The Belly of Bygone Days

Blind Man's Confession

DAY XXX

The calendar in the common room had been removed. For a few weeks following, Doris tried to keep track of the passing days, but she soon gave up. What was the point? It wasn't like they'd been given an end date to the experimentation. They hadn't been given any sort of time frame at all. For all Doris knew, this was going to be her whole life.

"This needs to end," Yakov muttered quietly, as though to himself.

Doris looked up from the book she was reading. Oliver had given it to her, claiming she would enjoy it. It turned out to be a book for small children, filled with talking animals. Contrary to Oliver's claims, she was not enjoying it in the slightest, but she read it all the same.

"These experiments," Yakov continued. "They're inhumane. They can't force us to stay in this hellhole, not if we don't want to. They can't keep torturing us like this. It needs to end."

Doris glanced nervously at the scientists who were in the common room with them, supervising them. "Don't say things like that, Yakov," she cautioned. "They might hear you."

"Then let them hear," he snapped. "I don't care." His face was impassive, his eyes hollow and dull; eyes that had once been blue but were now as black as night. He said he preferred them this colour, but Doris found them unnerving. "It's not like they can do anything to us. Anything worse than what they're already doing, I mean."

"It could always be worse," Doris whispered. Ever since his eyes changed colour, she'd noticed a change in him. He had grown sullen. Aggressive. "Please don't do anything reckless," she implored him. She had already lost her brother; she didn't want to have to lose her best friend, too.

Yakov shot her a sidelong look but didn't say anything more.

Doris looked down at the book Oliver had given her. She didn't really feel like reading it any more. It brought back too many unpleasant memories; stirred up too much guilt. Leaving both the book and Yakov behind, she went over to Elias and his mural.

"What is it, Doris?" he asked, his back turned to her.

"How—"

"I recognised your footsteps. The sound is... distinct."

Doris wasn't sure whether or not she ought to take this as a compliment. She cast her gaze across the mural's current state. The depiction of the village was long gone, hidden behind a frenzied mess of strokes and splashes. The only thing that remained was the girl with the kite, now running through a battlefield of swirling, contrasting colours.

"I'm afraid I'm not much in the mood to talk today," Elias told her, flicking the paintbrush about, leaving haphazard gashes of red paint wherever it hit.

"That's ok," Doris replied. "I'm happy to just watch you work."

Elias sighed. The paintbrush became still. "It's not work," he muttered. "It's not even art."

Doris tilted her head to the side. "What do you mean?"

"It's just paint. Paint on a wall."

"Aren't all paintings just paint on a wall?"

"Only in the technical sense." He continued to stare at the wall in front of him. "Is it even any good?" he asked. "Do you like it, Doris? Do you like what you see?"

"I do," she answered truthfully. Although she didn't understand the meaning behind the picture, she liked the way the colours swirled and danced around each other. "I like it a lot."

"Well I don't." The paintbrush slipped from his fingers. Before Doris knew quite what was happening, Elias had picked up a tin of black paint and was furiously splashing the contents across his work. "It's just paint, Doris," he said, his voice trembling, rising in volume. "Nothing but paint. There's no life in it. No heart. No... no vision." He hurled the empty tin away and picked up another. Thick red paint splattered across the wall, dripping down to pool on the floor. It looked like blood.

"Art is all about choices. Colours, shapes, lines. The artist orders them all with careful deliberation, using each element to tell his story. But how can he do that when he's left alone in the dark? What good is an artist who can't... who can't even..."

With an anguished roar, he threw the entire tin at the wall before throwing himself at it, slamming his fists into the dripping paint. By now the others had begun to gather around them. Only Yakov kept his distance.

"Elias," Oliver frowned, shaking his head from side to side. "You're getting paint all over your uniform. You should have asked one of the scientists for a smock."

"You don't get it!" Elias screamed. He dropped to his knees, pressing his hands against his eyes, smearing paint across his face, getting it into his hair. "You just. Don't. Get it."

Swapping a nervous glance with Hans, Doris gingerly approached Elias, joining him on the floor. She could feel the spilled paint soaking into the knee of her pants, but she didn't care. "What don't we get, Elias?" she asked softly.

He was trembling. His breath was coming out in short, sharp gasps. When he finally looked up at her, his face was wet with tears. He pushed back his long fringe, revealing a pair of shockingly pale eyes. "I'm going blind," he croaked. "At the rate it's progressing, I've two, maybe three more weeks until my vision is gone completely."

"Oh, Elias," Doris breathed, unable to take her eyes off the milky orbs.

"S-s-s," Hans stammered, crouching down beside Doris. He reached out and put his hand on Elias' shoulder. "S-s-s-sorry."

"The Peacemaker Squad," Elias continued, his voice barely more than a broken whisper. "It was a mistake. It was never going to work. It failed." He lowered his head, letting his fringe flop back across his ruined eyes. "We failed."