After everything that’s happened, you’d think I’d be able to watch anything life throws at me and not feel sickened in the slightest.

                Yet, fate just continues to shock and surprise in the most darkly hilarious of ways that I think it’s safe to say only fate, that coldhearted bastard, actually finds funny.

                I watch, my mind attempting to remain on emotional lockdown, as Julia removes each jar, one by one, from the shelf in her pitch-black closet, unscrews the hole-pocked lids, and tips out the naked body of another one of her significantly less beloved pets into her palm.

                They all shiver wordlessly as they land in Julia’s palm and willingly allow her to wrap her fingers around them, heating them up.  None of them have the mixed blessing of excessive body heat provided courtesy of Julia’s hot, sweaty toes bearing down on them for seven straight hours.  My heart wrenches particularly painfully in my chest as Gina rolls out of the bottom of the jar and into Julia’s hand.

                All of us are just skeletal shadows of our former selves, in mind and in body.  I know I’ve been losing weight the most rapidly out of us all, but seeing it in everyone else, it becomes much more apparent.  Even from afar, I can see it.

                The pale, sunlight-deprived skin.

                The tired, sunken bags under their unfocused eyes.

                The thin, shallow bodies wracked with the beginnings of malnourishment.

                More helpless than ever as each, in turn, lands gently in Julia’s hand and curl up against themselves for warmth, swallowed entirely by the overpowering strength of our totalitarian goddess’s fingers.

                I want to say something.  I want to yell out to them all and tell them I’m working as quickly as I can to get Julia to cut them all some slack and bring us back to where we once were.  I want to cry out to Gina and tell her something important.

                Any one of those things would lead to a one-way ticket into a jar as well, which would of course extinguish any scrappy, filthy dregs of hope all of us have of eventual escape.

                So I remain silent, watching as Julia feels over the bodies of her human hamsters, searching for God knows what concealed under their tiny, frail skins.  In an impossibly rare act of mercy, Julia seems to at least be aware that Anna’s pregnancy is already taking a strong enough toll and malnourishment would probably kill both mother and child, so she at least gets slightly more food than the rest, but it’s sure not much.

                I watch as Brian’s turn comes up, his head listing off to the side somewhat as he groggily blinks in Julia’s firm grip, readjusting his eyes to the rare sight of sunlight streaming in between the blinds.

                For a moment, we make eye contact.  He nods a few times, obviously still very out of it, but it’s unmistakable.  It’s comforting, despite seeing all of them like this, to see acknowledgement.

                Somehow, Brian hasn’t given up.  There’s a shred of belief in reality still in there.

                Julia goes down the line, essentially fondling the cold, thin bodies of each of her toys and holding some stale bread crumbs against their dry lips, trying to get them to eat.  They all manage to look me in the eye, the light nearly drained from them, but there nonetheless.

                The slight, barely visible smile that Gina gives me makes my heart want to burst, and at the same time makes me wish I could rise up and beat Julia to within an inch of her life as she playfully prods the paltry supply of bread crumbs against Gina’s face.  Julia’s fingers, wrapped possessively around Gina’s poor body, squeezing just a little tighter than she probably should given how weak Gina has become.  The closest thing Gina will be getting to an embrace.  I ache to have to watch.

                Swallowing this intermingled love and rage at all of this, knowing that Julia can’t see my face right now as I perch in her front breast pocket, I give Gina the biggest, most hopeful smile I can possibly muster, winking at her.

                The realest emotion I’ve displayed to anyone in however long it’s been.  The only real shred of love I have left for anyone in the world.  It feels good to show it, and hurts doubly as Julia plops Gina’s naked body back into the bottom of the jar before sprinkling down a hailstorm of the remaining bread crumbs upon her.

                Julia giggles as her pinched fingers sprinkle the crumbs down on Gina, who can only cower and flinch as the chunky pieces of food ricochet off of her back.

                I want to scream.

                But I can’t.  Not yet.  Not now.

                It’s at this moment, watching as Julia, finally sufficiently satisfied with humiliating Gina, screws the lid back on her jar and picks the minute glass house up in a firm fist before sliding it roughly back across the shelf in the dark, causing Gina to be knocked hard against the rounded interior wall of the jar as it comes to a stop.

                As the others follow suit, placed back in the shadowy, hellish prison of Julia’s bedroom closet, I feel something new welling up inside me.  Anger, aggression, passion… I can’t really say.  All I know, though, as I watch the huge door slam shut, is that it’s up to me now.  We’ve all been broken down to an essence we didn’t even know we had, but that doesn’t matter anymore.  We’ve hit the bottom level that existence has to offer, and the only way anything is going to happen now is if I can do something about it.

                Julia’s hand slides down into the breast pocket, her fingers sliding around me and squeezing me firmly.

                For a moment, I actually feel comforted.  Her fingers are still warm from holding Gina.

                That is, I feel comforted until Julia’s thumb finds its way under my bare junk and squeezes it hard against her palm like a little kid might while holding a cheap carnival toy.

                My eyes water with pain, although I’m not sure where exactly it’s coming from.

                This will end.  I swear it, this moment, on my life and on my soul, that this will end.  Somehow, someway.  No matter what it takes.  No matter how much I have to debase myself.

                No matter how many times I have to sell my soul.

                “Ready to finish our game, Jack?” Julia giggles, probably trying to entice me with some foreplay as she begins carnally kneading the lower half of my body between her fingers.

                “Oh, yeah,” I snicker enthusiastically with renewed resolve, lowering my face over Julia’s finger and kissing it loudly.  “Let’s play.”