Chapter 10
Emerson
I try to blink my eyes, but it doesn’t help. The light is blinding. Even through the little slits, I can see nothing, so I snap them shut. The heat is stifling. The air is hot as hell as I take a few deep breaths trying to figure out what the hell happened to me.
I move my sweaty limbs, and everything seems to ache. My wrist is the worst as I reach over with my right hand and rub at the left one. Pain shoots up my arm into my shoulder, and I wince.
I stretch out my legs and roll my shoulders before shoving to my feet the best I can. I turn away from the burning light and face the wall I’ve been lying against, apparently, for some time.
Now I pry my eyes open, but all I can see is the dirty rock wall in front of me. I avert my eyes to the left, but again, that blinding light keeps me from seeing anything useful.
I reach up and press my hands to the rock, feeling the slight coolness under my palms as I close my eyes and try to think. How the hell did I even get here? Where am I? My head throbs, blood rushing in my ears. I feel as though I’ve been beaten, but I can’t remember if I had been.
The smell in here is strong. The scent of urine, feces, and sweat all mix, hitting me at once, and I gag, doing my best not to throw up. I lower myself to the floor and sit down, curling into myself as the scalding light seems to burn my flesh when suddenly the light is gone. Like a light switch, it’s been turned off. I blink rapidly, looking left and right, trying to get my eyes to adjust to a new darkness, when a small light flips on. That’s when I hear the whimpers. I’m not alone.
As my vision slowly returns to normal, I can see the others. Are we in a cave? The walls are rock, or so it appears, but bars separate us. I whip my head to the left and see girls curled into themselves, much the same as I was. Then I turn to the right and see more.
My lips and mouth as so dry I don’t know if I can even speak, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.
“Hello?” I call out softly, but someone should have heard me.
“Don’t talk,” one warns softly. I spin around, looking at the girl to the left of me now as she stares at me with lifeless eyes.
“What? Why? What’s happening?” I ask. She shakes her head, and before I can come up with anything rational, a burst of water hits me. Not just any water. Freezing cold water.
I stand and try to move away from it, but it keeps following me. Someone is spraying me with a hose.
“Stop! That’s freezing,” I yell, only to get a laugh in return. “Stop!” I yell once more. The water turns off as I turn to face the front of my cell and see a man standing with the hose in one hand, the other latched onto the bar.
“Too cold?” he asks in a sneer.
“What’s happening? Where am I?” he smiles at me.
“You already know you won’t get the answers you want, right? None of them do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. None of them get the answers they want. Why am I here? What is happening? What I will tell you is this. When the lights go off, there is no talking. If you talk, you get the hose. If you get the hose, you’ll be cold. That’s going to be the only warning you’ll get, understand?” he asks me, but I don’t understand. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know what’s happening or what this place is.
“Who are you?”
“For all intents and purposes, I am your keeper.”
“My keeper?”
“I’ll be the one to decide if and when you eat. I’ll be the one to decide if you’re cold or hot. In fact, I’ll be the one making all your decisions from now on. That bucket there in the corner,” he says as I turn and look before looking back to him. “That’s your bathroom. You’ll shower when I say you shower, but seeing as you like to talk, you just got one.”
“I don’t understand!” I yell this time. He just laughs and slinks away from the cell as I step forward and grab the bars, shaking them. “What the hell is this place?” I scream right before the cold water hits me again. Now, I step back, drop to the floor, and curl into a ball on the floor until the water stops. When I can safely pry my eyes open, I see the girl next to me. Her arms are wrapped around her knees, her fingertips as bloody as her knees. She lifts her head to look at me, and dull, lifeless eyes burn straight through me.
“Don’t even try to get out. We all have,” she mumbles, her voice hoarse.
“What is this place?” I ask as I start to tremble from the cold.
“No one knows. Once you leave here, none have ever come back.”
“What do you mean?”
“They take groups at a time. The others never come back.”
“How long have you been here?”
“I don’t know. No more talking,” she says as I hear something, a motor of sorts kick on. Just when I think things can’t get any worse, they do. Cold air blasts me, causing me to gasp. The small light that had been on is now off and all there is is darkness and cold.
Tears run down my cheeks as I close my eyes and lay on the floor, curled into a ball. I don’t know what hell this is or how I even got here.
But now I’m afraid to find out.