The New Supervisor and Body Injuries

I woke up in the miserable dormitory bed once more, my aching head turned almost instinctively to the window and saw there was still some light out but it was clearly darker.

I looked back in front of me and saw somewhere in the empty room the supervisor from earlier, I was able to see his features a lot better now, his nose was a very peculiar Roman shape, slightly pointy with a sharp jawline and smaller lips.

He turned to look at me, his eyes were a lighter shade of brown with long lashes.

"You're awake."

Why was he addressing me? Supervisors only do that when there's trouble.

"You fainted in the hallway so I brought you here"

"Why would you do that, sir?"

My question caught him by surprise, his eyes scanned my expression for answers but he clearly wasn't getting any because I was just as confused.

"Because you were on the floor in the hallway"

I kept looking around the room and saw a tray with a few bottles and a bowl

"Are those to hurt me?" my head pointed at the tray and he chuckled

"They're to help you."

After saying that, Rose walked into the room and saw the supervisor then looked over at me, fear all over her expression.

"I didn't get in trouble Rose"

The supervisor looked over at her, when he'd seen her face his own softened even further, almost as if he felt pity or sadness, his expressions weren't as easy to read as the rest, there was some complexity in that face that I simply could not understand.

"I'm supervisor Cedric, I only started working here but I have no intention of hurting your friend"

Rose seemed skeptical, she walked on over to me and sat by my side, I looked at her up and down to see if they'd done anything physically harmful, I noticed the skin on her legs was blotchy with pink and white.

"Did they have you do the leg machine thing again?" I asked, she nodded and looked down at her legs as well, her socks were short and ruffled which left more of her skin exposed to see.

"What did they do?" The supervisor asked now also looking at her legs.

"They had me standing up and put my legs into a machine that exposes them to something really cold, only my legs, except this time they switched temperatures really quickly, from hot to cold"

She would always be really weak after said treatments... if you could call them that.

They had done this to her 3 or 4 times now.

"Oh... your poor legs, lift them on the bed"

Rose placed her legs on the bed and the supervisor turned to the tray and grabbed a few things, first was a plastic bottle with a yellow-tinted liquid inside and then a small metal container.

He poured said liquid onto the palm of his hand creating a little bowl with it and then he rubbed his hands together before massaging it into her legs, the warmth of them helping her blood circulation go back to normal.

After a few minutes, he took the metal tin and opened it, inside was a balm that he rubbed into her skin, the blotchiness had faded and her legs looked a lot more even in color and the temperature had probably returned to normal.

"Does that feel better?" He asked looking over at her.

Rose smiled and nodded, she stretched her legs and stood up moving them to make sure she'd regained her mobility.

"Avoid telling Ms. Leonelle I helped you because I could get fired, I'm not supposed to do that"

I looked into his eyes, "Why would we tell her?" I asked, if he had helped us it wouldn't benefit anyone to tell on him

"I just want to make sure I don't get into trouble, what's your name?"

I'd never been asked that before, we had numbers, not names.

We weren't people, just lab rats, so why would he ever ask that?

"Her name is Iris"

I'm guessing Rose saw how skeptical I was to tell him my name so she took it upon herself.

"You both have beautiful names, they're fitting."

He kindly smiled at the both of us before getting up and grabbing the tray with medical equipment, he walked towards the door with heavy footsteps before looking back.

"I hope to see both of you around, but for now I have to get back to work"

He left and Rose sat down at the end of my bed excitedly.

"Did you see how handsome he was? Oh and how kind! He reminds me of the Prince in that one book or story that-"

Rose went on about the supervisor, it felt wrong to hear her talking like that, he's evil.

Even if he doesn't directly support the actions this place does, he works here so he can't be a good person, no one who's good would try and work somewhere that hurts people.

I couldn't hear her speak, my mind automatically shut her words out in disbelief, I couldn't even think about how easy it was for her to label that man "kind", that word should be earned, not gifted but yet all it took was some human decency for her to swoon over him.

I couldn't hear her putrid words so I lifted the end of my mattress slightly and pulled out the book I had been reading, this one I had found under one of the stairs while cleaning last week, there was a loose slab that when lifted revealed a few things that had been lost over the years, this book being one of them, the name was "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, I opened the page 138 where I'd left off last and started reading until Rose had realized I couldn't listen to her speaking, she eventually followed my cue and had left me alone...