The Commuter Collection

Eureka

The small cell was dark and caked with damp mud. The imprints of the countless feet of those who came before still visible. The cell walls were roughly hewn stone, though with no obvious adhesive between them, like each piece melded into those around it. Similarly, the rusted iron-barred door melded into the walls on all sides, with no obvious lock, and had its bars just close enough together to stop even the smallest person squeezing through. The floor glowed an ominous lilac in an intricate circular pattern, just bright enough for the runes around its perimeter to be visible. The cell had no windows, save for the gaps between bars on the door, no lock, and no obvious means of escape.

Mary sat cross-legged in the centre of her cell; her eyes closed. She wore a tattered, grey tunic that stank from sweat, not only her own. Her colleagues'. Her friends'. Every now and then she smelt Cara's sweat on it, not too long ago that sent chills down her spin and butterflies dancing inside her. Now it filled her with a deep, soul crushing dread. She drowned it out, breathing through her mouth.

She was short and gaunt, with orange, fiery hair now tangled and matted from days of not bathing and sleeping in the mud. Part of it hung limply at her sides where it used to surround her like a mane. Her freckle-covered pale skin reflected what little light it could from outside. Her roughly drawn compass in front of her told her the North-Facing door of the cell wouldn't let much in. The glow from the ground gave her skin a sickly off-purple tinge.

She opened her eyes and studied the growing shadow on the ground outside, the one cast by the cave itself. She was lucky, the sky was clear blue today, overcast days were the most difficult to track but she tried her best anyway. A few metres away, she guessed maybe ten, was a treeline. Even at her fastest pace the guards would catch her if she tried to make a break for it when they came. If they came. The days she went without food certainly wouldn't help her chances. She carefully tracked the days she spent in the cell on the muddy floor on one of the back corners, marking a line per day. She marked each day a guard visited her cell with an additional line across the original, nearly three days ago now.

Unable to see the sun, she tracked the cell's shadow across the ground to determine the passage of days. She created a device back in her home to do that for her by projecting shadow on a wooden circle she carved herself. She guessed it was one of the reasons she was in this mess. She tried not to think about home, and the others. Every time she thought about them, she panicked. She hadn't seen them since all three of them were taken from the small jail in the village. She knew how bad that was.

She shook her head, and the hot droplets of rain which flew from her eyes shocked her. Her dry mouth almost overpowered her mind and told her to launch after the droplets, for any water. Nearly three days without it, how long could a human go without water? She never thought about it before, that seemed bizarre to her now. Something so important, and she didn't think of it? All the questions she answered and that one stood out.

She shook her head again, the rain stopped at least. She needed to get her concentration back, she let her mind wander too much. She closed her eyes and sighed deeply. She slowed her breathing gradually, inhaling deeply, and exhaling with a sigh. She continued the exercise until she finally calmed her nerves. She breathed in and out, in and out, in and out, for what seemed like an eternity before she felt the waves of calm wash over her. Finally feeling in control again, she opened her eyes.

Her brain took a moment to process what it saw. The shadow of the cell outside was gone and the gloriously blue sky replaced with a black curtain full of bright stars. She blinked and resisted the urge to rub her eyes. The strangest thing about what she saw was that the world was sideways. She tried lifting her right arm, but something resisted the motion. She turned her head to see what the problem was and she was met with a face full of mud.