It had been three days.
Aidan had seen nothing, heard nothing, smelled nothing, and felt nothing other than the smooth, paint chipped walls that he clung to as he meandered the halls. He had encountered two sets of stairs since the first day, one going down, and another leading him upward again. He was parched and hungry, with no way of telling whether or not there was any water. Or food. Or anything. Not without leaving the walls and he didn't want to do that. He'd have nothing then. Except the floor and that was not a good enough point of reference for him.
His knee swelled. He couldn't see it, but when he became too exahsted to move he felt it. It was engorged, the size of an apple, and each poke and prod stung like nothing he'd felt before (except for the crunch of bones against the stairs, banging his head off stairwallstairwall, feeling those walls squeezing in on him, strangling the breath from his body). He could barely walk on it and each step was excruciating. But they didn't always make his knees buckle, sending him spiraling to the floor away from the wall. Not always. It happened at random spurts. Sometimes he could put all his weight on that leg and it would be fine. Other times, he had to press the edge of his toe to the floor and the pain would shoot up through his leg, from knee to thigh and foot to knee. He'd collapse, panting, clutching his knee and struggling to push his weight off of it. To get back to the wall. Over and over again. Never knew when it would happen.
It would be dangerous if was teetering on the edge of stairs when it happened.
So he crawled. It wasn't really degrading himself. No one was watching him. There was no one here. Just the quiet, depthless darkness that surrounded him on all sides, smothering him. Except the...voice. Whoever brought him here. He didn't know which was more reassuring. Believing he was watching, seeing Aidan degrade and dehumanize himself, or not watching and leaving Aidan completely and utterly alone. He didn't think about it. Not thinking became as easy as breathing in this empty darkness. Thinking made him rushed, frantic, bored. He couldn't afford to rush.
He couldn't afford to dawdle.
Aidan paused against The Wall, pressing the palms of his hands to it and sinking to his bottom. The floor was cold and hard and uncomfortable, but it didn't matter. He was tired. So tired. He needed to sleep. Sleeping made him lose track of time (it was so easy to cover his thoughts with counting. Sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, twenty-four hours in a day, seven days in a week), he didn't like to do it. But he was tired. Oh so tired.
And so thirsty.
He'd tried to drink his urine on the second day but he couldn't. Not because the idea revolted him (although it did) but because he had nothing to use. He couldn't...it didn't....
He was so thirsty.
Tired and weak Aidan lowered himself to the floor, pressing his knees against his chest and wrapping his arms around them to stave off the cold. He let just a little bit of himself change. Morphing only slightly, taken on those fiery-warm-hot-oh-please qualities of a phoenix. Just little changes. Just enough to keep him warm. He didn't want to burn his clothes and nor did he want to take them off. He could lose them. He might need them.
So he curled in on himself and squeezed his eyes shut. Not that it mattered. He'd sleep for an hour. That should be enough. Trusting his body to obey him he let himself relax, breathing deep, but not hard, and slipped into sleep.
.:.:.::.:.:.
drip
Aidan stirred, rolling off his bad leg and easing closer to the wall.
drip
God...so loud. So bloody loud. Didn't they know he was sleeping?
drip
Something cold splashed against his skin and he shivered, squirming closer to the wall, further from the noise.
The noise.
Aidan bolted upright with a gasp.
There was light! Oh god, thank-god, thank jesus, thank every deity and saint and...and....thank-you. Oh, and wasn't it a beautiful sight? Not bright, but it stung his eyes. He squinted at it, blinking back the pain so he could stare. It was dim and grey, flickering on and off erratically. It came in flashes, engulfing the darkness with a bright flash of white which stung his eyes until they adjusted to the dull, beautiful grey. Then it would flicker off with a crackle of electricity and the room-hall-place would be bathed in depthless black once again.
Black-white-grey.
drip
Aidan snapped his head toward the noise. The glorious, beautiful noise. He rose to his feet (no stairs in sight), dragging them, trembling and weak, across the floor.
Black-white-grey.
drip
Aidan inhaled deeply. The room was filled with smells. Mostly must and mold with stung his nose, but oh god, it was beautiful anyway. He loved it. There were so many smells. He'd never...he'd never known so many things could have such an individual distinct sent.
Rust, dried paint, gypsum, metal, electricity, glass, water.
Water.
Black-white-grey.
drip
splash
He felt it. The cold trickle of water spraying weakly over his barefoot. He dropped down to his knees and crawled forward, hands cupped and searching.
Black-white-grey.
drip
splash
He gasped as the first droplet exploded against his fingers. He lifted his hands to his mouth and licked them. Stale, bitter, musty, tangy like rust. But water. He let out a whoop (and heard it!) and shoved his hands beneath the...the what?
Aidan sat back on his haunches and lifted his head.
Black
He could see nothing, but the steady drip of water continued. He hadn't noticed it before, but there was a cautious trickle, and a series of quieter drips before each splash of watcher against his hands.
White
Out of the blinding burst of light he caught the outline of something. The black shapes illuminated by lightening. Whatever it was it was large, complicated. Massive and intricate. The metallic smell of rust assaulted his senses and he lifted a hand to cover his nose. The scent was like knives digging into his nostrils and throat.
Grey
The light dimmed, his eyes focused. It was dark, but so much brighter than the depthless blackness he'd been living in. It was just enough to see by. Just enough to understand.
He could see where the water was coming from. There was a tube of metal crossing the ceiling above, ducking down near the edge of the wall. Its neck sloped and shortened, ending in a single, rusty faucet with an iron handle. Water dripped out of it, slow and steady, one drop at a time. The water splashed against a thin sheet of rusty metal, curved into the shape of a V that ended suddenly perhaps a meter or so away from the wall. The water dangled on the peaked edge of it, growing as more joined it until it became fat and heavy. It swayed precariously then dropped onto a second sheet of metal.
Aidan couldn't tell which way it went from there, the metal spread out in numerous directions, but each droplet eventually gathered together again, on a thicker sheet of metal this time, which stretched out above Aidan's head.
The thing, in its entirety, was perhaps four or five square meters. It was gigantic. And the entire space between it was filled with pipes and sheets of metal. Gears, even, although they were still. It was...entirely too complicated. There were too many things in the way to actually see anything, but in the center of the very back of the contraption was what appeared to be a curtain. Jet black and made of something too heavy to see through.
Black-white-grey.
drip
And suddenly the room was properly illuminated, brighter than the dim grey and the fathomless black, but not as eye-blinding as the flashes of lightening-white. Properly lighted, like a room. Like a house. Like a home.
"Good evening, Aidan. Sleep well?"
Aidan jumped and swung around, causing a sharp bolt of pain to explode in his injured knee. He collapsed face-first onto the floor, causing his already broken nose to crunch a second time, sending blood shooting up his nostrils. He snorted it out and gasped, raising his torso and shaking the nausea from his head.
Laughter broke through the room, a quiet, almost polite, sort of chuckle.
The voice. There was no one else in the room, it was just the voice.
"Who are you?!" wasting no time Aidan rose to his feet, legs trembling like that of a newborn colt, What do you want? Let me out of h-." His breath caught and he coughed, doubling over. It hurt too much to yell. He needed a drink.
"Screw him, he gasped, dropping back to his hands and knees he made his way toward the drip.
Only...it wasn't there anymore.
He craned his neck, looking up at the teetering sheet of metal. He saw no droplet collecting on the edge. Watching it in silence (counted the secondsminutes in his head), he deduced that no more was coming.
A moan tore itself from his cracked lips and he tumbled back against the floor.
"Now, now, Aidan. I shall have none of that. You're acting like a child."
A child.
Images of Lillian and Mathew bombarded his mind. Mathew grinning, barely a month old, and holding his chubby hands out for someone to pick him up. Always. Constantly, wanting to be held. He was such an affection child. Lillian, his beautiful little girl, learning to braid her hair for the very first time. She'd plated her own, then mommy's, and even tried to braid Aidan's short, scruffy locks. Every doll and piece of string in the house wasn't safe from her braid-itching fingers.
The memories vanished as quickly as they came and Aidan was left dazed and tired.
"Are you hungry, Aidan? Thirsty?"
Aidan nodded without thinking, his cheek rubbing against the cold, stone floor. He didn't want to stand up. He was too tired. Time to go back to sleep.
"There's water for you Aidan. Cool, icy water. As much as you want. As much as you can drink. And food. All the food you can imagine. Tell me, Aidan, what do you want to eat?"
Aidan smiled and shut his eyes, nuzzling into the floor.
What was wrong with him, what was he doing?
"Meatloaf. Homemade. And pasta with cheese and chicken and spices. And...and lasagna. With feta cheese and thick layers of hamburger. Homemade sauce too, not the canned stuff. Theresa only ever used the canned stuff. And peanut butter sandwiches drizzled with thick, crunchy peanut butter. I miss peanut butter."
"That's good...very good. Do you want it?"
"Yes...yes please."
"Get up."
He did, but it was hard and his body felt like it was made of lead. He just wanted to sleep. Lie down and sleep forever. He was so tired.
"Where's your dice?"
Aidan's hand sank into his pocket, closing around the cube. He felt the indents biting into his skin and pulled it out, holding it flat on his palm.
"We're going to play another game."
"Okay."
"You're going to roll your die - not yet! - and then you're going to go inside the machine."
"Machine?" Aidan's brow furrowed.
"Behind you."
Aidan cast a glance at the rusting metal contraption and frowned, Its not a machine."
"Ah, but looks can be deceiving, can't they Aidan?"
He didn't know what that meant. He was tired.
"You will roll your dice, and then you'll see the machine work. I want you to go into the machine. I want you to go to the curtain. There's food behind it Aidan, mountains of the most tantalizing food you've ever laid eyes on, and the clearest, coldest water."
Aidan's mouth began to water. He nodded his head emptily, like it was being pulled by string, and made to roll his dice.
The voice stopped him,"Ah, you're being hasty, Aidan. Don't you want to know what the dice will do."
No. "Yes." No.
"Each number on the die is like a key turning on the ignition in a car, like a plug for a kitchen appliance."
"Like a battery?" Aidan offered sleepily.
"Indeed, like a battery."
"What does it turn on?"
"Individual sections of the machine. I'll show you."
Aidan turned toward the contraption, squinting through the light (why did it hurt again?). Something unseen and far away, like the voice, rattled and clinked against another surface. Aidan watched with wide eyes as the contraption responded. A long slender spike of metal unfolded itself from the rusty tubes. It was attached to a gear that slowly swung it around a pipe. The spike drew itself upward on a varnished hinge, hanging amid the metal like a vertical scythe. Aidan was suddenly reminded of a praying mantis' forelimbs, thick and sharp and ready to stab. A whirring sound filled the room and the blade swung faster, becoming a blur of dark metal. Suddenly, it began to stab. It broke through rusted metal pipes, sending rust, rot, and frothy, white mold spewing to the floor. And it didn't stop. It just got faster and faster. Faster and faster. Jabbing and breaking metal as it went.
There was a second clunk at the blade froze. It retracted back into itself and disappeared into the myriad of piped and sheets.
"Roll your die."