after they met her

fourtyseven

i v a n a

Time had become meaningless.

I had no way of knowing if only seconds, minutes, or even hours had already passed since I first woke up in this place.

Everything blurred together in an endless cycle of aching muscles, burning thirst, and suffocating silence. The darkness wasn't complete, but it may as well have been. The flickering yellow light from the humming bulbs overhead only added to the misery, casting long, ghostly shadows across the cold concrete floor. I could feel the weight of it—the isolation, the hopelessness—settling into my bones.

The cell was small, just big enough for me to stretch out if I dared to lie on the icy floor. I had shifted as much as I could, twisting and turning until I found a way to sit without feeling every bruise on my body.

The chains that had once bound my hands were gone now, but the cold metal was still a vivid memory. The sound of them clinking together echoed in my mind.

The walls were rough, made of stone, damp in places where water had seeped through cracks over what had to be years of neglect.

I shivered.

There were no windows, no sense of time passing, just the soft humming of the fluorescent lights overhead and the sharp, metallic scent of the room.

A single barred door separated me from the long, seemingly endless hallway beyond. I couldn't see where it led. I couldn't even see the end. The hallway stretched on and on, disappearing into the shadows. Occasionally, I'd hear faint echoes—like distant footsteps or voices, but they were too far away to make sense of.

Across from me, Glenn lay slumped in his cell, unmoving, his breathing so faint I wondered if he was even alive.

He spent most of the time asleep, or at least pretending to be.

Glenn didn't look like the person in the pictures I had been seeing. Not anymore. Understandably so.

His hair was longer, dirtier, and his face bore the unmistakable signs of years of hardship.

He was thin, impossibly thin, like he hadn't had a proper meal in years. His cheeks were hollow, and his skin was pale, marred with bruises and cuts in various stages of healing.

His clothes were torn and filthy, hanging off his skeletal frame. The resemblance to the brother I had once imagined was hard to find. Matthew always said we shared features, something about the shape of our eyes or the lines of our jaw. But staring at Glenn now, I couldn't see it. He was just... broken.

I shook the thought from my mind, trying to distract myself from the growing panic inside me.

I can't think like this. I can't let this place consume me.

I needed to hear something.

Anything.

The silence was maddening.

"Hello? Hello!" I called out, my voice hoarse from thirst. "Is anyone there?"

Nothing. Just the hum of the lights.

"Hello! Can anyone hear me? Please!" I shouted louder, my voice echoing off the cold, unfeeling walls. My heart raced, and I felt the crushing weight of isolation pressing down on me again.

Glenn stirred at the sound of my voice, shifting slightly but still keeping his eyes closed. I thought he was going to ignore me, as he had so many times before, but this time he mumbled something under his breath, his voice a gravelly whisper.

"They can't hear you."

I frowned. "What?"

"The last people in here... they've been dead a long time." He spoke so casually, like it was an unimportant fact.