CELL

/ THREE /

Senses are designed to divulge information about the world around us. Classically, there are five, but neurologists have increased that number to varying degrees. Seven. Nine. Fifty-Three. Regardless of the actual number, we rely on them. When they are absent, in a way, so are we.

He woke slowly, his absent senses teasing him with the hint of sounds and differences in the darkness. They were fleeting glimpses of what might have been but, ultimately, were not. There were no shades of anything other than emptiness in the night that pressed upon his eyes. The only sounds were of his own movement and breathing.

At least he was moving. He was breathing. As miniscule a comfort that was, he clung to it. It was all he had.

He was back in the cage. Though he couldn't see the bars, he knew they were there. The floor was hard and metal and the same floor he'd previously been laying on. If he reached out, he'd feel the vertical poles of the cage, but he didn't want to. Why make it more real and feel more confined than he already did? He needed a drink. His mouth was dry and his throat hurt as if he'd either been shouting (screaming?) or a tube had been inserted for an operation and retrieved without finesse. He couldn't swallow without sharp claws of pain scratching. He licked his lips and could taste something that wasn't just his skin. Flowery, but not a flavour he recognised.

His former calm was shaken. This wasn't only a prison, and he was not simply a prisoner. They had been wanting him to wake up so they could perform a procedure on him, though what that might be was as big a mystery as his identity, location and the reasons behind not knowing either. Previous to Them, capitalised because they only existed in films and he wasn't in one, taking him away, he had been accepting of his situation, able to dissect it clinically, however pointless it had proven.

Now, things had changed. There was an organisation at work. One being in charge of another implied that. There was a plan. He, a simple man with a simple life, he thought, was part of that. Such a thing had cracked open the door to his resolve and allowed some to escape, lessening the amount he had to rely on.

The charge of the taser still jabbed at his side and chest, the two parts of his body used as target practice. He focussed his mind on the upper one. It was close to his heart, the supposed centre of one's being. Perhaps concentrating on that would give him some clarity by collecting his thoughts like rampant sheep gathered by a Collie. It would remind him what composure was like.

Aliens could be large headed, big eyed grey creatures, with elongated fingers perfect for probing. They could also be humanoid enough to be indiscernible from real people. He quickly discounted the possibility they might be extra-terrestrial. They wouldn't speak the same language as him.

What was it, English? Was he from England, then? He hadn't noticed an accent from his brief spoken words and didn't think it was to test the theory. His first outburst could have been forgiven. Any more would probably not be. Did being from another region or country register in a one's mind when they heard themselves? They would sound 'normal' to themselves, wouldn't they? Others would be the ones with the accents, surely. Our voices, inner or outer, were all we'd ever known, so others spoke differently. Others sounded weird.

Aliens, even if they did speak English, would have an accent found nowhere on the planet. He wasn't, therefore, in the mothership orbiting the Earth.

What else?

Organ harvesting? Was that a real thing? Of course, aliens were, but was the actual kidnapping of people to strip them of their ripe, juicy innards a practice that went on in the world? Quite possibly. An individual's body was a machine just like a car. It needed fixing every so often, and bits wore out but, if you kept it well fuelled, it could run for a fair while. And, if it didn't, its parts could be used to make others work better. They could be sold to grateful buyers, or stolen by thieves who would then sell them on.