Everything is hot. Everything is painful. I feel like I'm going to burn away to nothing. The feeling is somehow endless. It comes and goes in waves, crashing over me. I thrash around, visions of giant blades of light tearing into my flesh mix with faces of angry people calling me trash. Then I'm plunged headfirst into dark water, where a handler dressed in metal armor tells me to just die. I try to squeeze my eyes shut against the images before me, but they just come one after another. Children dumping waste all over me, laughing. Adults kicking me in the street. I'm crying, and crying and crying. A rail unit hits me with a heavy weapon again and again until I lose consciousness once more. But even then, children are pouring vile acid down my throat so I can wretch it all up again. I throw it up into the river, but the river throws itself up on me, until I'm being scrubbed against the bottom by the washing lady, crushing me against the rocks as I drown again and again in a river of putrid waste. I gag, gasping for air, but only inhale my own bile. While I wretch on the rocks, enemies kick me around, stabbing me with icy blades until I can't feel anything anymore. From the images coming one after another, emerges myself. "It's not my choice, I just have to die!"

I bolt upright. My breathing is ragged. I fly to my feet, spinning in circles. I am absolutely drenched head to toe in sweat. My clothes are completely soaked through as well. I stagger wildly, flailing into a wall. I recoil, spinning one way while the world spins another. My eyes cross over a large group of rail units all looking at me.

Anywhere but here. Hardly able to keep my feet beneath me, I dash for the door. A couple handlers move to block me, but I sway and dodge frantically around them, rushing out the door in one move. Out in the street, I flail as I run away, wobbling and crashing into anything in my path. I trip, rolling in the dirt, and stagger blindly back to my feet. I can't stay upright, but I keep running anyway. I can't breathe, but I keep running anyway. I don't know where I'm going, but I just keep running anyway. Anywhere but there. No matter what, I want to be anywhere except that place.

I have to get away from them. I spin and tumble head over heels, thrashing my way down the street. When I stagger against a wall, a handler in a dark robe stands to one side. I throw myself in the other direction. My flight continues breathlessly. They're chasing me. I can hardly see, but the handler with the long hair keeps showing up, blocking my path, forcing me to roll and scrape and stumble helplessly away. Stumbling through alleys and people and anything in my path. My throat feels like fire and my legs like stone as I fight to keep breathing through the haze of heat and pain in my head.

I crash into a small plaza with a well, tumbling through a stack of something or other and cutting up my knees on the paving stones. I tumble over and over and roll face first into the side of the well. It sends stars through my throbbing head. The people nearby look shocked. Unable to balance at all, I spin in circles and my head whips around frantically. No one seems to be chasing me now. I scramble away to push my back against the well. As I stare around, I fight for breath. I can't seem to breathe at all now. My muscles are all locked up, only letting me gasp slightly. It makes this strange, animal-like wheezing sound with such rapid gasping.

"Honey, are you alright?" asks some woman. I flinch, expecting to see the long haired handler, but I don't see a dark cloak. I look up at her for a moment. She has her dark hair all pulled up. Her long dress is a muddled gray color. She looks pretty young for an adult. Her words finally register.

I shake my head. No, I'm not alright. No part of this is alright. I hate all of this. I just keep shaking my head. Over and over, I shake it back and forth. There's nothing else I can do. "Now now, calm down," her voice sounds soothing somehow. She puts her hand on my head so I stop shaking it so hard. "Dear, you're burning up!" she gasps. She takes my face in her hands. "You're all covered in sweat!"

Without further comment, she picks me up with one arm and carries me as she starts walking. I don't know where she's going, but it doesn't matter. Now that I've stopped running and flailing, the heat begins to overtake me again. I can barely keep my eyes open. It seems that she brings me into a building somewhere. "One moment, I'll make a bed for you," she says. She runs around, moving things briefly before setting me down on something kind of soft but prickly against my back. She sits me up and strips off my sweat soaked robe. She makes some sort of comment about me being pale, then starts to wipe me down with a wet rag. She wipes down my cut up knees as well. It stings and the water is cold, but that just makes it feel incredible against my burning hot skin. She soon finishes and dresses me in some other clothing. It doesn't feel as soft as my robe when it was actually clean, but it feels so nice and dry and good...

My consciousness is rapidly slipping away as I feel her pull some sort of large, thick cloth over me. "Sleep well little one," she whispers. The last thing I can recall are tears beginning to form in my eyes. Is this happiness...? Why am I crying...?

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I continue to roll around, terrifying visions of everything mixing up one after another. I seem to relive every painful memory, over and over, remixed infinitely with every face I know, doing every terrible thing to me. I bolt upright in terror over and over again, gasping like I'm drowning again. But every time, the woman is there to catch me. She wraps me in her arms and mutters soothing words. She wipes away the sweat and tears, gives me water, and puts me back to sleep.

Every time I wake, I'm still so tired and weak, I can hardly keep my eyes open before I go under again. All my muscles hurt, but each and every time, this woman calms me down so I don't have to go back to sleep scared. Even if I'll have more nightmares once I do go to sleep... I can't say for sure how long this goes on. I've lost all sense of time. But... it can't have been all that long. It hasn't even gotten dark out yet.

Just as she's putting me down one more time, I bolt back upright at the sound of the whistle. She looks over. "Is something the matter?" Sadness begins to well up, threatening to make me start crying. But I force it back down. I'm not going back there.

"No, it's nothing." I have no voice. I put my hand to my throat when I realize that no words came out. She looks surprised that I can't speak, but then reassures me that it's fine.

"No need to worry, your voice will come back once you get better. Come on, I'll pull up the blanket for you," she says as she does so. So that big cloth is a blanket. Blankets are so nice...

Through my nightmares, I begin to smell something. I have no idea what it is, but it smells like food. Like the food smells at the market, or from the open windows of houses. The food that people eat. Realizing I haven't eaten in who knows how long, I rouse from my fitful slumber nonviolently for the first time. When I look around, I see the woman's back. I slowly slide down from the bed and feel something crunch under my feet. I look down to see a bunch of prickly, kind of yellow stuff spread across the floor. It's... straw. I think that was the word for it. Why is it spread all over the floor? I don't know, and the smell draws my attention away again. I shuffle over to where the woman seems to be working on something. She puts a hand on my head, moving it around somehow in a way that feels soothing and nice. "Just a bit sweetie, it's almost done." She pulls me forward a bit to stand next to her so I can see. She seems to be mixing some sort of small broken up bits of stuff with water, and heating it over a small fire in a circular stone thing. "Porridge is just what you need to get over a high fever. My Mother always made it for me when I was a little girl." I have a fever? Is that what this burning heat is? And that stuff she is making that smells like food is called porridge. That just leaves 'mother.' I can't guess the meaning from context. Well, I'll figure it out when my head doesn't feel like a giant metal weight.

I go back to bed for a bit, and she eventually comes over with a wooden bowl. The smell that wafts from it is incredible. I've never smelled anything like this up close before. None of the food they fed me smelled like anything at all. "Careful now, it's still very hot."

I look down into the shallow bowl. The porridge inside seems like a sort of mush. There are various bits of crushed up things inside, which seem to be suspended in some sort of thick paste. The porridge in the bowl doesn't slosh around like soup does, so I won't be able to drink it. As I'm wondering how to eat something that doesn't seem solid enough to hold, nor liquid enough to drink, she hands me a long wooden... thing. I study it for a few moments. It's narrow down most of the length, then flattens out at one end. There's even a small dip into the flat side. The way it's shaped, I definitely think I can use it to scoop up the porridge. I give it a try, but it's difficult to handle. "You've never used a spoon before?" the woman asks. I shake my head. As I maneuver the spoon, I see that any time I move my hand a little, the far end of the spoon moves way more. Like swinging a weapon. But it's so much smaller that I can only move it with my hand and fingers, instead of my whole arm, so it's really hard to do it right.

She places a hand lightly on my forearm, helping me stabilize my arm a little. "That's good, you can do it," she encourages me. After a couple tries, I get it in the bowl. I scrape it along the bottom, then pull it back up, successfully getting some of the porridge to sit in the indented section. She nods happily at my progress.

Now, I carefully turn it to bring it up to my mouth. It wobbles up and down, but with her guiding hand, I manage it. When it's close enough, she says, "very good, now you just-" but cuts off when I grab the porridge off of the end of the spoon with my mouth. Ahh! Why does it burn? I have no idea what to do as the burning porridge sits in my mouth. I open my mouth wide, but it is too thick and doesn't go anywhere, it just sits on my tongue, burning hot all over my mouth. I squeeze my eyes shut against the pain, and the next thing I know a hand is scraping it out of my mouth.

When I open my eyes again, I can see through my tears that she scraped it out of my mouth, back into the bowl. "I just said it was hot didn't I?!" she looks angry. Or scared? Hunching over, I start to cry. I hold my burning mouth while I cry. Everything feels hot, and my tongue and the sides of my mouth keep making stabbing painful feelings. Is this what hot food means? Why does it hurt?

"Now now, there there..." the woman rubs my head gently. "It's not your fault, I should have explained better." She continues rubbing my head for a bit until the stinging in my mouth isn't so bad.

I turn back to her. "Let me blow on it for you." She skillfully uses the spoon to scoop up some of the porridge, then blows on it. She continues to blow on it a few more times. I can feel the heat blowing off of it from where I'm sitting. Eventually, she brings the spoon over to my lips. I tremble, looking at it. She blew on it, does that mean it won't hurt this time? "Aaah..." she makes a funny sound, opening her mouth wide. I imitate, opening my mouth wide too. Slowly and carefully, she puts the spoon in my mouth. I continue to tremble, tears still welling in my eyes as I close my mouth around the spoon. She pulls the spoon back, my teeth and lips pulling the porridge off.

The thick goop spreads through my mouth again, but it doesn't burn this time! It's a little hard to tell with my burned tongue, but doesn't it taste good? It's like bread, but it isn't hard or crunchy, and has a similar sort of strong flavor like bread, but more... bread-like? I don't know how to describe tastes, they never taught us words for things like this. Food can taste like this? I start smiling, and crying again for some reason. Maybe being happy can make you cry too?

I push the porridge around in my mouth for a bit until I swallow. It's kind of difficult, so I swallow bits of it at a time, but it sort of feels like it's going to get stuck in my throat. She hands me a cup. There's soup inside. Or is it water? I still can't tell the difference. "Wash it down with this," she instructs. As she says, I take a small sip. The water mixes with the porridge, making it a little more liquidy so it's easier to swallow down.

We continue like that for a while. She feeds me slowly, gently. One spoonful at a time, until I've eaten the bowl of porridge. I can feel it sitting in my stomach. It seems warm and heavy. It helps my cramped muscles start to relax after all the crying I've been doing. Then she gives me more water, then puts me on the chamber pot. She even washes for me after, using water instead of a cloth like we did back at the program. Then she puts me back to bed. I continue to wake time after time to the tumble of endless nightmares, but bit by bit, I'm getting rest.

Eventually, the sun begins to go down outside the window, and I begin to smell food cooking again. It is different this time. It doesn't smell anything like bread. Once again, the warm, gentle smell helps to drive away some of the nightmares, and I can actually feel myself beginning to relax a little bit as I sleep. My stiff muscles, clenching again and again as I shake and tremble in terror finally start to ease a little. My breathing deepens a bit. It seems like I'm finally starting to actually fall asleep.

"There, that's more like it..." I hear a soothing voice whisper. A gentle hand rubs my head. Back and forth, back and forth, as I finally start to drift off to sleep.