Novocaine

cellmates assemble

He was stuck in a mold of dried cement shaped to be an ocean sized cube.

The air was thick with dust and it became progressively harder to take breaths no matter how large or small they were. He was trapped in a cage of stone and metal and had no way of leaving. The doors - more so proper bars rather than the typical reinforced glass the room doors were made of - were the only source of fresh air while the window, another version of the door but on a much smaller, rectangular scale. Whatever vile substance that crawled in from the entry of a pathetic excuse for a window in the form of a gas was repulsive, it made his teeth ache and left an uncertain feeling of doubt by the amount of times he'd shivered in the past minute. Doubt if wherever he was now would lead to him returning to his white room all in one piece and all in good - or as good as it could be - health.

He was doubled over, hands covered in thick layers of dust and boots caked with mud, his face twisted in disgust when the smell of rotten food and feces reached his nose, it caused him to shy away from one corner of the room, the other three corners weren't any better. One had a small fleet of dark ovals that moved and shifted over each other, the antennas of the creatures changed direction ever so often. Cockroaches. He hated them but he had come to find their inability to just die fascinating.

If humanity had that ability there would not have been two billion lives gone, like feathers in the wind, far away and forgotten. There would not have been another startling four billion lives slaughtered by the Earth itself and whatever beings there were outside the walls. Would there have been casualties if humans had the same stability to staying alive just as roaches did?

Humanity did not have any ability but to invade, conquer, destroy and abandon. The four qualities that are inside each and every person who still stands to live another day, the same qualities that can never change, alternate slightly in terms of how the actions are executed, yes, but habit imbedded into people does not die out, it simply survives and appears after prolonged periods of time. It is expected but remains a complete and utter surprise when either invasion, conquering, destruction or abandonment occurs, a shock that slaps one across the face and leaves them confused and shattered. Humanity.

He rubbed his temples and glared at the the corner opposite to him, slicked with slime and broken bricks, he'd steered clear from that and stood now by the window. The only space in the cell - it could officially be named that for even his guard muttered it beneath their breath. - was in the center, but why stand in the center when the unknown could snatch you away and throttle you into another existence or realisation. He wasn't afraid of the unknown, in fact, he would welcome it with open arms and a shared tea if he could, he'd had a fetish for the tea his mother made - cinnamon,mint and lemon, a mixture he'd found himself to be fond of after his hesitance when his mother first told him what it was made of. Something warm, bitter, sweet and somewhat sour.

He hadn't had tea since he arrived at the Murge. Six months since he had seen his mother or any of his siblings. Six months since he last saw them alive. They could be dead for all he knew, it was the blast that sent him here in the first place, his one and only reason to not leave was that what would he do after? He scoffed at the thought, he wasn't even certain if there was a way to leave the Murge. There may be but none had reached his ears nor have been stored in his knowledge.

The groaning of metal caught his attention, he watched as two guards, both in large black bodysuits with tinted plastic helmets that divided them from him, struggled to open to barred door before they waited, one of the two gestured to him to follow them and he complied tiredly. The smell had rose and had turned into a hammer than pounded at the brinks of his mind, demanding his attention even if he had no idea how to do so. "Subject five-oh-four is being prepped for detoxification procedure, subjects five-oh-three and five-two-four are scheduled for the preparation at seventeen-hundred hours, do we have clearance?"