It’s the first of January.  Most make resolutions on this day, but, for the past three years, mine has always been the same.  Let me find my escape.  Let me find a way to bring down this horrid throne of despicable power.  Their pictures are fading, and my hope goes with them.  They must look so much more different now—it has been three years since last I saw them—my family, my friends.  Do they even remember me?  Would it be worth escaping to go to a home that was only a home in my distant memories?  Or would it be more plausible to give up and continue to submit to the daily injections of serum and drugs?  

The drugs.  It’s difficult to think when I’m under their effect.  My research in the tech lab had revealed many a file on the project of which I was a victim of.  The drug my warden forcibly injected into my arm every morning and every evening had not matched a single profile of the drugs and serums that were used for the experiment.  It had been hard earned knowledge.  I can still hear my screams at night, even after two years.  I was not privy to such information, my warden said.  What type of government funded project uses unwilling and kidnapped human beings as their subjects?  

I bang my head on the solid wall, knowing that the surge of pain wouldn’t be enough to keep my mind off the present.  It never worked, and, yet, I tried time and time again.  This prison of a room is my home at night, with its gray solid stone walls and cold stone floor, and its hard wood door that locked only from without.  My bed was an old army cot, most of the frame having rusted with age, the springs vacant.  The pallet, of which was supposed to accompany the frame, had been placed on the opposite side of the room by my own hands.  The warden didn’t care.  He’d even granted my request for a small desk, though he said he couldn’t see the need for it.  

A desk always reminded me of home—a desk that sat in a small, cluttered office at home, in which my father had always worked in from four to seven every evening.  I wish I knew whether or not he still fell asleep on the keyboard of his computer from the sleepiness he always claimed.  Did my mother still wash the dishes by hand?  Or had she gave way to the technology of a dishwasher?  Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, a part of me didn’t care.  

There are times when I think that wanting to go back home and pick up where I left off is just a fantasy that won’t come true.  And, in reality, it is.  How could I ever return to a past of innocence?  By now, my family, my friends—by now they are living their own lives, unaware of the fact that I’m still alive, still thinking of them.  Then, sometimes, I wonder about what they are doing.  I go over each of their names, trying with minimal success to keep their memories alive inside of me.  The memories have been a constant factor of hope I have carried with me for the past three years.  But as their pictures fade, so does my hope of escape.  

The springs of the old cot shift with a rusty screech as I lay down.  The cold metal picks at my clothes and grazes against bare skin.  A simple tank top and army cutoffs were what clothed me.  My feet were bare, my heels resting slightly against the base of the cot.  Dog tags on a chain hung around my neck; the cold metal now rested between my breasts beneath my shirt.  I had memorized its contents.  Project Thirteen, Security # 122658, DOB-10/17/2061.  

“One…two…two…six…five…eight…” I recited.  The recitation called to mind the tattoo on my right shoulder.  It was a barcode.  122658-37-5679. I was mere property to these people—they call themselves scientists and government officials.  But they are all the same.  They were abhorrers of human nature, and they had ruined my life—taken it from me.  I loathed them for this.  I shifted to my side and looked at the desk, of which I had turned into a memorial altar of sorts.  Upon it were the physical pictures of those I had loved all those years ago.  But they are fading now.  A leather-bound Bible and a set of rosary beads, complete with a cross, accompanied those fading pictures.  

Hatred.  I hated my warden…I hated those who had taken my life from me.  I have occasionally prayed for forgiveness, but my faith is fading.  Like the pictures.  And like my hope.  I pushed myself up off the springs and sat, my feet on the cold floor and my back to the gray wall.  I remember the pastor saying we all had a purpose.  I sighed and leaned forward, my elbows resting on my knees.  I traced the scars on my forearm.  The scars of a name.  A name I never wanted to forget.

T. I. E. R. N. E. Y.  L. Y. N. N.  M. I. T. C. H. E. L. L.  

It was my name that I would not allow them to take from me.  My name is Tierney Lynn Mitchell.  

“Tierney!  It’s time to come inside!” The little girl’s mother yelled from the porch, a smile on her face as she watched the child running towards her.  However, the child stopped in the middle of the yard, and the mother knew she was only taking one final look at the sunset, as per usual her normal routine every evening.  The mother stepped back inside, knowing her child would retreat to their home’s warm confines within moments.  

“Mommy, the colors were even more pretty than yesterday’s!” The little girl exclaimed as she burst through the door, a look of excitement upon her glowing features.  The mother watched as the child paused, her face contorting in concentration.  “Prettier.  They were prettier than yesterday’s.”  Her face brightened once more as her mother nodded with an approving smile.  The little girl bobbed her way through the kitchen and into the living room, where she bounced onto the couch.  

“Mommy, tomorrow’s the seventeenth.  Do you know what that is?”  The little girl asked, the look of concentration overcoming her face once more.  Her mother smiled as she looked across the counter at her, with a look of enthusiasm.  

“What is it?” The little girl smiled widely.  

“It’s my birthday!” She crowed.  The mother smiled a white and glistening smile as she watched Tierney counting on her fingers.  “And it’s also Toby’s birthday.  We’ll both be turning five.”  Her mother smiled and nodded, as she looked from her daughter to the sleeping figure curled up in the comfy chair on the opposite side of the couch.  Her son, Tobias, Tierney’s twin.  Her children would be turning five, and would go to school the following year.  

The mother watched as Tierney jumped to her feet and tiptoed her way across to the sleeping Tobias.  She bent down, giving him a slight peck on the cheek.  Then, she heard a whisper.

“Happy Birthday to us, Toby.”  

Tears, though a part of human nature, haven’t come within the three years I’ve been in this prison.  The tears had been beaten from me, nearly as unnatural as a kind word.  Many a time I’ve tried to cry for the loss of my family, but tears had become a foreign thing to me.  During the first two years of my captivity under the scientists’ and warden’s careful watch, I had been beckoned to often to the barred window of my room.  It offered a wonderful view of the horizon…and of the sunsets at night.  It has been such a long time since I bid the sun goodnight.  It was nearing evening.

But the will and want to stand wasn’t there.  My heart is heavy from the thoughts and memories.  A sunset, I knew, would only call more memories to the surface.  These are memories that have faded, but every now and then, they’ll force their way into my mind.  Just like their pictures.  But it was nearing evening.  Evening would torture the memories, the thoughts, the hope.  Daily, they had been taken from me upon the dusk and the dawn.  Only in between could I sometimes feel a slight spark of determination.  But it never lasted…not next to the constant poundings of rules, strategy, history, cunning, etc. that took up every ounce of concentration.  

I had always been one to learn.  Learning was a curiosity to me back then.  Now, learning was a means of survival.  I would learn or be punished.  The punishments, I learned, were hostile and everlasting.  Extra training, my warden called it.  Bull shit was my name for it.  I had served extra punishment for that.  I could still feel the bruises’ pulsing ache even though they were fading from sight.  Fading…like everything else.