Memories, eh?

Who needs 'em? Who wants 'em?

Memories can bring tears. An aching heart. Debilitating pain. Thoughts of death, your own or another's, whose death you'd like to bring about. Thoughts don't necessarily imply intent, but when the memories wash over you, eradicating the hope that had managed to take root and blossom within you, thoughts are all you have.

Does the eradication of the memories themselves allow hope to grow? No. The barren wasteland remaining is no longer suitable for either germination or growth.

There can be happy memories, undoubtedly, but their darker siblings are like mental Hydras. When the head of a single unhappy one is cut off by a something good, two erupt from the severed neck.

So, who would want them? Not I, said the fly while it spit in my eye, making me want to die.

His mind was wandering. More than that, it was fleeing. He could feel reason's fingers slipping and drifting off into the abyss that seemed to envelop him, and he was tempted to allow it to go. He could remember nothing, and he seemed to be surrounded by that same nothing. It gave him the impression he was potentially not even real.

How could he be, when he wasn't sure if he actually existed?

To exist, mustn't there be a sense of self? An identity? Didn't there have to be substance of some sort?

If he wasn't real, then what was he?

Perhaps...

What happened to thoughts when they were done with? Were they discarded, doomed to float in an endless darkness, such as that which faced him now, for eternity? Once they had fulfilled their purpose in entering a person's mind and linking other thoughts together like a formation skydiving team plummeting towards the Earth, did they continue to exist in a mental Limbo? Did they then become self-aware and begin to wonder if they were real?

He asked the question:

"Am I real?"

"You soon won't be, if you don't shut the fuck up!"

And then, in a flash that was all shock and no illumination, he remembered.

He remembered that he, Ryan, couldn't remember, apart from his cell and the twins and Dr Fiona Bradley. And a strange, impossible girl.

Bradley was his tormentor. The thief of his life, in so many ways. She had stolen his memories. She had stolen...

No, not stolen.

It was clear to him now, something that had eluded him. Jarvis, Bradley and her assistant Pedra had spoken about 'cycling'. Why he'd not realised before, he didn't know. Or, rather, he did and had avoided the truth. It was madness, but he was a testament to the insanity. He was its proof.

He'd seen Bradley shoot somebody. The flash of the muzzle and the echoing blast of the bullet leaving the barrel to blast the brains from the skull of the target. That was one aspect of this cycling.

Just as the scalpel she'd held had cut through his neck.

He could still feel it entering his throat and slicing through all that hid beneath the flesh. The world had faded, swirling away in a sickening, encroaching emptiness.

Bradley had murdered him, yet here he was, contemplating the corporeality of thought.

Bradley

Had

Murdered

Him.

He'd died, and he couldn't help thinking it had happened multiple times. This was cycling. Kill and, somehow, resurrect. And kill. And resurrect.

How should he feel when confronted by the knowledge that this wasn't the first time around the clock? Horrified? Ryan felt that. Sickened? That too. Terrified? Well... no, not quite. Intrigued, maybe?

Ryan didn't believe, in the life he'd been snatched from, that he was knowledgeable about the intricacies of anatomy. For all he knew, he should have been a brain devouring zombie. If, however, it was possible to bring back the dearly or thankfully departed, wouldn't that be a widespread acknowledged fact? Even with his past dissolved, that would have still been present somewhere in his mind.

Wouldn't it?

Or...

Fuck.

Was this all a game? Bradley had admitted she was playing with him, and enjoying it. Why would she kidnap people, only to kill them, then bring them back to life? That was madness. Whatever food Ryan and his fellow prisoners were being fed must be dosed with a drug of some kind. It was making him open to suggestion, however ludicrous.

Murder? Hah! Don't be so stupid!

In which case, what the fuck was cycling?

Ryan still felt like Ryan. This new, diminished version, at least. He couldn't have been killed, because then he wouldn't be him. Bradley had treated him, and likely all the others, like Halloween pumpkins. She'd spooned the guts out and placed a single, tiny candle in the empty space. The candle wasn't powerful enough to do a great deal except reveal just how much was gone.

She had the power to snuff out the flame, too. Before she did so, the spirits of Hallowpsychoeen were let loose to hand out little lunacy wrapped delights.

His death was an illusion. What better way was there to cause confusion than to blur the line between life and death? Well, he wasn't going to fall for it. Her tricks might convince others, but he saw through them. Life was life, and death was the end of life. Simple.

Cycling. The word was still there. It hung in the air in front of him, as black as the surrounding darkness, but visible nonetheless. At first, he wondered if it was taunting him. Guess what I am, it was whispering. The taunts were as imaginary as his death, though. The word was giving him the chance to decipher its meaning, yet he was clueless.

It must refer to the times he'd been taken, which would be more than he could recall. He undoubtedly was slave to their – her – whims and, given the control they had over sleeping cycles and memories, he must have visited the rooms beyond the doors multiple times.

Yes. That would be 'cycling'. The scalpel and gunshot were theatrics to confuse. They had, at first, succeeded. Fear had ridden confusion like a bucking bronco, smashing through his imagination. That would have been exactly what Bradley was looking for.

Now, however, he knew. She was not as cunning as she believed. Not even close. Ryan wouldn't be fooled again, not about anything. He was going to find out what the fuck was going on. Everything!

Somehow.

As his mind was a blank slate, with Bradley being the chalk writing new entries, he had nothing to rush for. He would be acquiescent, so she'd think she had him. However long it took, he would have her.

Ryan stood, as much as he could. Rather than stoop to avoid the cage's ceiling completely, he let his head touch it so, as he began to pace, it would rub against the hard surface. It seemed to take some of the ache from his lower spine and push it up through his skull to the ceiling. Idiotic as that sounded to him, it was working. A little, anyway.

He tripped when his toe hit something, and dropped to his knees. He landed on a firm but soft, thick object. The mattress. Well, at least they hadn't removed that. And that wasn't all. When he placed his hands down to push himself back up, one touched a pillow and the other a blanket. Oh, they were spoiling him! How lovely of them! Or not. For every gift, there would be a price, surely. Still, he was willing to accept them until the cost was due. Once he found out if it was worth it, he might well change his mind but, for now, comfort was too enticing.

He still wanted to pace, knowing his moving feet would give his wandering mind a path to follow. It would wait, just a little while. His mind needed a rest, first. As did he. If he slept, he'd potentially awaken in the vicinity of the doctor. If not, the girl could pay him a visit. She had answers and he had many more questions.

He pushed his feet under the blanket and laid out, resting his head on the pillow. Since he was imprisoned, he expected the bed and bedclothes to be uncomfortable. Surprisingly, they weren't. The mattress moulded to his body shape. The pillow was plump, yet not soft enough for his head to sink deep into it. The stuffing inside kept his neck straight and his head supported. The blanket should have been rough and itchy. That's what prisons supplied to their inmates, wasn't it? This one was neither. It was, instead, fleece lined. Warm. A material embrace.

He couldn't help smiling. If he closed his eyes – to enhance the image rather than block out any non-existent light – he could have been back home in his own bed. His eyes remained open and his smile faded. He wasn't in his own bed. He didn't know where his own bed was, nor what it looked like. What was the point in imagining it if the likeness was bound to be nothing like the reality?

He stared upwards. The ceiling was lost in the darkness, so he pretended there wasn't one at all. Above that would have been the roof of the building, but that was temporarily missing, too. There was only the sky with the limitless expanse of space beyond. Pinprick spots of light appeared to be floating in the darkness as his mind strove to give him a sense of position. To Ryan, they were distant stars, and he wished that he could travel to one of them.

The notion was different to thinking about his bed. This was unreal. It was a construct of his mind. His bed existed somewhere and he would be trying, and failing, to recreate it. The galactic cluster he could 'see' was wholly illusory.

What else would be out there? The Enterprise? The Tardis? An alien race finally coming to Earth to say 'Hi there. We come in peace!' or 'This planet is ours. Shoot to kill'? Maybe even, 'We're lost. Do you know the way to Alpha Centauri?' It would be nice if Ripley, from the Alien movies, wandered in and told Bradley to 'Get away from him, you bitch!'

Why the hell could he remember details like those, but not his own fucking existence?

Allowing his mind to wander through the cosmos should have relaxed him enough to drift off. It didn't. He stared. He closed his eyes. Opened them. Turned onto his side. His front. His back, again. Arms behind his head or folded or holding himself like a devoted lover. It didn't matter. He was awake. Any thoughts of standing to circle the perimeter of his cell had gone. He, now, just wanted to force himself to sleep.

Not in a rush? No, but that didn't mean he didn't want to hurry things along. Bradley needed to face up to what she was doing. He would be the one to make that happen. He wasn't prepared to wait, either.