down, his arms remind me of someone that has spent a fair amount of his life injecting himself with steroids and lifting weights until his insides come out of him. He can already barely reach his own butt to wipe unless I miss my guess.

Meathead number two is just meathead. I haven't heard anyone call him by name. He's much less vain than Connor. I've never actually caught him staring at himself in the mirror. He's built but not to the extreme Connor is, and probably can wipe his own ass without getting one of the nurses or his boyfriend to come help. I kind of feel sorry for his boyfriend. If meathead number two is the top, his boyfriend can really take a pounding. Old meathead number two is packing a package that he can't hide, not even if he tried. I swear, he must be a frustrated man, the way he looks at some of the patients I'm stuck herewith. There's that point when watching someone changes, becomes creepy, and it's obvious that your intent is to ogle that person. Someone really should tell the man to keep his eyes in his head. I thought about saying it to him a few times but after taking a couple of hits from meathead two, I decided discretion is the better part of survival.

As I walk around the room, trying to keep my head clear, I wonder why we all have to wear the same thing. Uniformity has its' place in the world but a hospital could give its' mentally unhealthy people a variety. Variety, the spice of life, something that we all need to keep from going insane. Maybe they don't care because we're insane. No, that's less likely to be the case. It's more than likely because the hospital patients get to wear the gowns and pajamas bought from the lowest possible bidder. Little do the factory workers know, their clothing is going to cover up some really disturbed individuals and at least one person that was abducted by freaking aliens. That's right, you three-dollar a day, Mexican laborer. All that blood, sweat, and tears you put out for that three dollars literally is being spent on what's the other side of the cuckoo's nest.

Last week when I saw the wards pick of the week for therapists, a psychiatrist named Dr. Brenda Ackman, I realized that there was more that I hadn't told them about. I actually remembered more about my abduction than even I knew and yet, as I yelled to meathead number one, Connor, nobody seemed to care. Spending the week in your head might, to some, seem like a gift from God, but in my case, it was driving my psychosis. I, admittedly, could go on with my life if I just moved things along, played their game, took their pills, and let them believe that they had reprogrammed me to think it was a hallucination. Really, would being schizophrenic be that bad? I would no doubt end up with a check from the government. I would probably not have to work again, ever. And, I could eventually get free of the ward. It all sounds like a win, win, situation. Right?

Why then could I not make myself just play the part, come up with some alternative story to my time I was missing? I mean, am I too stubborn to think my way around this? What the hell could be wrong with me?

"Stephen!" meathead number 2 yelled at me as I walked around with the rest of the drones. "Time for a session with the doctor."

"Great, I thought." If it wasn't for the constant changes in doctors, maybe they could finally help me to understand what it is that I don't remember about the entire experience and get myself the hell out of this place. I tell myself to breathe, as the meathead comes to get me, followed closely by Connor, the other meathead. It's been weeks and by this point, I remind myself that I know the drill. I put my hands in front of me so they can cuff me for the session.

"You know what guys, I could walk there, even in cuffs," I tell them. "If you guys let me."

"Alright, Mr. Hunter, but if you try anything stupid I promise you'll be eating through a straw for weeks," Connor tells me as the two meatheads smile at each other. Go get a room you two, I think to myself, suddenly fighting the mental picture of that nightmarish scene. They do let me walk to the doctors' corridor. I'm always in the same room, room 112. When we get there, I make sure to stop just short of the doorway. It lets them announce that we're here so that the doctor can buzz us in. I hear a female voice on the intercom. It can't be, I think to myself.

As the buzzing sounds, the door opens slightly and I'm guided in and sat in the chair across from where the doctor usually sits if the doctor of the week doesn't stay behind the desk. A few of them were so cowardly that even in restraints, attached to a chair bolted to the floor, they hid behind a three or four hundred pound executive desk that rivaled the one in the oval office.

From the time the door opens to the time I'm shackled to the chair, I'm surprised to see that Dr. Brenda Ackman is back. She's the first one to do a second session with me since I was locked away in the ward. The whys begin to scroll through my head. Why her, why is she back? As the meatheads leave I sit quietly awaiting her to start the session. She looks good this week, sitting behind the desk, a slight glimmer of sunlight shining through as the light bounces off her hair. She's wearing a white top, no, a creamy top. It highlights the tan she is starting to show signs of and really works for a doctor dealing with actual office visits.

"Mr. Hunter, how are you feeling this week?" she asks.

I sit there, as I contemplate my answer. She is a shrink, no matter how pleasant of a lady she might come off as, and thus I need to earn a certain degree of trust with her if I'm ever to learn about my experience and obtain my freedom.

"Other than being frustrated that I'm here, I'm doing alright, I guess," I tell Brenda. It's the simplest answer that doesn't sound overly rehearsed in my head.

"That's understandable, you've been through a trying experience, something very traumatic. Being detained in a mental facility against your will is also traumatic when you don't believe you should be here."

Brenda's explanation or response does make perfect sense. It seemed to be honest and pretty forthright. It might have been the first truthfully sincere answer I got from any of the doctors or staff. I smile, letting her know I'm at ease and her statements don't offend me.

"Has anyone talked to my parents? Does anyone bother to let them know I'm doing alright? They don't deserve to have to worry about me," I tell her.

"If you want, I can certainly call them and let them know that you're doing alright."

She looked down at her notes, avoiding eye contact as she offered to talk to mom and dad. Why? That should be an easy one for someone in her position. There's something she is holding back but I know she won't give it up easily. What to say, how do I get anything out of her?

"Can you let me know that they're doing alright? Please? I've been kind of worried about them since I don't get visiting privileges," I tell her. I watch as she makes a note, presumably writing down my question. Maybe she is going to talk to them after all.

"So, when we last met, you mentioned remembering something else," she said. "In fact, you said, I saw another, another victim. What did you mean by that?"

Honestly, I think that what I said is pretty dammed self-explanatory. Is victim not the correct term for another abductee? If it's not it should be. After living through that hell I certainly felt victimized, abused, violated, and generally speaking, raped. I wonder sometimes about the other one I saw, the young girl. Did she escape, was she just dumped off after they were done with her, or had something far more insidious happened to her during captivity? My next thought slips out...without me realizing it.

"I liked her," I softly say.

"What was that?" asked Brenda, getting up and coming around to sit in the chair facing mine.

Why did I say that? I realize, now, as I stare into Brenda's eyes, that I did. I liked her. It starts to come to me, like a dream within a dream. Memories flood my mind, filling me with emotions. We were together, in that corridor. We were there for a while. I don't understand, as the memories flood my mind, how they could be real.

"Her name was Alexa."

"Alexa, that's the other person you saw?" asks Brenda as she makes notes on her tablet. "Are you certain, of the name Alexa?"

I close my eyes, trying to focus on the time I was gone. Her face is etched in my mind. They would take us down the same corridor, dragging me back to my cell as they took her to the examination room. Always, there were two grays with her, escorting her in the opposite direction as I was returned to my cell. She had auburn hair. It was long, down past her shoulders, and straggly at times. The grays were not too interested in the hygienic needs of their captives, all though, I realize it could be because they cleaned us up after each round of torture. After every trip to the examination room, they threw me on the floor and sprayed me with something. Perhaps she was treated the same way?

Odder still, as I sit in the doctors' office, I remembered her voice. She had a voice like an angel. It went well with the angelic blue eyes. How did I know that?

"Yes," I finally answer Brenda's question.

I don't say much else about it because I hear Alexa in my head, her voice ringing out, reverberating. As I am thinking about this revelation I watch Brenda get up and go to the computer on the office desk. She types in something. It's not short but doesn't take her rather quick and nimble fingers very long to finish. I wonder what she typed and who she sent it to as it obviously had something to do with our session. Is this what they're interested in, I begin to think, or is this just the breakthrough that I need to get out and back to the world?

I change the course of the meeting. Brenda, or the other doctors, normally got to ask all of the questions. I'll ask her one now, and see what she says, I think to myself.

"Doc, why'd you come back a second time. You're the first of five to come back for a second session with me. Why you?" I ask, focusing on her facial expressions, looking for signs of deception.

"Honestly, I reported on our first session and they asked me to come back. I knew the other doctors' reports indicated they felt there was little hope of them making a breakthrough with you. The fact that you remembered something different than you told the other doctors, well, was promising," she explains her reasons.

Again, Brenda was doing a very professional and convincing job of selling me on her answer. I almost believed her, that there was nothing more to her reasoning for being back.

"So what next?" I ask.

"Would you feel comfortable if I came back again, perhaps on a more frequent basis?" Brenda asks me.

That's new. The doctor asking me if I feel comfortable with them. I consider it, slowly, as I look across the desk at her wondering if she is being genuine or is just a manipulative type. I tell myself I can deal with it, either way, but if she can help me to bring out more memories like the ones I was starting to have, it might be worth the time we'd spend.

"Sure," I tell her.

"That's great, I'll talk to the director about meeting with you say three times a week for a few weeks. Perhaps we can get to the bottom of what really happened during your time away?" she says.

It was then, that I asked the question that I had been dreading for weeks. Perhaps it was my gut, perhaps it was the cars I saw and the way people were, in general. Something about the world seemed different. If it were just me I could accept that, but I had the strangest feeling that I wasn't being told the truth about my time away.

"Before the two meatheads drag me out of here, can I ask one thing, other than talking to my parents?"

"Go ahead," she tells me.

"Do you know how long I was actually missing?"