Stone Cold

Wake

My eyes open and I see only darkness.

Waking a bit more, I listen for a long moment but hear only silence.

I am alone.

What the hell? I move my head from side to side, and I am met both times by a seemingly endless black. I have no idea how I got here in this dark place, or even where 'here' is.

My eyes finally begin to adjust and I can see most of my surroundings under the dim, almost nonexistent light from the bulb attached to the ceiling. I visually follow a trail from the only light source in this enclosed space, down the cement walls sealing me in this room.

Now that it's no longer completely dark, I finally notice a figure huddled against the wall opposite of mine, though in this lighting it could pass as a dark mass converged in the corner, with tendrils of ebony smoke curling outwards and ever closer. This is probably what I would have imagined if I didn't recognize the iridescent pale skin of arms protruding from a baggy black shirt, though my mind still takes a minute to process reality versus the evil smoke theory.

I'm not actually alone.

I feel my body instantly freeze, waiting for a sound, a look, an attack, anything from the stranger curled up in the corner. Staring at what the light allows me enough vision to tell is the build of a man, I'm suddenly struck by a terrible thought. Is he dead? Am I stuck in a small, dark room with a fucking corpse?

Amidst my panic, I register the man's slight shifting, calming some of my worries. It was the most subtle of movements, one I wouldn't have caught if I hadn't been staring so intently at him.

When I finally find my voice, I'm surprised at how calm, albeit scratchy from not being used, I sound. "Hey, um," I pause to clear my throat, then I start again, managing to bring my voice above a hoarse whisper. "Hey, excuse me. Are you okay? Where are we?"

No response.

I wait a minute. "What's your name? Do you know what's going on?"

Again, nothing.

Okay. So, not a talker. Seems reasonable, given the circumstances. I still don't know how I'm handling this so well. Either way, his inactivity still unsettles me, so I try one more time. "Hey man, are you okay? Are you hurt or anything? I'm starting to get really worried by how quiet you're being. Are you-"

I'm silenced by the sudden sight of piercing eyes, flooded by a shade of pure black, as he whips around to look at me. Not his whole body, just his head, so quickly that I missed the action itself.

I feel a chill claw it's way up my skin as my body freezes. In fright or curiosity, I'm not sure: perhaps both. What I do know for certain is that I've never seen eyes like that on a human being before.

After what seems an eternity of being held within the intensity of his gaze, he finally turns away and resumes his previous huddled position, almost exactly. It's as if he never moved at all, and I wonder if I had imagined the whole thing.

Nevertheless, I take the experience as my cue to stop talking to him.

Instead, I attempt sort through my memories from before I woke up here. I think I had been going to work, taking the usual route on my bike to my family's restaurant. I was using the silence of the trip to again consider what I was supposed to do with my life as I certainly couldn't bus tables for my parents business for the rest of it. I had made the turn from Railroad Avenue onto Ellis Street, still a few blocks away from my destination, and then... nothing.

No crash, no attack, nothing to suggest how I lost my memory. Just one minute battling against the wind on my bike, and the next...

Here.

A blinding light suddenly fills my vision and the sound of metal scraping against metal echoes through the room, the source of it residing somewhere at the bottom edge of the wall I can now see is a door. The light grows bigger, as if someone had carved out a small chunk of wall and is slowly lifting it. Before I have a chance to react beyond squinting against the painful brightness and attempting to block it with my hands, something is shoved through the opening and the latch slams closed with a definitive echo.

Hesitantly, and working through my sore limbs, I crawl towards the new object, using my touch to identify the cold and smooth surface as a plate, maybe with stale bread on it? I confirm this when my sight once again adjusts to the small amount of light.

Am I in prison? Do they, whoever "they" are, think I committed some kind of crime? My thoughts race and I feel the thick flood of panic begin to seep into my lungs, so I lean forward to knock on the closed latch.

"Hello? Is anybody there? Tell me where I am! If this is some kind of jail, please, I didn't do anything!" My knocking turns to slams against the cold, hard metal. Our of the corner of my darting eyes, I think I see the figure in the corner shift minutely towards, as if in contained curiosity, but I must have imagined it. "Hey! Someone answer me, I didn't do anything fucking wrong! Please!"

No one answers my cries. Amidst my increasing desperation, I begin to wonder if anyone ever will.