The Gemini Age: Book One

[8-3] The Certainty of Change - Part Three

    Nothing survived stranded in the darkness. The heavy reinforced polymer doors, walls, and floors latched onto every speck of energy and swallowed it whole. If the heel of a blistered foot slipped too loudly, or an illicit light flashed its brief life through the slats, the shadows swept to stamp out the disruption before it sprouted into meaningful resistance. 

    Though the cells themselves were almost too short to stand up straight in, the building which contained them expanded in all directions with unflagging determination. The outer walls and ceiling disappeared into the dark fog of the distance, making it difficult to conceive of the space as something more than an airless, lightless abyss. Even brief exposure to the suffocating atmosphere numbed the senses to near-death.

    Karim peered through the slats in his door yet again. With wires biting and choking his mind, Karim could not be sure how many times he had pressed his hollow face into the thin gaps between the slats, his muscles aching for some relief from the burden of consciousness. Such relief never came, and Karim always dragged himself to the top of the door again to peek out into the absence that thrived beyond his cell. It was the one thing he could do that did not result in a crippling shock, a curse that hurt deeper by ensuring rest would be even further away than it was beforehand.

    Whether it was his eyes straining to capture whatever shreds of light they could or simply the product of his desperate, unrestrained imagination, Karim saw more each time he looked outside. The shadows swirling from overhead now parted to reveal a walkway suspended by tight cables over the ceilings of the cells, high enough to hide its occupants but low enough to keep the inmates under constant observation. Along the far wall, the figures of doors identical to the one Karim leaned against lined up under the stern oversight of the walkway, their spines rigid with the dread seeping from the veins of the padded tiles. 

    Squinting, Karim followed the row of doors as far in both directions as possible, venturing a few precious inches further every time. No exit showed itself.

    There had to be a way out. Karim repeated this under his breath throughout his prolonged periods of consciousness, and he did so with more than a faint stroke of optimism as the sequence of bassy thuds punctuated with occasional squeaks approached once more. Now, like many occasions before, the abject silence outside his cell erupted with a harrowing screech, and faint glimmers of firelight lapped at the curves of the wall tiles as rubber-soled shoes marched between the cell doors. 

    As he did every time, Karim shut his eyes and breathed with the step of the stomping boots, sculpting the shape of the cell block with their noise. Sound travelled further than sight, yet the clatter of plastic striking brick severed his tie to the rippling waves before they ever found freedom. The sting of disappointment eased only in the chilling screams of the unseen stranger whose body curled up in the corner of their little world, whose fingernails tore at the unyielding weave of rubber and fibre knitted throughout the tiles holding them in place, whose throats closed tight as their cell doors opened. Though their voices stopped, their limbs continued to drag at any surface within their reach as they fought the legion of veiled figures seizing them away from the other prisoners. 

    Their evident distress was to Karim's benefit, for its disappearance into the distance provided confirmation that there was, in fact, a way for prisoners to leave these cells. The suffering of others offered hope, however sickening.

    Once the sounds of struggle rumbled out of earshot, Karim slumped to the floor and resumed counting the dark rows that divided the tiles of his cell. They were one of the few things he could keep track of these days, along with his blinks and breaths. Heartbeats were too visceral to listen to so closely. Imagining his thin blood languishing in his idle limbs, his muscles too fatigued to do anything with the dregs of energy delivered to them, his heart sewn together by the single golden thread that was his hope of escape, never failed to shatter his resolve. Compared to his mortality, the snug cell was bearable.