Prose

The first impression is of
darkness. Then the temperature hits you like a tonne of bricks. Stumbling,
lost, in an empty, lifeless forest at midnight on midwinter’s eve.
No sound, no smell, no taste. The
only feeling is of falling snow landing softly, threateningly; it wraps the
land in a freezing white blanket of fear and death.
 
Stepping forward, the eerie
creaking of ice underfoot. The dull, deadened onset of a blizzard. Raising a
hand before your eyes: you know it’s there; you cannot see it. Like static on a
television screen: darkness and snow.
 
No sound, no smell, no taste. The
only light radiating from your dying mobile phone.
 
Beep. The mobile phone you are calling has been switched off…Beep.
Flashing empty, the battery light fades…Beep. Flashing emergency calls only, the signal light fails…Beep. The screen goes
blank.
 
Darkness is restored. Fear
multiplies. Heart rate quickens. Numbness spreads, dreaded. Calm, like the eye
of a storm, you collapse.
 
Snow slows. Lights approach, and
go out. You stare blindly upward. Hands haul you upright. You stumble, land in
someone’s arms, are carried off.
 
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. The
gentle rhythm of your saviour’s footsteps carrying you away.
 
In the wrong direction.
 
Grasping, clutching at straws of
sanity. Peering into the bleak dimness, the motion stops. Grunts. A rumble like
thunder. Starts again.
 
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Inside
now. Fingers thawing slowly. Feet cramping as blood flows back to the starved
muscles.
 
An impression of light. Blinking
lethargically. You’re placed on a rubber-topped table under a cluster of
lights. Masked faces appear in the periphery of your vision.
 
An unexpected prick, then,
darkness, numbness, relief.
 
Surfacing abruptly into another
damp, dark, dank prison. Cautiously stretching cramped and stiff muscles,
rotating joints, testing to see how much you can remember. Not much: Cold,
dark, falling snow; lights, footsteps, a tacky but solid surface; a needle,
numbness, sleep.
 
…
 
It’s cold. Dank, dark, damp. You reach out a hand, touch the wall.
Foul-scented slime oozes between your fingers. You recoil, slipping blindly on
the grime-encrusted floor. Stifling sobs, retching, you curl into a foetal
position in the centre of your nightmare.
 
A breeze, light, warm and fresh. Familiar
footsteps echo solidly on the slimed walls. Hands grasp your shoulders, haul
you upright, lift you bodily into the air, and carry you towards the dazzling
daylight above.
 
You blink; miss your one chance to
see the world. Maybe tomorrow. But you’ve been saying that for years, ever
since your botched escape. How many years? Ten? Fifteen? A century? You have no
way of knowing. Ask. Vocal chords rusty from lack of use; a wretched croak.
Where did that come from? The scraped
soreness of your throat tells you.
 
The dull thudding of the footsteps
becomes harsher, louder, more forceful as you are carried through the door.
Dumped on the table. You lock your jaw in preparation for what’s to come. Held
down, tied to the table. They learnt their lesson the one time they didn’t.
 
Hands force your mouth open; a
metal gag is pushed in, tied to your head with bandages. A rubber tube poked
down into your mouth, prodding and pushing its way down your throat. A stinking
portion of liquefied scraps from last weeks’ Sunday lunch is poured down a
funnel, along the tube, into your stomach. The tube is retracted, making you
retch. The gag is untied and removed, but your mouth is held shut. They don’t
want you throwing up what little goodness there was in the rancid concoction of
rotting scraps and drugs.
 
Once again taken back to your
cell. Too drugged up to notice the world outside. No one cares. Someone did,
once. It can’t have been that long ago. Someone you loved, who loved you, but
who you were taken away from by these fiends.

Stirring from a drugged sleep,
putting the old memory back into gear. Where was it you were?
 
…
 
Back, back.
 
The laboratory. What was it they
were doing? It doesn’t really matter now. Must’ve been bad if you ended up
wanting to escape.
 
The screams. The haunting,
echoing, blood curdling screams that went on, day after day after day, and all
through the night.
 
The secret planning, just one
friend left. Wanting to take them with you, but the night of your escape, they
were taken too.
 
Just you left, locked into a
surgically sterile environment. No windows, one door, two fluorescent strip
lights, three guards, four cameras tracking your every move, five empty beds. One
full one. Yours.
 
The plan. You stuck to it, escaped
the lab, got under cover. Hadn’t counted on the weather. A blizzard, got lost.
Don’t know how. They found you. Not
the ones you were escaping from. What you thought was a new lot, determined to hold
you captive. Given an amnesiac, a drug that muddled with your mind and made you
sleep.
And now, locked in a slime-sullied
cell. It’s dark, damp, dank. And there’s nothing you can do about it. You stand;
stumble against the wall, skin makes contact with viscous mucus encrusting the
walls. Muffling a cry with your palm, you stumble away from the wall, towards
the centre of your squalid prison, slipping, falling on the dirt-covered floor.
Curling yourself inwards, the terrified sobs shudder through your prone form.
 …
 
 Footsteps echo numbly above your
head, stop, and start again, getting closer, lower, then begin to walk slowly
towards you. What feels like the same strong arms scoop you into their unwanted
embrace, carry you away, up towards the dazzling light.
 
 And then, an unexpected chance of
freedom. The arms clasp you tighter, you can feel the head attached to them
peering round furtively, one releases you, opens the door, the other, and the
body attached to it, carries you out.
 
 You are carried for what feels
like an age, back into the frozen woods. You are placed against a tree, a
familiar face, the one you once loved, floats into your line of vision. You
gasp, in a sudden rush of energy you fling your arms around their neck, sob
uncontrollably into their shoulder.
 
 Over their shoulder, you can see
the building that will shadow your dreams for years to come.
 
 The laboratory.