The Shell of Casper

- 13 - Colour Me A Switchblade

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"Flinch," A voice greeted loudly enough to awaken Casper from where he had fallen asleep. "She" had released him from the chair after last night, letting him stretch out his sore legs and straighten from the God-awful sitting position. "Rise and shine, sleeping beauty."

Alone and locked in the small room all night, Casper had wobbled around, guiding himself along its perimeters with only his hands for his eyes. "She" had refused to take off the headset, even though it made resting his head overall impossible and he couldn't shake the never-ending band of sweat it made on his forehead. A well-spent two hours had been dedicated to crumpling onto the hard mattress and tearing, pulling, twisting, and scratching all the different parts of his headset in attempt to find any way to take it off. Casper had been entirely unsuccessful on that part.

Trying to navigate to his bed had been rough. There was a toilet in the corner, which he had stumbled into more than once in the last twelve hours, and he had cracked his shin into the bed frame enough times that he had a welt beneath his knee. In summary, it was hell.

Casper sat up on the rough bed, kicking off the papery blanket. He stared blankly to where the sound came from. "She" didn't say anything.

"I hate this," Casper gripped the edge of the headset, the machine feeling like a parasite latched onto his brain. "I could hardly lay down with it."

"Poor baby," cooed the voice from the front of the room. "Get in your chair."

"No." Casper was not in the mood to give into this sickening routine. He wasn't going to abide every word these strangers ordered at him like a schoolboy.

"She" moved something that he couldn't see, her tone forewarning that should was completely able to take this from zero to one hundred in an instant. "Don't make this difficult. Get in your chair."

"I can't see it." He didn't lie, only tucked his legs beneath him and laid back down. If he was stuck here, then he was going to get some information out of them before he would cower at the sound of a gun cock.

"I don't care." Another movement, slow yet sharp. Precise. "I swear to God, and trust me when I say, it is better for you to just do what you're told."

"What is your name?" Casper didn't move. Not yet. If they wanted to shoot him then so be it. He had pieced together that they had brought him here for a reason, and had done something to his eyes. Something dangerous. So they wouldn't kill him, or at least not yet.

"None of your business." The door unlocked, indicating that "She" must have been talking to him through a slot in the door. It made him think of the small openings to slide meals of hard bread and colourless oatmeal through to incarcerated prisoners. "If you get in the chair without me having to drag you there by the collar, maybe I'll tell you my name."

Yes. Casper smiled crookedly and eased off the bed. He might have been the one behind proverbial bars, blinded, and blossoming with bruises from walking into the walls, but he had gotten an upper hand. A small one, but he got it.

Casper stalked across the room until he bumped into the edge of the chair, then he settled into it with a relaxed grace.

"Strap yourself in."

"Why?" Casper muttered with a sigh, blindly clipping together the strap on one hand and his two feet. His shins throbbed with the movement as he bent his legs. "Are you scared of me?"

"She" did not reply.

"Oh." Casper wrung his fingers, feeling the cool, metal of the armrests. "You're the one who is armed and not in a cell."