Gilded Cage

luce

Luce

Voices drag me from the darkness. Then the smell of something plastic-y, like shopping bags, hits my nose.

Where am I?

My limbs are both heavy yet ache for movement, body both restless and lethargic. Why do I feel so... odd? Mind fogged and thoughts slow to surface, trying to think feels futile. Fragments of memories float like balloons in a lazy wind; they should be easy to reach but they slip through my hand as if they're just mist.

Dull light filters through my closed eyelids, and while I could open my eyes and look about, I don't want to. Not knowing where I am, who I'm with... it's disconcerting. I want to get my bearings first and foremost.

Faking sleep is hard. Everyone's done it at some point — whether it's to hide from the palpable presence lurking in the corner of your bedroom when you jolt awake at 3am, or to avoid the awkward pleasantries and goodbyes when waking beside the one-night-stand you don't exactly regret but have no intention of seeing again. There's pressure those times as the real or imagined consequences loom over you; this, life quite probably on the line, is worse.

Breaths are easier to manage than movements. Those small, involuntary shudders that happen as the fear seeps in. Elise taught me some methods to stay calm — breathing exercises and grounding techniques that, granted, do help a bit now. But those shudders I can't help are what I fear will give me away.

People tell you to 'go to your happy place' when trying to calm down, but I've never found mine. So instead I focus on the voices. They're just noise at first; noise that, having already sharpened into two distinct voices, begins forming words that my mind still struggles to connect to their meanings...

"Stop this."

Silence falls, settles thick and heavy over me and whoever else is here.

The back of my neck prickles, burns as though I'm being watched.

Do they know?

People say it's 'fight or flight' but there's a third instinct and it's freeze, and my default unfortunately seems to be the latter. But I struggle against my useless default, push it aside and just breathe. Carry on exactly as I've been doing for however long I've been doing it so far. Deep, even breaths. Try and keep still but not stiffly so. Just don't react. Don't react.

Did I move? Breathe too loudly? Make a small sound?

A long while passes. The tension thickens the air, forms a lump in my throat that seems to grow as I resist the urge to swallow it, afraid it'll sound as loud to others as it will in my own ears. I need to know more: where I am, why I'm here, who's here with me...

"You're awake."

Shit.

With no other options, I open my eyes. Squint a little against the light, though it's dull. Beneath me is a blue mat. A camping mat? It crinkles a little as I shift on it, trying to organise my uncoordinated and aching limbs so I can pull myself into a sitting position. Room spinning before my eyes, head swirling with it, I have to put an arm out to one side to support my swaying frame. My hand rests palm-down on bare concrete, cold and rough to the touch as fine-grain sandpaper. That might be why I'm on the mat. How considerate.

There's bars before me, like those in a prison, and a woman sits beyond them.

Is she in a cell or am I?

A quick flick of my eyes to the left then right gives me the answer which, granted, was obvious anyway.

I am.