Gilded Cage

christian

Luce

"What does he do to us?"

Delilah looks at me, bright eyes unblinking. "What do you mean?"

"What does he want us for? I'm assuming there's a reason he's locked us down here and he hasn't just done this for a laugh." Her eyes widen, stopping me before I continue to take out my growing frustration on her. I pinch the bridge of my nose, inhale deep and slow. "Sorry. I just... want to know. I want to be prepared."

"That's why you faked sleep." She says it as a statement, relaying a fact rather than asking a question. I nod. "That's smart."

"Thank you."

She offers a smile, small and brief enough I question if it was really there at all.

"It was him you were speaking with, then?" I ask. I hadn't heard the majority of what was said, also couldn't identify the voices, just that one was deeper than the other; given I'm in a cell and she's down here with me, she's a safe bet for one of the voices, and unless anyone else is here he'll be the other.

"While you were 'unconscious'?" Another smile is thrown my way, this one more obvious than the last. There'a an edge to her voice, a conspiratorial camaraderie; we share a secret, but I'm not quite sure if I should have trusted her with it. Saying that, friend or foe, she's down here with me. And I can learn from talking with her.

"Yes."

Body language isn't a reliable lie-detector: people can be frighteningly good actors. Her eyes don't drift to one direction or another, nor do they blink more or less. Doesn't fidget either, holds her hands still in her lap.

At last, she says, "I told him I want you to live longer." She seems to consider her next words — watches me to see if I can handle the weight of them. "Than usual."

I doubted I'd be the first, yet what should just be a stutter in the conversation trails off into a silence I can't find the words to break.

Than usual.

It hits me now. A delayed reaction, definitely, but the gravity of what's happening comes barrelling into me, knocking the air from my lungs. I can almost smell the dirt piling on top of me; see it rain down into my dull, unblinking eyes, open and staring blindly forevermore as the soil comes to cover them and the rest of my rotting body. I'll probably be buried somewhere obscure, no tombstone to mark where the worms will eat my decaying form. I'm far from religious but god, please no — that's even if he buries me whole. What if he cuts me up? Takes trophies? Wants to do as the worms and flies and earth will do and consume me...

Panic rises and I try my hardest to swallow it, contain it. But she sees. Of course she sees, damned perceptive woman... I'm not hiding it all that well, I'll admit. But I've donned mask after mask over the years, and while my poker face isn't perfect I hoped I could hide behind it until I gathered my bearings enough to think.

She shifts slightly, leaning towards me. Her hand extends slightly in my direction, twitches as she seems to reconsider. Then it lowers back into her lap as she settles into the same position as before, back against the chair and her legs crossed before her. Saying nothing, she averts her gaze for a while, seeming to find a dust-mark on her jeans particularly interesting. An attempt at giving me privacy.