***The sad woman

 

“I feel so sad. Why don’t you talk to me?” The woman repeated.
Mathilda stared blankly into space.
“You make me feel so sad..” The woman continued talking.
She shoved her back more onto the cold metal wall.
Again there was silence for half a minute. Then the girl heard a sigh, in the corner of her right eye she noticed her getting up. Such an ugly woman.. well not the looks but the way she behaved. And Mathilda was never ever gonna tell them the location of her mum. She knew what they were intending.

She remembered how she had arrived here.. and this stormtrooper that had shown her this holovideo. Yeah that was the name of it: holovideo. It was about stormtroopers shooting people in the head. The trooper in the room had explained to her that this was Aaricia’s family, and that it had been Aaricia’s fault because she hadn’t turned herself in. Were they crazy or something? It hadn’t been Aaricia that shot them in the head, had it? They had done it.. and now they wanted her to think.. to believe as if Aaricia had done it. Imperials seemed to be totally twisted in their heads.. they didn’t think in a logical way. And now they wanted Mathilda to believe that they would be nice to her mum.
They were lying. They wanted to kill her!

The woman stared at the girl for another minute or two, then sighed again.
“You make me feel lonely and sad.” She sniffed, but Mathilda knew that it was fake. “I thought that I could talk with you, but if you keep ignoring me then I have to find another way to make you talk. You make it so Mathilda.”
She watched the woman in the black uniform leave the cell. A stormtrooper closed the forcefield and followed the woman. Feeling lonely she pulled up her knees, putting her hands on them. Tears formed in her eyes. She wished that mum was here, that there would be somebody that would comfort her.. so that she didn’t have to feel this lonely anymore. She wanted her mum. But they wanted to kill her.
She caressed Bantha and looked into it’s eyes.
“We are in this together, aren’t we?” She spoke softly, sniffing sadly. Then she lowered her voice. “Yes I’ll stay with you and never leave you alone.” She smiled at the doll and hugged it. “I love you Bantha, and some day we both will escape from this place and find back my mum. I think you will like her.”
Footsteps approached the cell again, somebody in a funny looking grey suit put a glass of water in the cell.
“Drink.” He said.
She stared at him without saying a word.
“You must be thirsty. You have to drink.”
Ignoring him she put her attention on her doll again. She had nothing to tell to them, totally nothing.
The man kept staring at her for a while. Then he left the cell and walked away.
Mathilda stared at the water. She got herself up, took the glass and threw it at the wall, watching it splatter into tens of tiny twinkling pieces. She glanced at the camera.
Did you see it? Good.

Why did it suddenly feel so hot around her? She touched the metal, everything felt so warm. Did she really have a fever now? Maybe she was really sick. Her body sweated, it was as if the hot suns of Tatooine themselves were shining at her, but she wasn’t even outside. She wiped the sweat off her forehead and flanged it to the ground. The man in the funny looking suit returned and put another glass with water on the floor.
“I feel sick.” She complained. “I think I have a fever. If you don’t get a doctor soon I will die!”
The man didn’t react, he just walked away.
“I FEEL SICK!” She yelled. Then she grabbed the glass and gulped it down.
The man returned, only to replace the empty glass with another filled one. Mathilda coughed.
“I feel soooo sick!” She tried again.
But he walked away again. She frowned at the man, feeling scared and sad. She took the next glass and drunk the water. She coughed.
The man returned with another glass of water. Mathilda lied on the ground, panting.
“I.. I’m going to die. I feel it..” She panted. She started feeling nauseous.
But the man didn’t react to her words. He walked away again.
“W.. why is nobody listening to me?” The girl stammered, coughing again. She tried to get up, but everything span around her. Her head hurt like hell. “I don’t wanna die, please.. I’m scared!”
She grabbed Bantha and put the doll against her chest.
“I’m dying and nobody is even listening to me.. I want my mum.. Bantha I want this doctor back, that gave you to me. She was nice. I.. I want..” She mumbled softly to the doll under the blankets.
Suddenly she started feeling cold, as if the suns had disappeared. She shivered, wrapping the blankets around herself.
Footsteps approached the cell again. She peered over the blankets. It was this woman again.
“I need a doctor.” Mathilda complained.
She watched the woman sit down on the chair.
“You are healthy. Don’t worry, you can trust me.” The woman spoke with a friendly voice.
But not really friendly.. Mathilda knew it was acting.
“I’m not healthy!” She said.
“A doctor will come when necessary.” The woman showed a fake smile. “You look lonely. You want your mum back?”
Mathilda stared at her. Not again..
“If you tell us where your mum is then we will bring you to her. Doesn’t that sound nice?” Again she smiled at her, an ugly smile. “Mathilda, how do you feel?”
“Sick.” She answered.
“Dizzy, nauseous, headache?”
Mathilda was paying attention to something else. In the corner of her left eye she noticed the still open forcefield. The woman was sitting in front of her, for the rest she saw nobody. But at the moment she decided to get up to run away, footsteps already approached the cell and two stormtroopers armed with guns arrived. They kept standing in the cell entrance, staring out of the black lenses in their ugly bucket-head looking white helmets. Uncomfortable as she suddenly felt, Mathilda got up and walked into the very corner that was as far away as possible from both the woman and the stormtroopers.
“You have a nice dress. Where did you get it from?” The woman continued.
“F.. from my mum.” Mathilda said quietly, holding Bantha in her hands.
She felt some weird rash on her arms and legs, some itchy sort of tinkling. She scratched them a bit. What was this? It made her feel scared.
“What is your name?”
Why did she ask this? She already knew Mathilda’s name. They were really crazy!
“I am superhero Naboo death-” Mathilda replied with a courageous voice, but before she was able to mention the word ‘spider’ she felt a lot of pain in her body. Shrieking in shock she jumped up. Her body itched a lot now, painfully she scratched her arms and legs.
“What is this? It hurts.. what is this!?” She yelled almost in a panic.
The woman only stared at her.
“I don’t know.” She then said. “What is your name?”
“I just said my name!” Again the pain came, she fell onto the ground, the doll rolled out of her hands. She started crying loudly.
“What are you doing with me?”
“I think you do it yourself.” The woman said calmly. “That is what happens when little girls lie. Then the demons come hurt you.”
What were ‘demons’?
“I don’t believe you. I think you have poisoned me!” Mathilda shouted at the woman.
“Trooper, get some neutral gel from the storage.” The woman said to one of the stormtroopers.
“Yes ma’am.” The stormtrooper said, then stomped away on his heavy boots.
The woman turned her face to Mathilda again. “Tell me where your mum is.”
“NO!”
“Then you will stay here forever.”
“I will escape!” The girl shouted.
The woman laughed. “Nobody ever escaped from here.”
“Then I’ll be the first one!”
The stormtrooper returned with some jar in his hands. He gave it to the woman. The woman offered it to Mathilda.
“Here, this will help against the itch and pain. See? We are nice people. I give you a cure!”
A bit confused the girl took the jar and opened it. There was transparent looking gel in it. She got some out of it.
“Put it on your skin.” The woman smiled at her.
She tried some on the painful, red skin. The pain immediately disappeared.
“Where is your mum?”
Mathilda ignored the woman, putting more gel on her limbs. There was silence for some minutes.
“Mathilda.. why are you doing this to me? I am nice to you but you keep ignoring me! I am helping you against the pain, the demons but still you don’t want to talk to me! I didn’t want to be nasty, but now.. I don’t have any other choice. If little girls don’t talk to me then the boss calls in the horrible man.” The woman examined the girl, looking if she saw any reaction. The girl glared at her. After a sigh the woman continued. “He is the meanest man in the universe. And he will come to you right now, if you don’t talk to me.”
Mathilda didn’t say a word. When she saw the woman speaking in the little device they called ‘commlinks’ her eyes widened a bit. But she had to save her mum!
Footsteps slowly approached the cell. The girl got up, feeling a bit frightened. A stormtrooper arrived. The woman spoke to the ‘horrible man’ quietly then turned back to Mathilda. The girl gasped as she saw the stormtrooper holstering his weapon and cracked his knuckles, making a weird grinning sound at the girl.
“So…” He started speaking with his funny filtered voice. “Shall I cut out your eyes.. or cut off your fingers..”
With eyes wide from fear she saw him drawing some big knife. Then he approached her.
“You may choose, little girl. Eyes.. ears, finger?”
She wanted to step back, but her back already touched the wall behind her. Gasping she stared at the stormtrooper. He was singing some song that she never heard, then he started talking again.
“Then I will choose.” He brought a hand to her to grab her left arm, with the other hand he brought the knife to her face.
In panic Mathilda run into the horrible man, jumped onto the chair. The stormtrooper tried to grab her, but didn’t succeed. Screaming she ran out of the cell.
“GET HER!” She heard the woman shouting.
Feeling a bit disoriented Mathilda arrived into the big hall again. There were droids everywhere.
“Don’t shoot!” The woman commanded loudly.
The horrible man with the knife ran after her, together with another stormtrooper and the woman in the black suit. Screaming in panic Mathilda ran towards the many tables with terminals and shoved herself under it.
“GET THAT CHILD!” She heard the woman screaming.
Enraged she started pulling out cables, destroying as much as she could. She heard them walking around the tables and crouched to the other side. Then she appeared again, running towards the desk that was in front of the tables. Behind the desk she hid. She saw the woman holding a pistol in her hands and gasped. The horrible man walked towards her, panicked she jumped up again and ran towards another door. An exit.. but no. This was some big room with a lot of chairs and some holoprojector in the end of it. She hid behind the projector, slamming all buttons she moved across. Video’s started playing, some alarm sounded...