I'm A Monster

11.

The floor felt like ice but Ransom couldn't manage to lift his body enough to crawl over to his blanket. The cell he was kept in was dark and concrete. Concrete? Was that the word? He thinks that's what Steven called it.

The ceiling was low, and while Ransom was a rather small boy, if he stood on his tip toes and reached his arm up, the tips of his fingers would brush it. Not that he was ever standing anyway. The floor was always ice cold and it was covered in a gross slippery film. Most of it was from old blood, sweat and mildew but a lot of it was from other bodily fluids that were never cleaned up and left to rot in there with him. There was a small blanket over in the corner that he usually sleeps on when he's in the cell and not the Bad Man's torture room. There was also a small stack of books and pencils next to his "bed" that some of the nice guards brought him.

Even though he couldn't read, Ransom loved the books with all his heart. When he had enough time and strength he would usually balance one on his lap and trace his fingers over the ink and pretend to be reading about adventures of another world. One that makes sense to him, where everyone is kind and there is no pain and he had an actual name and it's always warm and light and clean.

The Bad Man had always just referred to him as "the Ransom" and so did the guards and then eventually they started talking to him directly and calling him Ransom, without the The. That was the first day he had actually felt human.

The guards here weren't so bad. Ransom had always thought of them like family. Sure, a lot of them were angry and mean and liked to hurt him sometimes, but they still took care of him. There was a handful of them that actually seemed to care about his well being. They would be the ones to pick him up off the floor of the Bad Man's scary room with sadness in their eyes and carry him back to a cleaner room to take care of him and clean him up. They were Ransom's favorite. Ryan, Travis, Mark,and Bryer. Those were their names. Ransom remembered because names were important. Gregor said that you weren't a person if you didn't have a name.

But none of them had come this time. He was dragged back down and thrown on the floor by one of the mean guards but Ransom made sure to thank them before they slammed the door and locked him in.

Now he was just laying motionless on the ice cold ground trying to find the strength in him to somehow drag himself closer to the cracks in the wall so that Steven could hear him. The old man and the books in the corner were the boy's only comfort while he was down in the cells. If it weren't for Steven, Ransom would have given up a long time ago.

Using his forearms he struggled to drag himself over to the opposite wall. It took him what felt like hours to only get halfway. His body was shaking and the sweat felt like it was pouring off of his skin. He decided to stop and catch his breath and thank whoever or whatever was out there controlling the stars that the monster Gregor let him go early. He could only imagine how worse it could have been.

He was supposed to be punished for three days but he only stayed a day and a half. They let him go early because they brought back someone new. Ransom actually got to see him on his way out. He was tall and built much like most of the guards who worked in the prison, with big muscles and a certain look in his eyes that only people from the outside had. He had very dark messy hair and wild green eyes. He looked like he's seen hell. Ransom thought he heard someone call him John or something like that. He would try to remember that the next time he saw the boy. Names were important.

"Kid? Hey kid, is that you? Are you okay?" A frantic voice asked from the cell next door. Ransom forced himself to lift his head.

"Steven..." he tried to say, but it came out as a rasping whisper. He had destroyed his throat by screaming for most of the time he spent with Gregor.

"Kid?" Steven sounded panicked, "are you there? Come on buddy, answer me. You have to be okay...please." His desperate voice choked. Ransom grunted as he dragged his way closer to the wall. He swallowed and tried clearing his throat.

"Steven," his voice was just over a whisper but it was enough to put the older man at ease, "please...it hurts." He whimpered.

"It's alright kid. I'm right here. You're not alone." He tried to comfort. Ransom let the tears fall as he looked down at his bruised and bloodied body. He may have gotten out of there early, but he had been punished twice as hard because of it.

"I saw him, Steven. I saw the monster who asks Gregor to hurt me." He sobbed. Steven felt anger rushing through his veins but he tried to put it aside for the boy's sake.

"Did he hurt you?" He asked while clenching his fist. He remembered Gregor's monster. He looked harmless besides the insane, icy glint in his unnaturally blue eyes. The boy may look like an angel but he was pure devil.

"No...he wouldn't even look at me. He was too busy dragging in a new prisoner." Ransom informed, gritting his teeth. There was a time when the monster would be gentle towards him, when he was a few years younger but then something changed and he started having Ransom brought to Gregor to be tortured and then stopped looking the boy in the eyes. Ransom wasn't sure what he had done to deserve it but he finally saw the blue eyed boy for what he was. A monster.

"Steven please, tell me more about what it was like?" He begged. He needed something to hold on to. He needed to learn more about the stars...about the outside. He had to at least know about it.

"What what is like?" He asked gently. Ransom reached out and traced the cracks in the wall with his fingers.

"The out side." He answers wistfully. Steven's heart clenched at the thought of the boy never experiencing life outside of the prison. He had to make it out. He had to. "What do you miss the most?"

"There was this one field by my house," he began, letting himself get caught up into his memories, "it was this huge open field of yellow grass that me and my wife used to take our son. We'd spend the whole day there running around, having picnics and setting up games to play. And when the sun would start to set, we would all cuddle up together underneath this huge quilt my wife made and watch the sky turn from orange and gold to pink and purple and then fade into the black of night. And then we would watch the stars come out." He smiled as he remembered his wife's warm smile and his son's carefree laughter. The memory was so vivid that If he closed his eyes, he could still feel the warmth of the sun on his face.

"What is the sun?" Ransom asked hesitantly, not wanting to ruin Steven's moment of silence. Steven opened his eyes and pressed his hand against the cold brick wall.

"The sun is our very own star that lights up the whole entire sky and makes everything warm. It's a beautiful gold color and it's so bright that it you look directly at it you might go blind." He explains. Ransom closes his eyes and tries to picture it. He tries so hard to imagine the warmth of the sun as he curls up on the frozen ground, wrapping his arms around his knees. He had to stay alive so he could see his stars and the sun. He had to hang on just a little longer. With that in mind, Ransom tried to ignore the screaming from the john kid down the hall and let himself drift off into unconsciousness