🔪 Vegetables, Concluded

Noticing my alarm and frenzy, Alaina pauses the video and wears a full-face respirator mask. My pleas for an explanation are promptly ignored, and my attempts to escape the restraints come to naught. What’s this bitch up to?

She presses a button on the remote. Clouds of some noxious gas fill the unventilated room, sending me into a horrific trance. My muscles relax. My brain sprints a mile a minute. The video resumes.

“This is how you’ll feel for the foreseeable future: Your mind will stay lucid, but your body will go limp. If you’d gotten here earlier, you might’ve exchanged notes with your colleague, Wekesa. He’s in the freezer now. Too bad you can’t turn your head to check. Anyway, maybe the authorities will deliver the antidote before you meet a similar end. Maybe not.”

The poison courses through my veins, seemingly taking aim at my urethral and anal sphincters. I’d rather be dead.

“Let me tell you a bit about Wekesa so you know exactly the ride you’re in for. Once upon a time, my primary school Science teacher gave me an undue promotion from pupil to pre-teen lover. I was the target of his flirtatious advances in school, and they followed me home via text and call. He said he’d marry me, yet he mocked my discomfort when fellow students discerned our unusual closeness. Ignorantly, I thought his attention meant I was special. I’ll admit this much: I liked being someone’s favorite. I was game for whatever he asked. Fortunately, his perversion didn’t transition to the physical. I was one of the lucky few...”

She turns away from the screen and observes my head drooping. After reversing the video a pinch, she approaches me and slaps me clean across the face, redirecting my line of sight. The video resumes.