The Seventh

Two: Day 61

Dear Simone:

Freya has been crying all day again. At first it was for the usual reason. She spent a good part of the morning clawing at the door, demanding to know if she’d received any messages from him. It’s so hard to stop your heart from breaking along with hers when she cries like that. Her grief at her abandonment runs deep.

Then Dru pinned her up against the door, and told her that if she didn’t stop crying she’d tear her throat out. Since then, Freya has been crying silently into my lap, quaking like a leaf. She fell asleep about an hour ago. Sorrow has exhausted her, and I know how that feels. Dru has kept to herself since, except for telling me that I shouldn’t side with babies if I know what’s good for me.

I can’t truly say that I blame Dru for her actions. She knows how scared we all are, but she chooses to hide her fear beneath an impenetrable mask, like the horrifying masks samurai used to wear to intimidate their enemies. It’s simply how she copes with the situation in which we find ourselves. She wishes to reflect the terror our captors have inflicted upon us back at themselves. It’s impossible to say how effective her strategy is without having contact with those that keep us here.

Everything here is automated. Our meals appear through hatches next to the dining table. The beds retract into the walls when the treadmills appear in the afternoons, and reappear afterwards, freshly made. The lights dim and brighten in time with the sun. If humans are indeed interacting with us, they are doing so from a distance.

We are guinea pigs in here, subjects in a scientific study whose nature we cannot fathom. I write to you without knowing whether I will ever see another face again. Hope is certain that we will, but she seems steadfast almost beyond reason. Our freedom seems inevitable to her. Perhaps she is clairvoyant, perhaps not. I am afraid to ask her if she is, because I might be tempted to ask her about my mother, about my dear Jemima, even about old Mr Fisher at the end of the street. I care about these people, you see, and even to wonder what my absence must be doing to them tears at my very soul.

No, I cannot allow myself to wonder what is happening beyond these walls. For now I must focus only on what I can see. Hope meditates, practises yoga, jogs on the treadmill. Drusilla smirks, snaps, sulks. Freya stares into space, weeps, picks at her food. This is my family for now, such as it is. Distant as we each are, we must hold together whilst our fate remains so uncertain.

I want to stretch my legs out, but Freya looks so peaceful. I don’t want to disturb her. Her dreams are probably more pleasant than our shared reality at the moment.

Simone, I don’t know you. I don’t know how far into my future you are, whether you are human, or even if my words will ever reach another soul. But Simone is one who listens, and if I think for even a moment that nobody out there is listening, I am lost.