(Don't) Panic

XIII - The Auction II

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*trigger warning:

+ hallucination + self-abandonement + squashed to death +

*the full warning and list of triggers to be found in part 2

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Time had passed, but the room did not change, except for changes made by its inhabitants. George was thirty and hungry by now. But he also felt sick. More than one man had not been able to resist its bodily urges and had thus relived himself into the already confined space. His nose burned with the acrid stench of ammonia. He tried not to breathe in any of the minuscule bubbles of piss floating about but it was nearly impossible.

...

One of the men, luckily for George one of the men on the other side of the room, seemed to be suffering from diarrhea. He did not envy the men next to the sickened.

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The air in the room was growing hotter with time and became more and more difficult to breathe.

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George couldn't stand it anymore. He didn't care what was to become of him, but he needed to get out of this room at whatever cost. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, he was sick from the stench as well as of the lack of water and food. He turned to the wall that he was pressed against and desperately started to scratch at it in a vain attempt to get out.

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Over time, George, as well as the majority of the men, had fallen into a catatonic state. He didn't care anymore about the piss that got up his nose or the shit that caked his skin. He couldn't bring himself to care. His brain was not supplied with enough oxygen to function properly. There wasn't enough oxygen in the entire room for any of the men do anything else except be.

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A lurch much like the one at the beginning stirred George up a little, but as nothing happened except for the shaking and another series of cracking noises and some moaning, he didn't pay it any attention. He stared at the ass that was shoved into his face but didn't see it. In his feverish dreams he was alone with Pete, back home, being introduced to Pete's family and friends who all had way more tentacles than the usual seventeen but he didn't mind in the slightest for they would be going for a ride under the golf of Tibet if only he could get to like them. Or them to like him. But they were allergic to hair so he had to get rid of that first. He giggled. No hair. No problem.

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It took a while for the fresh air to reach him when the room was opened. When his senses started to come back to him little by little he didn't resist the electric urchins when they took the men one by one. The colourful display of light was more than enough to remember to him what kind of pain they could inflict if they wanted to. He didn't need to see one of the other men fight and be shocked before his eyes but got to see it anyway. The urchin that grabbed him sprayed him down and he felt much better without the piss and the shit clinging to him. Now he only felt nauseous and as if he was dying of thirst while his stomach was happily digesting itself. He felt cool air brush over his skin and it was amazing how good cool air could feel. His head still felt clouded and the only things that registered were the fear and the aches. He had bruises everywhere. Some part of him was thankful that he hadn't broken any bones. He wasn't so thankful for still being alive. Whatever was to come would certainly not get better and was definitely out of his control. The sooner it ended the better. He had, even in his clouded mind, no doubt that that decision was no longer his to make, either. He envied the men that had suffocated or been squashed in the room.

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The moment his body felt heavy again he knew that they had arrived somewhere. They were back inside some gravitational field. He didn't delude himself with the false hope that it would be to bring him and his fellow sufferers home though. He and the other men were placed inside a wide pen with some kind of litter on the floor, inside an even larger space. Those that were conscious soon crowded around the water dispenser. Again, the water tasted funny but it was water. He wouldn't have turned his nose up even at dogfood by now.

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Some time after the men had had their fill urchins came into sight again. They seemed bigger than before. Maybe these were different urchins from those before. George still didn't feel like himself, he had been lying down and dozing and didn't put up a fight when they dragged him off. He was placed inside a much smaller pen, but all on  his own with enough room for him to either stand or lay down. He had his own water dispenser and his own food chute. The pens on either side of him were exact duplicates, the space severed by bars of metal. The only difference to the pens was made by the inhabitant, to his right there was an unfamiliar face, the pen on his left was still empty. The pen that connected to his on the lower end was empty as well. Beneath a thin layer of litter, the floor was made from some hard, unyielding metal. Above him the pen was limited with some kind of net that looked as if it would lacerate skin on contact.
George lay down. He had nothing to do except to eat and drink as soon as both were provided and he couldn't do anything. He was alone in a pen that was effectively caging him and the man in the neighbouring cell seemed to be overcome with exhaustion. He wondered how the other four men from the small room had come through and if he would see them again.