Somewhere Beneath the City
The room is the same.
Concrete walls, gray.
Concrete floor, gray.
Concrete cot, harder than the floor.
No windows. No clocks. No natural light.
No idea how long she's been here.
Could be days. Could be weeks. Could be forever. Time lost meaning somewhere between the fourth injection and the silence that followed.
But today, something is different.
There's a sound.
It starts small—barely audible. A soft hum from above. Her eyes snap to the corner of the ceiling, just left of the flickering light. There, a dark circle, mesh-covered.
A speaker.
She stares at it. Doesn't move. Doesn't blink. Her heart thuds like a warning.
Then—
A voice.
Male. Calm. Smooth as running water. Not mocking. Not angry. Just... there.
"They left you."
Her breath catches.
"You're better off here."
She lurches upright, eyes burning.
"Rick never came."
The name slices her open.
"He knew you were taken. And he chose to stay."
She screams.
"Liar! You're a liar! Shut up!"
The voice does not answer. It doesn't need to.
It already knows how to hurt her.
—
The next time it speaks, it's the same words.
Same tone. Same rhythm. Like it's been recorded.
But there's something worse now.
Now, she expects it.
She paces the cell in tight circles, counting cracks in the wall, chewing her thumbnail raw. Every few minutes, her gaze jumps to the speaker.
"They left you."
Sometimes it's two hours before it speaks again. Sometimes it's fifteen minutes.
"You're better off here."
Sometimes she screams. Sometimes she sobs.
Sometimes she just curls up on the cot, face to the wall, shaking.
"Rick never came."
Other times, she begs it to talk.
She whispers to the speaker like it's a priest and she's come to confess.
"He knew you were taken. And he chose to stay."
And then... silence.
Hours of it. Maybe a day. She doesn't know.
That's when it gets worse.
When the voice doesn't speak, she starts saying the words herself. Mouthing them. Just to fill the quiet.
"They left me."
"Rick never came."
"He chose to stay."
Her voice grows flat. Like the recordings. Like him.
She hates it. Hates herself.
Then the speaker crackles to life, and she jumps like it's God answering her prayers.
"You don't belong to them anymore."
"You belong here."
Her breath catches.
The words wrap around her like chains made of honey.
YOU ARE READING
When The World Ends
Action"What happens when the world ends?" He asks in my arms. "We build it back up again." Jade Jacklyn Joy is a 25 year old girl who had a rough upbring. She was the Grimes babysitter for 9 years before the apocalypse happened. Spending that much time w...
