10 Oct They Will Not Let Me Go

📅 Published on October 10, 2024

“They Will Not Let Me Go”

Written by Nick Goroff
Edited by Craig Groshek
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

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⏰ ESTIMATED READING TIME — 16 minutes

Rating: 10.00/10. From 2 votes.

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They will not let me go. I don’t know for how long I have been held a prisoner here, nor to what ends my captors hold me for. If I had the strength still, I’d have fought them. Heaven knows I try now, but something seems to be consuming me, as I no longer seem strong enough to throw hands anymore. I blame this captivity for my frail state. It’s not something I am used to at all.

I’ve found myself at least a couple of times feeling steely grips upon my wrists, forearms, knees and sometimes, maybe all three. Hands grabbing me and forcing me down, as I struggle to get free. Their strength is uncanny. Almost every time, I’m either forced to swallow or injected with some sedative or the like, causing me to effectively black out until I find myself again, confined to either a chair or bed in this room.

I’ve always been a strong and steady man. I’m a shipbuilder. Worked the yards in Philadelphia for years, making my living with steel, rivets, and a confidence in my work that was as unsinkable as my ships. I managed to raise three children and even put two through college with that job. At my peak, my arms were like tree trunks. I could and did a couple of times, manage to lift small cars, either showing off for friends or coworkers, or to the delighted laughter of my children, who for a while, thought their dad was a bonafide superhero. I guess all kids feel that way at one point or another. Hopefully.

It was important for them, my children, to see me as indestructible. Or maybe it was more important for me. When my youngest, Cheri, was eight, with her two brothers Sam and Oliver being twelve and fourteen respectively, their mother, my wife passed. Aggressive, stage three lung cancer. We had both grown up as smokers. The day she passed, I quit for good. But with only one parent remaining, I always thought of it as crucial that my kids know I’m not going anywhere.

Now, I’m here. Now, I’m slowly withering away in this strange living nightmare, surrounded by creatures. I call them creatures because though they look like people, I know there is no way they can be. Their faces all change and shift, always presenting little moments of familiarity somehow before switching back again to their generally sour and angry alien faces. These strangers torment me in the strangest of ways.

They will make day turn to night and then back again, seemingly at either random or according to some unknown purpose of will, leading me further into disorientation as they make it impossible for me to sleep well or deeply at all. It can be the dead of night in my chamber, my cell, with nothing but blackness pouring in through the locked and solid double pane window, only for the bright and merciless blaze of direct sunlight to come pouring in the moment I close my eyes.

It feels as though I’ve not really slept in ages. I ask them regularly who they are and what they want, but they never answer in a way that makes any sense. Usually, they’ll smile with some wicked and forced grin on their face before trying to convince me it’s all for my own good. I know what’s good for me. I’m a grown man.

My diet is not shown much courtesy by my captors either, as at seemingly random times throughout the day or night, a tray of some tasteless and sometimes revolting gruel will be placed before me. In times when I am hungry enough to stomach it, no sooner will I start eating than one of my various jailers will pop by and take it from me, telling me I’ve had enough. Other times, when the sight and smell of the slop in front of me is too revolting to even think about, they’ll sit and insist I must eat, even trying to force feed me at times. All the while, there are always those dark, fake smiles and non-answers to my questions and demands.

Naturally, my most common questions are where I am, how I got there and when they’ll let me go. To each of these, it’s simply more false tenderness, usually before they stick me with needles and inject my body with god-knows-what for god-knows-what purpose. I think they’re trying to poison me, but I can’t be sure.

Sometimes after their drugs, I’ll lose consciousness for a while and awake in an entirely different room. It will look the same. It’ll have the same basic furniture, a bed, a table or two and some chairs. But it’ll be different. Off somehow, just like the supposed people who run the show. Close, but not quite right.

There’s music. There’s seemingly always music. Mostly tunes from when I grew up. They play a lot of Rush and I hate Rush. Always have. I almost consider it another form of torture, though thankfully it’s never a full album they play. When I try to express this, my captors, these strange people, will laugh right in my face as though it’s funny to them. The ones in red are the worst about it.

They show up regularly, always during the daylight. Though the faces change each time, with each of the red clad interrogators always dressed the same way, every time, their processes remain the same. A series of questions; What my name is, where I am and always if there’s anything I want or need. I tell them I want to leave, that I want to go home to my family, to my career, to my life. At this, they laugh at me again, always telling me that they’ll have to wait and see. After this, they will almost always force me to drink a foul, bitter vial of fluid which almost always causes me to pass out.

I’m almost positive this is just another method of wearing me down. For what, I do not know, but in the repeating and seemingly random cycles of day and night and the cavalcade of strangers and imposters who will crowd into my cell, my prison, just to talk amongst themselves like I wasn’t even there and then leave with the incessant music playing have me certain that they are trying to break me. For what though, I have no idea.

I have feigned cooperation, answering their random and pointless questions in the hopes of making some progress in getting beyond these stale and unpredictable cycles. But with every answer, I’m simply looked at like a fool and patronized before whoever is asking either gets up and leaves or just disappears. I may have forgotten to mention that part.

One moment, I can have one of the red ones, or even just one of the other countless random captors of mine towering over me while I sit or lay in bed, asking their questions and talking nonsense. If I look away for just a moment though, they will sometimes just disappear entirely as though they were never there, only to either return or send a replacement sometime later. Other times, while in the middle of talking with one of them, usually when talking about my family, the conversations will just end out of nowhere, with whoever was there just gone.

There are other, more haunting matters which I am plagued by as well. For what can sometimes seem like mere moments, or other times entire days, I will be free. I’m never sure how, but I will find myself again at home, where I belong, with my family, where I belong. My kids will run and embrace me. I will smell the mechanical and industrial odors of metal shavings, diesel fuel and the lingering scent of a day spent welding.

Other times, I’m back with Hannah, my late wife. These are both the best and worst of times. Best in that we’re together again, sometimes with the kids, sometimes just by ourselves, sometimes at our old home, sometimes out at the lake where we used to escape to years ago before the kids. Those were the best times of my life and for the time I’m there, it isn’t a simple dream. I’ve had plenty of dreams. These…visits, are as real as can be.

Until they’re over. Until I’m back in my cell. This is when the worst of things occur. Because for the time we’re together, I know where I am, know who I’m with. It’s all very real. But then, in the blink of an eye, I’m back here. I’m back and I remember watching her go. Seeing as her once beautiful face and body withered to nothing, much as I am doing now. It’s like losing her for the first time, all over again, every time.

I’ll come out of these experiences, these re-lived memories of mine and call out for her. Not in the sense that I am looking for her, as I know she’s gone by then. But in a fresh hell of mourning and a grief, because I know she’s gone. It’s all just some cruel trick and reminder, probably brought on by all the various drugs they force upon me.

I’ll call out for Hannah and someone will tell me that she’s no longer with us. But I damn well know that already. These people, these things, they seem to live for it. Chemically inducing my fondest memories in the most lucid of ways, only to tear them away from me, or me from them, just to remind me of what I already know and suffer with. Like ripping open a wound that’s almost closed, just to add a hearty portion of salt to it.

Sometimes I’ll be sat before a grand spread with piles of food and drink before me. As I bring a plate or cup or spoon or fork to my lips however, the feast and portion selected just fail to be. Not that they disappear, though they do that as well, but even after having taken a bite or a sip, there is simply nothing there. As though it were all just a mirage.

I am convinced this place is prison as I am not allowed to leave. I am convinced the goals of my captors are at least in part, to drive me utterly and entirely mad. I am convinced as well that if I don’t get out of here, if I cannot free myself, that I will never see my children again. That is a fate I cannot accept however. That is one which I will not accept.

I have attempted escape before, I think. As the days and nights and words and faces and constant music and parade of curious busybodies all blend confusingly into one, I find it sometimes difficult to recall if something in mind is a memory or a plan. But I am somewhat sure that at least once, I managed to escape the cell, though whatever broader prison this may be proved obviously to be a separate matter. It was allowed by matter of sheer accident.

One of the red ones arrived, as they always tend to do during daylight hours and was accompanied by one of the regulars who visit my cell to ply me with drugs and questions. This day though, feeling a curiously renewed strength and force of will, I refused them outright. All of them. Not one of my captors or tormentors would have the satisfaction of my cooperation that day and this, as it happened, was all it took for them to make the dire error of actually leaving me alone.

My resistance that day won me a reprieve as both parties practically stormed out of the room, frustrated. I waited then, expecting them to return any moment with more drugs, inquiries and baffling treatment, but no one came. Hours, I think, passed as I watched the door with passing glances, without anyone so much as peeking in. Looking closer, I realized that in their huffing and puffing on the way out, they had forgotten to close and lock the door.

I had a chance then. A chance to escape, to return to my kids, to return to my life. There was no way I was passing it up and so, rising slowly and with difficulty from the bed in my cell, I shuffled towards the door. My legs and back ached and quivered, almost feeling as though the muscles within had atrophied, likely a result of whatever drugs they had been pumping me with. Yet regardless, I pressed through the discomfort and soon was at the door.

My eyes had not deceived me as it was clearly ajar and slowly slipping my head out into the hallway beyond, looked up and down searching for guards of some kind. To my good fortune, there were none. The only indication that anyone was nearby were low and murmuring voices behind a closed door down the hall. I could not tell what they were saying, but didn’t much care so long as they stayed where they were.

As my legs were so weak, I was forced to hold to the wall and whatever odd furniture littered the hallway to support myself as I made my way along. Thankfully though, this slow and honestly difficult movement helped me stay as quiet as possible, seeking to avoid raising the attention of my jailors. The hallway itself was strange.

It looked and felt like some strange amalgamation of the familiar and the foreign. Chairs, small tables, even some art on the walls all struck oddly conversant tone, looking like pieces from my home. But this wasn’t home and whatever charade my captors were putting on wasn’t working. I just had to focus. Just had to remember where I was going and what awaited me there. I just needed to keep my mind trained on winning my freedom and soon, I would be at home again, able to heal and to think once more.

One sluggish and labored step followed the last, each one resulting in more of a shuffle and slide of my feet with every passing inch. As I came across a pair of chairs sat on opposite sides of a small end table, I nearly fell to the floor attempting to navigate around them with the available hand-holds and support suddenly made more difficult by but a few extra inches of space. I may have sank into the chair to take a rest. I may not have. The memory of it is made fuzzy and difficult to recall with clarity. Undoubtedly the result of this hell I’ve been stuck in wearing down my mental faculties.

If I did, I know for certain that I rose again and continued down the corridor. At the end, there was a small staircase that lead downward. I had come to deduce over time that I was on the second floor of whatever this place was and that logically, there should be an exit somewhere at the bottom of those steps. I only had to make it there and down, which I knew would be a challenge unto itself, but one I would rise to when I made it to the end.

My feet shambled one after another and my sense of balance began to tip. I felt myself begin to as well, but managed to steady myself against the wall. Whatever they had done to me, they had done it thoroughly as my conscious thinking mind was as dizzy and out of order as my motor function was. I attempted to shake off the listing feeling, but doubled down on my focus as much as possible, simply compensating by leaning heavier on my hand as it slid along the wall for some form of purchase.

To my good fortune I managed to make it all the way down the hall, leaning finally against the frame to a closed door just across the way from the top of the stairs. This would certainly be a dangerous descent, but it was made more difficult by the distance between my position and the top of the bannister. I would need to walk roughly three to four paces to cross the hall, all without support. While on any other day this would have been no problem, here it was bound to be a more daring sort of operation.

Counting to three, I readied myself as much as possible before pushing off of the doorframe and shuffling into the middle of the hall. I was three steps away from the stairwell and then, two. Finally, a single step remained and as I crossed that ground, my hands reached out almost in a panic before finding the hard, smooth, polished wood of the well stained bannister. I felt as though I could collapse in that moment, but that innate drive within me to return to my family pushed me onward.

I gazed down the wooden stairs as they circled downward along the adjacent walls. I should, I reasoned, manage to conserve enough strength on the way down so long as I keep myself stable and take my time. I could even take a seat on the steps if my energy ran dry too quickly, or even on that same token, simply sit and slide myself down step by step until I reached the bottom. Though getting back on my feet could prove to be another daunting challenge at the end of that plan, it was nothing my resolve could not overcome, regardless of how weak and withered I felt.

I took a deep breath and prepared to begin my descent. Though what should be a casual jaunt down a simple flight of stairs could take ten or even twenty minutes at my current pace, I knew that so long as I remained motivated, attentive and most importantly quiet, I would be free in effectively no time at all. And then, I heard them.

“What are you doing?” they barked as they, the one in red and one of the regular in-house prison guards, came barreling down the hall.

I was caught. There were no two ways about it. I looked down the stairs, wondering if I would manage to make it out if I merely hurled myself down them in some fashion, perhaps having to deal with a cracked rib or mild concussion while I forced my achy bones and sinews to propel me out of this place and back into the world. Surely if some passerby outside, a pedestrian or even a motorist, saw what a terrible state I was in, limping down the street outside, someone would stop to help me.

But before I could even come to the natural conclusion that this was a bad idea that wouldn’t work all on my own, two pairs of strong hands again gripped my arms and shoulders, pulling me back from the bannister. I attempted to keep a grip as they did, but it was of no use. As usual, they were simply too strong for me and as they pulled me back, I felt my legs give out and I quickly crumpled into their waiting arms. I was lifted like a sack of potatoes, like a large piece of beef, like a corpse.

My vision, or my memory, or both go in and out at that point, though I both know and can recall being carried back down the hall, back to this room, back to my prison. I recall finding it almost interesting how long a trek getting down the hall had felt compared to how quickly and without issue being carried back up it did. That was to the best of my recollection, the closest I’ve come to escape just yet.

They keep the door closed when not in the room with me now and unfortunately seem to make checking in on me and asking me questions a more frequent occurrence. And always still with the questions. For some reason they seem very intent on learning about my children. They ask what their names are, how old they are, where they are. They ask me trick questions, such as if I remember things which I know didn’t happen, or conversations I know never took place.

I can’t help but think it’s all part of their plan to wear me down. I’ve toyed with the idea of playing into their little games. To answer and agree with them whenever they come in to interrogate me. Play the helpful hostage, fake a little Stockholm syndrome and hopefully convince them to drop their guard again. I can almost recall how far it was to the steps and can almost remember how many steps there seemed to be. Fourteen, or was it sixteen?

In any event, I know now that my greatest asset is patience. I haven’t had much, but I can improve on that. I’ll smile at the increasingly strange visitors who come push their drugs and questions on me. I’ll make them drop their guard and when they do, I’ll be ready.

They all tend to look different now. Stranger, in a sense. Their faces, if you can call them that, appear like vague blurs on the front of their heads. Familiar, somewhat. Human-esque, I might call them. It isn’t consistent, but then again nothing in this place is.

They all insist I know them. They say as much verbatim almost every time I object to whatever it is they’re trying to do, or to who it is they insist they are. It’s an underhanded and craven strategy they employ. They’ll come in, they’ll sit with their blurry faces and mystery identities, dope me up to get me talking about my kids and then sometimes, finish up by trying to convince me that they are my children.

This sort of insanity offends me. I can’t make out exactly who they are, but I can be sure of who they aren’t. My children are still in their twenties, whereas these people are all clearly well into middle age. It could be that whoever they are believe that if they can break me to the point I’ll accept their lies as truth, that after that they’ll be able to program me to believe anything.

But I’m not falling for it. I won’t. I can’t fall for it. There’s too much riding on me and too many people depending on me out there. I play as nice as I can, humoring them in the hopes they’ll inadvertently afford me another opportunity to escape. One I will not fail at, now knowing where I have to go and how I plan to get there. It’s just down the hallway, just on the left. Or was it the right?

In any event, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I bide my time, force my smiles, answer their questions even if only with lies and wait. The right time will arise. It has to. When it does, I will be ready. I will not be stopped. I will walk out of this place on my own. I will drink a cold beer. I will eat a red steak. I will wake with the sunrise and sleep through the night with them all in the right order.

I’ll ask my own questions. I’ll find out who these people are and what they are doing with me. I’ll expose them to the world and see to it no one ever has to suffer through this again. And most importantly and above all else, I will be with my boys and my precious little girl again. I will go home. I will stay home. I will be free.

Down the hall, a conversation was being held. It was grim, as they all had been and none involved seemed to be finding them any easier the more frequently they had them. It was Sam who spoke first.

“He really isn’t getting any better.” He said to his siblings as the three sat around a coffee table, an obvious and heavy foreboding shared between them.

“This isn’t really the kind of thing one gets better from, Sam.” Oliver replied.

“It’s like he doesn’t even know who we are.” Sam lamented.

(33:39) “He doesn’t. He doesn’t even know he’s in his own home. It isn’t that he’s forgotten us. He knows who his kids are, he just doesn’t recognize us as being…them.” Cheri clarified sadly. “This kind of thing isn’t just losing your keys and forgetting where you put them, but instead is…well, you forget you ever had keys and when you find them, have no idea what they are or what they go to.”

“Maybe some memory exercises?” Sam said, almost pleadingly.

Cheri glanced to Oliver and simply shook her head as he cast his eyes downward.

(31:15) “We’re way past that now, Sam. This is…this is going to be him for the rest of his life. However long, that might be.” She explained.

“But just the other day he…he seemed like his old self. Or at least a bit like it. He even recognized me.” Sam protested.

“Yeah and those days will be fewer and further between. This is how this all works, brother. It was the same with Caroline’s mom. She had good days, then she had increasingly more bad days, right up until…well, until the end.” Oliver replied, drawing sadly from previous experience as he watched with his wife as her mother slowly succumbed to that which was now consuming his father. Tears welled in his eyes as he finished his sentence.

The three sat in silence for a few moments, none really sure what to say next, if anything at all. All three had watched their father’s decline over the past year and Cheri and Sam had within the past six months moved back into the family home so as to care for him as his condition got worse. Though care options through assisted living and nursing facilities were both available and affordable thanks to their dad having been remarkably good with his money over the years, the trio agreed that it was likely best he remain at home surrounded by familiar faces and things.

But especially in the last week, all familiarity seemed to have escaped the old man. His favorite visiting nurse, Wendy, who always arrived sporting her bright red nurse’s scrubs, had suddenly become a stranger to him. His three grown children who were now tending to him around the clock, likewise were no longer recognizable to him. His decline had worsened to the point where all involved knew it was only a matter of time before the end came. It would all be over soon and then, a whole new fresh hell of pain was in store. However, at least there would be finality, the siblings reasoned to themselves and each other.

Heading into their father’s room, Cheri, Sam and Oliver all took seats around the hospital bed in which he lay. To their surprise, it seemed as though he was actually having a good day that day. A considerable change from the previous day, when their stubborn old dad managed to shuffle down the hall and nearly fall down the stairs.

He had been irritable and confused for the entire week, so as the three sat down around him, they were all rather relieved to see him smile warmly at the sight of them. For a moment, as he greeted them, though not by name, it felt as though they had their good old dad back once again. They sat together and chatted, reminiscing on days gone by. Happier times. Better times.

Their father would be gone soon. It was just a matter of time. It was inevitable. They all knew it. But for the time they had remaining, the three all meant to cherish those final days together. They loved their dad. So much so, they just couldn’t let him go.