UNTITLED

by Debi Phillips

Artwork by Carole Humphreys

Blood ran down the windows, cutting through the dirt to leave ugly black-red trails tracking its course. The structure itself seemed to breathe, the walls pushing against the usual laws of science, trying to become liquid, straining to get closer to the huddled figure in their midst. The floor pulsed beneath her, threatening to haul her downward at any moment. The ceiling loomed closer than it had any right to, crushing the air until she could hardly breathe. She closed her eyes to offer prayer but that was somehow worse; she could sense the tension and potential energetic destruction even when she couldn’t see it. She pulled her knees tight to her chest and stared straight ahead, her mind frantically trying to scramble back to her happy place, to the place where the sun always shone and the flowers never died.

The darkness to which she opened her eyes was absolute. She waited for her senses to adjust to the gloom; they would not. She could make out nothing of her surroundings, none of the casual shades of black usual in shadows. She listened carefully for any resonance in the air around her. She heard nothing. It took her a moment to realise the truth of that statement – she heard nothing, not even the sound of her own breathing. She was breathing, she could taste the stale air, but not hear the sound her inhalations made. She was deaf. She considered the possibility that she was perhaps also blind, given the obscurity of her current environment. Touch and taste still seemed to be functional – she could feel the solidity of the rough, hard surface on which she sat, and taste the air and the type of bitterness she’d always thought of as “morning breath”. She wished her sense of smell were gone – the rancid odour of decay filled her nostrils, which until now she had been too preoccupied to notice. Upon noticing, she gagged against the foul stench, raising her hand to cover her face.

She staggered to her feet and reached out into the darkness, trying to find a wall or some object to provide her direction. There was nothing in front of her, nothing to the left or right. She turned to reach out behind her original position and recoiled in horror as her hand slid into a mass of cold slime. Bile rose in her throat and she forced it down. Her hand was wet and greasy from the brief encounter with whatever decomposing thing was there with her. She attempted to scrub it against the leg of her jeans and found them gone. The slime on her hand was now also the slime on her bare leg. She was struck by uncontrollable shudders of revulsion as she realised she was unclothed, alone in the darkness with who knew what vileness she had touched. She wanted to cry, to shout, to scream, to see…

As if in answer to her wish, light flooded her eyes, so blindingly bright that she did scream, and this time she heard it, loud and piercing and terrified. Long established social conditioning caused her to automatically cross her arms over her bare chest. They scraped along coarse fabric as she did so, and she realised she was no longer naked. The clothes she wore were not her own, but at least they were clothes. She kept her arms crossed protectively across her chest and blinked into the light. After a moment she realised it was coming from three lines of fluorescent lights in the ceiling. As her eyes adjusted further she could make out a desk, a bed, and a chest of drawers. Four walls. The floor covered in threadbare blue carpet. A sofa to her left. Mundane, ordinary objects in a dismal but equally ordinary room. Relief flooded through her. She knew there must be a door to this room, and given that she couldn’t see one ahead of her, it must be behind her. She turned to leave.

The light went out. The dark was not impenetrable – oh how she wished it were. The rows of eyes peering at her from the gloom, luminous and deep red, made her wish she were blind. Ignorance is bliss. There was a low hissing that seemed to come from all around her. She’d never heard a sound like that, guttural and full of hate. She stepped away from those eyes, cowering, and suddenly the world was full of pain, sharp agony that seemed to last forever. She wanted to scream for help, but all she could manage was a faint gasp as the intensity of her pain grew.

She blacked out. She didn’t know how long for, but time had no meaning. When she came to her nails were broken and her face was blotchy with tears. She struggled to focus. Her eyes were hot and tired, and her body was numb. After a moment she realised she was not alone. There was someone else, a figure on the floor about three feet away. She stood up from the cheap plastic chair in which she had awoken and moved cautiously towards the prone form.

His face was battered and bloody, but she could not mistake the eyes that stared up at her from it. She made a low mewling sound and fell to her knees. She wanted to touch him, to wake up, to make it not real, but she could smell him, she could smell the death and decay and as she reached out a hand to touch him it was already covered in his blood. She looked down at herself and saw streaks of blood down her bare leg where she had tried in vain to cleanse her skin. All at once the world began to spin, her heart broke and she gave voice to the pain, grief and confusion, sobbing until she thought she’d never stop. Eventually she had cried herself out – her eyes closed and she slept beside the broken body of her only son.