The Unnamed Series: Assimilate

A Box of Nothing

It stayed closed. It never budged, never moved, nobody came in or out. There was nothing. No windows, no tables, no chairs, no beds. It stayed closed. There was a  singular feature in the room, the door.

The light taps of small footsteps echoed around the room. The sound bounced off the dusty stone walls. There was a boy stood in the center of the room, pacing  hurriedly. His hands clutched his forearms as he moved, and his breaths  became quicker and quicker.

Without warning, there was a loud plop. The boy fell back onto the cold stone floor, his skinny arms sprawled out.

A dry, high-pitched voice pinged from wall to wall.

"One-Hundred"

His hair fell over his  eyes, overgrown and covered in black dust. His scrawny body laid flat,  matching his shallow breaths. The door was only inches away from his  head. His boney finger reached out, touching the cold metal. A shiver  moved up his spine. Something was coming.

In one quick movement,  the frail boy spun away from the door, moving back and back into a dark  corner of the room. When he sat, he heard a loud crack, and his hands  touched something strange. Bones.

Panicked, he moved, scurrying away once more. His hazel eyes were almost trembling as much as his body.

"Who-"

Loud sirens blared. The sound echoed around the room, becoming louder, louder, louder. It was deafening.

His hands moved over his  ears, he curled into a ball, but nothing helped. A ringing grew louder  in his ears, and then, there was complete silence. It stayed that way  for a time. The only noise was that quiet ringing in his ears.

A loud squeak shocked  the boy. He quickly sat up, his eyes scanned the room, but he saw  nothing, nothing but that unmoving door. Only, it moved. For the first  time, the door had opened.

Figures stood in the doorway, armed with large metal things.  They went in, pointing them, their gazes sweeping through the room.  They didn't see him at first. When they did, their eyes widened.  Shocked, one of the figures stepped into the light. His mouth moved, but  no words came from it. There was only ringing.

The boy stood frozen,  trembling, confused. The men took no steps closer. Again one of their  mouths moved, but nothing came from it. The boy moved his hand out, a  piercing gaze was shot at him, and those strange metal things were trained on him. His hand quickly recoiled.

The man still had his weapon trained, his finger hovering over the trigger, tensed, but he didn't pull it.

Closing his eyes with a sigh, the man took a step back, and together the figures left.

In the distance, he could finally hear their words.

"It's just a box of nothing."