Yvern
Just quirky
Very unstable draft of a sort of short story I tried to work on considering memory and sanity. This has already been written in two different ways, but I like neither, and I was wondering if someone could help me out and pinpoint the issues that might cause my unease about both pieces. 
I'm very uncertain about the narrative and style, the 'new version' is a revisit where I mainly tried to go for a more detailed, third person narrative - but I feel it takes away from the essence of the story. The old version is very messy, language unrefined, and kind of what I wrote down initially.
New version:
“Subject ES14.” A concrete voice poured into the claustrophobically small room. Empty aside from the chair he was sat on, yet it was too small to form an echo. The use of disinfectant infected the air with a scent that stung his airways and he had to breathe to stay awake. Subject ES14? What was he doing here? Help! His cry was swallowed by the air, no echo to answer him. No one. Opposite him, a man was strapped to a chair, his raven hair all over the place, violently framing his pale face. His wrists, caught by the restraints around them that remained forever icy against his skin like the first touch of running tap water with which he used to wash his hands in the morning, had acquired a swollen rash and some scratches too. Scratches… There was this uncontrollable itch near his nose, which he wrinkled in response and so did the man opposite him. Scratches. The metal must be sharp. The skin had turned a faint greenish brown instead of the pale blue-grey forced on him by the tinted led lights installed above the mirror. If he had been outside in daylight, he knew the skin would be red. He wouldn’t get to see that.
The liquid continued to drip. One thousand nine hundred and ninety five. It seeped into his consciousness more like glue than liquid, keeping his thoughts stationary too, unable to move forward.
Not much to see but his own reflection. Not much to do but to stare. Behind him was another him, strapped into another chair with another set of metal handcuffs. Another cry for help. No answer. Between reflections, two oval bags filled with a liquid clear as water that let single drops fall into a small tube into his veins. He was sitting in that bag, his reflection bent to fit, the way they make a replica of landmarks to put them into snow globes. What is this? They are driving me insane! His fingernails bitten down to stubs from stress and his skin rough from the fight. He writhed. Struggled. Fought. The metal restrains resisted, cut further into his skin, forming scratches and scrapes and scars. Scars?
The liquid continued to drip. One thousand nine hundred and ninety six; that’s how much time had passed since he woke up. That’s how much time it took for the voice to reappear again.
“Subject ES14, you are awake.” Awake carried so little meaning tied in that chair. His mind organised inconsistencies. Fingernails bitten: he was strapped into a chair. Why were his fingernails stubs? Scars on his forearms: Where were the moments that matched the scars? That was it, he’d lost it. His body wore his memories but his mind had lost them. His mind had lost them, or he had lost his mind. Both. Yes both.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“These are exactly the questions we would like to ask you, Subject ES14.” Subject ES14. A subject. In the mirror, he watched his chest rise and fall more rapidly, emptying and filling. “Who are you?” His chest emptied. Who was he? A hard working business man, nine to five job, four deadlines in one day – nails bitten down to stubs. No. Manual labour, carrying bricks from one wall to another, pouring concrete – scars. No. No. No! Sitting strapped to a chair being told what questions to ask. Fuck. Crawling from the pit of his stomach, like a gut instinct, emerges a parasitic thought that uses his ribs for stairs until it invades his mind. With his memories, has his sanity left too?
The liquid continued to drip. One thousand nine hundred and ninety seven; how many times he told himself he knew but he didn’t.
“I don’t remember. What have you done to me?”
“You have done this to yourself. Subject ES14, we can show you.” New information announced by a voice that could only reside in the depths of his consciousness, yet he feels his mind has no place for a guide like that.
“Do it.” His voice demanded the procedure, but wavered as it did.
“Commence procedure 3.” Questions arise in his mind faster than the liquid starts flowing from another rapidly emptying oval bag. Why has he done this? How can they show him memories? As he gazes back into the mirror and meets his own dark gaze, which is slowly beginning to reveal its true colour. He can’t remember if he closed his eyes but his reflection has disappeared by the time he can consider it. Flashes. Fragments of daylight. Red.
~
Red. Red wine pooled around the shards of glass that used to hold and be held, now fragmented and scattered. Auburn hair, spread like a fan across the new white carpet. Crimson trickling down her once rosy cheeks. Ever so slowly the red stain begins to consume the white threads of fabric. In my hand, the remainder of a glass bottle, its neck cracked from impact, like that of the woman before me. The same woman I held in my arms before. I slipped.
“Stop biting your nails.” Her voice is a soft chime. His a screeching that pierces my ears and drives into my skull with a forcefulness to cause another headache.
Her need for control is overpowering us again. She’ll strap your fingers in bandages, make you look ill.
The voice was back. No, not this, not again.
“There is no us.”
Don’t deny it. We are you.
“What did you say, dear?”
No! “Shut up!” Stay safe. Stay sane. It’s all the same. Orders not help. I spit a cuticle into the glass, then raise the bottle.
Pressed against my skull, my hands try to hold onto my fleeting sanity. A murderer. I am a murderer. He is me. Nails digging into flesh. Glass shard slicing into my tender wrist.
-------------------------------------------
Old version
“Subject ES14, day 17, 17:45.” An hour. An hour! Sixty minutes, thirty-six-hundred seconds. His gaze never leaves me. It rips through my head and ruthlessly picks into my mind, yet I see nothing. Not once does he blink. All I see is that circle of emptiness, and just a hint of amber fighting against the event-horizon to which the rest of the iris has surrendered. If only it could show me something. An answer. Anything. But like my reflection, my mind seems to be made of nothing more than illusions.
“Commence the testing.” That voice again. My lips are pressed into a thin line, preventing a single word from escaping. I suspect it’s got something to do with the fluid dripping ever so slowly from an IV attached to the inside of my wrist. The skin around it, normally tan, has a rash of red and white spread around the needle, slowly consuming me inch by inch as time passes. New information is announced by a voice that can only reside in the depths of my consciousness, yet I feel my mind has no place for a guide like that.
“Subject ES14, you are awake.” This I already know. “What is your name?”
“I-“ They moved! My lips have managed to part half an inch so I could address myself, yet when I try to fathom who that is, the emptiness returns. “I don’t remember.”
“Where are you from?”
Places, names, streets, cities, people. An empty house that I reckon would’ve deserved to be a home. A chill creeping underneath my skin to try to reach beyond what I should recognize, only to distance me even further. I remember fragments of images but can’t connect the pieces to form a whole, like a toddler struggling even to get the simplest puzzle to be completed.
“I don’t remember.”
“Memory is negative. Activate procedure 3.” I feel the sting only momentarily. A shock. Electricity? What’s going on? What are they doing to me? In the back of my head, another question forms which has not taken hold of me before. Crawling from the pit of my stomach, a gut instinct, where it leaves a nauseating nervousness, then chilling my spine as it uses my ribs for stairs until it parasitically invades my mind. Why am I in here? No answer forms. It feels as though I had no mind before and only now I am flooded with thoughts I hadn’t been able to articulate before. How did I get here? Where was I before this? Nothing. Not a single answer. How did I not ask these questions before? I’m met by my own amber gaze, bewilderment showing as the colour in them takes over ever so slowly. Colour.
“We will show you all the answers.” Instead their comment only raised another question. They know about my questions?
I can’t remember if I closed my eyes, but I can’t see my reflection any longer. Flashes show me a different face. Recognition follows. And all at once, it spills.
~
Red. Red wine pooled around the shards of glass that used to hold and be held, now fragmented and scattered. Auburn hair, spread like a fan across the new white carpet. Crimson trickling down her once rosy cheek onto the floor, ever so slowly expanding from one thread of untouched white fabric to the next, consuming ruthlessly. In my hand, the remainder of a glass bottle, its neck cracked from impact, like the skull of the woman before me. The same woman I held in my arms only 18 hours and 21 minutes before this moment. I slipped.
Murderer!
The voice was back. No.
It’s you. You killed her. Murderer.
Panic sieges me.
I wouldn’t I didn’t-
You did! You did! You took the blood you deserve.
Leave!
You leave.
What have you done?
What have I done? I am you!
Pressed against my skull, my hands try to hold onto my fleeting sanity. He is me. A murderer. Nails digging into flesh. My skin gives way to their blade-like structure in hopes to get the thoughts to leave me and pour out somehow, to not let it get to me, but it’s too late.
I shout. Somewhere a door bursts open. “Stop!” It’s my voice. I’m the one shouting. “Make it stop!”
Metallic rasping of a familiar kind until the voice emerges from somewhere I can’t see, and I realize I was speaking out loud now, pulled away from the vision that I now remember. Before me sits a creature so far from sanity, I close my eyes to make it go.
“Do you wish to end your memories?”
All of them? I know we had so many good ones, but she is gone now and I should be with her.
“Yes.”
“Noting will remain, do you still wish to continue?”
“…Yes.”
~
Light blinds me from the perpetual darkness. As the flash fades, a silhouette materializes before me, seated, unmoving. Features start to unfold from the haze. Broad shoulders. A pale square face surrounded by long black locks of fuzzy hair sticking up and left and right in a way that could give no pretences of any organization. Two black eyes gazing into mine, which as I gaze back I fear will drag me into their endless emptiness. I’m not sure what frightens me more, the impossibly black depth of the eyes before me, or what I will be met by if I do finally stumble upon the bottom of those pits. Noise and fear rip my gaze away from the depths.
“Subject ES14, day 18, 13:13.”
I'm very uncertain about the narrative and style, the 'new version' is a revisit where I mainly tried to go for a more detailed, third person narrative - but I feel it takes away from the essence of the story. The old version is very messy, language unrefined, and kind of what I wrote down initially.
New version:
“Subject ES14.” A concrete voice poured into the claustrophobically small room. Empty aside from the chair he was sat on, yet it was too small to form an echo. The use of disinfectant infected the air with a scent that stung his airways and he had to breathe to stay awake. Subject ES14? What was he doing here? Help! His cry was swallowed by the air, no echo to answer him. No one. Opposite him, a man was strapped to a chair, his raven hair all over the place, violently framing his pale face. His wrists, caught by the restraints around them that remained forever icy against his skin like the first touch of running tap water with which he used to wash his hands in the morning, had acquired a swollen rash and some scratches too. Scratches… There was this uncontrollable itch near his nose, which he wrinkled in response and so did the man opposite him. Scratches. The metal must be sharp. The skin had turned a faint greenish brown instead of the pale blue-grey forced on him by the tinted led lights installed above the mirror. If he had been outside in daylight, he knew the skin would be red. He wouldn’t get to see that.
The liquid continued to drip. One thousand nine hundred and ninety five. It seeped into his consciousness more like glue than liquid, keeping his thoughts stationary too, unable to move forward.
Not much to see but his own reflection. Not much to do but to stare. Behind him was another him, strapped into another chair with another set of metal handcuffs. Another cry for help. No answer. Between reflections, two oval bags filled with a liquid clear as water that let single drops fall into a small tube into his veins. He was sitting in that bag, his reflection bent to fit, the way they make a replica of landmarks to put them into snow globes. What is this? They are driving me insane! His fingernails bitten down to stubs from stress and his skin rough from the fight. He writhed. Struggled. Fought. The metal restrains resisted, cut further into his skin, forming scratches and scrapes and scars. Scars?
The liquid continued to drip. One thousand nine hundred and ninety six; that’s how much time had passed since he woke up. That’s how much time it took for the voice to reappear again.
“Subject ES14, you are awake.” Awake carried so little meaning tied in that chair. His mind organised inconsistencies. Fingernails bitten: he was strapped into a chair. Why were his fingernails stubs? Scars on his forearms: Where were the moments that matched the scars? That was it, he’d lost it. His body wore his memories but his mind had lost them. His mind had lost them, or he had lost his mind. Both. Yes both.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“These are exactly the questions we would like to ask you, Subject ES14.” Subject ES14. A subject. In the mirror, he watched his chest rise and fall more rapidly, emptying and filling. “Who are you?” His chest emptied. Who was he? A hard working business man, nine to five job, four deadlines in one day – nails bitten down to stubs. No. Manual labour, carrying bricks from one wall to another, pouring concrete – scars. No. No. No! Sitting strapped to a chair being told what questions to ask. Fuck. Crawling from the pit of his stomach, like a gut instinct, emerges a parasitic thought that uses his ribs for stairs until it invades his mind. With his memories, has his sanity left too?
The liquid continued to drip. One thousand nine hundred and ninety seven; how many times he told himself he knew but he didn’t.
“I don’t remember. What have you done to me?”
“You have done this to yourself. Subject ES14, we can show you.” New information announced by a voice that could only reside in the depths of his consciousness, yet he feels his mind has no place for a guide like that.
“Do it.” His voice demanded the procedure, but wavered as it did.
“Commence procedure 3.” Questions arise in his mind faster than the liquid starts flowing from another rapidly emptying oval bag. Why has he done this? How can they show him memories? As he gazes back into the mirror and meets his own dark gaze, which is slowly beginning to reveal its true colour. He can’t remember if he closed his eyes but his reflection has disappeared by the time he can consider it. Flashes. Fragments of daylight. Red.
~
Red. Red wine pooled around the shards of glass that used to hold and be held, now fragmented and scattered. Auburn hair, spread like a fan across the new white carpet. Crimson trickling down her once rosy cheeks. Ever so slowly the red stain begins to consume the white threads of fabric. In my hand, the remainder of a glass bottle, its neck cracked from impact, like that of the woman before me. The same woman I held in my arms before. I slipped.
“Stop biting your nails.” Her voice is a soft chime. His a screeching that pierces my ears and drives into my skull with a forcefulness to cause another headache.
Her need for control is overpowering us again. She’ll strap your fingers in bandages, make you look ill.
The voice was back. No, not this, not again.
“There is no us.”
Don’t deny it. We are you.
“What did you say, dear?”
No! “Shut up!” Stay safe. Stay sane. It’s all the same. Orders not help. I spit a cuticle into the glass, then raise the bottle.
Pressed against my skull, my hands try to hold onto my fleeting sanity. A murderer. I am a murderer. He is me. Nails digging into flesh. Glass shard slicing into my tender wrist.
-------------------------------------------
Old version
“Subject ES14, day 17, 17:45.” An hour. An hour! Sixty minutes, thirty-six-hundred seconds. His gaze never leaves me. It rips through my head and ruthlessly picks into my mind, yet I see nothing. Not once does he blink. All I see is that circle of emptiness, and just a hint of amber fighting against the event-horizon to which the rest of the iris has surrendered. If only it could show me something. An answer. Anything. But like my reflection, my mind seems to be made of nothing more than illusions.
“Commence the testing.” That voice again. My lips are pressed into a thin line, preventing a single word from escaping. I suspect it’s got something to do with the fluid dripping ever so slowly from an IV attached to the inside of my wrist. The skin around it, normally tan, has a rash of red and white spread around the needle, slowly consuming me inch by inch as time passes. New information is announced by a voice that can only reside in the depths of my consciousness, yet I feel my mind has no place for a guide like that.
“Subject ES14, you are awake.” This I already know. “What is your name?”
“I-“ They moved! My lips have managed to part half an inch so I could address myself, yet when I try to fathom who that is, the emptiness returns. “I don’t remember.”
“Where are you from?”
Places, names, streets, cities, people. An empty house that I reckon would’ve deserved to be a home. A chill creeping underneath my skin to try to reach beyond what I should recognize, only to distance me even further. I remember fragments of images but can’t connect the pieces to form a whole, like a toddler struggling even to get the simplest puzzle to be completed.
“I don’t remember.”
“Memory is negative. Activate procedure 3.” I feel the sting only momentarily. A shock. Electricity? What’s going on? What are they doing to me? In the back of my head, another question forms which has not taken hold of me before. Crawling from the pit of my stomach, a gut instinct, where it leaves a nauseating nervousness, then chilling my spine as it uses my ribs for stairs until it parasitically invades my mind. Why am I in here? No answer forms. It feels as though I had no mind before and only now I am flooded with thoughts I hadn’t been able to articulate before. How did I get here? Where was I before this? Nothing. Not a single answer. How did I not ask these questions before? I’m met by my own amber gaze, bewilderment showing as the colour in them takes over ever so slowly. Colour.
“We will show you all the answers.” Instead their comment only raised another question. They know about my questions?
I can’t remember if I closed my eyes, but I can’t see my reflection any longer. Flashes show me a different face. Recognition follows. And all at once, it spills.
~
Red. Red wine pooled around the shards of glass that used to hold and be held, now fragmented and scattered. Auburn hair, spread like a fan across the new white carpet. Crimson trickling down her once rosy cheek onto the floor, ever so slowly expanding from one thread of untouched white fabric to the next, consuming ruthlessly. In my hand, the remainder of a glass bottle, its neck cracked from impact, like the skull of the woman before me. The same woman I held in my arms only 18 hours and 21 minutes before this moment. I slipped.
Murderer!
The voice was back. No.
It’s you. You killed her. Murderer.
Panic sieges me.
I wouldn’t I didn’t-
You did! You did! You took the blood you deserve.
Leave!
You leave.
What have you done?
What have I done? I am you!
Pressed against my skull, my hands try to hold onto my fleeting sanity. He is me. A murderer. Nails digging into flesh. My skin gives way to their blade-like structure in hopes to get the thoughts to leave me and pour out somehow, to not let it get to me, but it’s too late.
I shout. Somewhere a door bursts open. “Stop!” It’s my voice. I’m the one shouting. “Make it stop!”
Metallic rasping of a familiar kind until the voice emerges from somewhere I can’t see, and I realize I was speaking out loud now, pulled away from the vision that I now remember. Before me sits a creature so far from sanity, I close my eyes to make it go.
“Do you wish to end your memories?”
All of them? I know we had so many good ones, but she is gone now and I should be with her.
“Yes.”
“Noting will remain, do you still wish to continue?”
“…Yes.”
~
Light blinds me from the perpetual darkness. As the flash fades, a silhouette materializes before me, seated, unmoving. Features start to unfold from the haze. Broad shoulders. A pale square face surrounded by long black locks of fuzzy hair sticking up and left and right in a way that could give no pretences of any organization. Two black eyes gazing into mine, which as I gaze back I fear will drag me into their endless emptiness. I’m not sure what frightens me more, the impossibly black depth of the eyes before me, or what I will be met by if I do finally stumble upon the bottom of those pits. Noise and fear rip my gaze away from the depths.
“Subject ES14, day 18, 13:13.”
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