(2/2) The Prison wasn’t cold, not like she’d expected. It was just a few notches

(2/2)The Prison wasn’t cold, not like she’d expected. It was just a few notches above cool and just a few below warm. Like The Maw itself, the temperature seemed to exist in a kid of dead space, devoid of any defining features or noticeable realism to cling to. If you closed your eyes, you could swear you were floating free in the ocean, with not-quite-warm, not-quite-cool water pulling at your every limb, slowly dragging you down into a fate you couldn’t see. When you opened your eyes, the feeling would linger, the illusion aided by the gentle rocking of the massive vessel. You’d look around at your fellow prisoners, wondering if they’d felt the same sensation of sinking. But you’d never know, because you could never see their faces, could never read their eyes. That’s the first thing you learn in The Maw. Don’t let them see what you see. As long as your eyes are hidden, there’s still a possibility that they’re closed. That you’re still in that liminal space between sleeping and waking, just before you fall into one or the other. That this is all as unreal as it feels.The first days had been the hardest. She’d woken up with a jolt every morning– though “morning” was as much of a misnomer as any other classification of time in The Maw– a creeping terror having just left her mind, the fuzzy edges of it still dancing at the corners of her eyes. She’d lay back down, flickering between opened and closed eyes, often unable to tell the difference. Just before the two states merged completely and left her drifting back into the darkness, she’d sit up. She would place her hands on the bed beneath her, pushing all her focus and consciousness into her fingertips, anchoring her being to the real world as much as she could bear. She’d take a deep breath of stale air, scan the room for danger, and get out of bed. And then the waiting would start. First, she’d wait to be told it was time for the children to go to the playroom. While they were, she’d sit in front of a slowly churning music box, swaying back and forth to the quiet chimes, and wait until her time there was done. She and the other children would form a line, walk out of the playroom, and skulk down the hallways to their rooms. There, she would take the loose bedspring she’d discovered on her first night and use it to scratch drawings into the walls. The cycle would repeat three times every day– play, walk, draw, play, walk, draw, play, walk, draw. And she would wait. She didn’t know what she was waiting for. Maybe it was freedom, maybe it was change, maybe it was death. Maybe all three.Change did arrive eventually, though it was a bit ahead of its own schedule. Six awoke one night to find the door to her cell swinging open slowly, a long hand wrapped around the handle. A matching one crept into the room, along the floor, feeling for something. It found the edge of her bed, and reached up to grab her. She fought, and kicked, and thrashed, but the hand was stronger than her. She was swept up, higher off the ground than she’d ever been, and carried swiftly down the hallway through the darkness. She couldn’t twist around to see what being had taken her, but she knew it couldn’t have been human. Its other hand was sliding along the wall, once again searching for something that the creature evidently couldn’t see. Maybe it was the darkness. Eventually, six felt the grip around her loosen, and she was raised towards a small hole in the wall. No, not a hole– a vent. She shifted to crouch in the creature’s hand, which was now held out flat to allow her to climb off. She knew she wouldn’t like what she saw, knew she would regret looking, but she had to see the creature. She turned around.It was terrifying.The creature’s arms were elongated to horrific proportions. Its greyish skin was stretched thin over its hands as if it didn’t have enough flesh to cover its mass. It was draped in a short coat, but she could tell that its arms were bent at unnatural angles, twisted up like they were broken. Its body was surprisingly small, a short torso and legs that barely got the creature off the ground. Its bulbous head and mangled face were the wort part, though. its skin had been flayed– by decay or force, she wasn’t sure– and it hung limply over the creature’s eyes like loose fabric, blinding it. She’d seen monsters in her life, but this one was different. It was so painfully close to being human, seemed so desperate to keep a grip on who it had once been. But it wasn’t like her. It couldn’t be. It was a monster.She whirled around and leapt into the vent.It was a long while before she saw light again. It appeared slowly, with hesitation, like is was unsure if it would be safe to come out. She didn’t even notice it at first, she just knew that her surroundings were becoming clearer, the sleek metal she was crawling through was getting warmer. It had been cool before, cool and smooth and lifeless like The Maw. But this part of the ventilation system was warm. Six wondered if the outside world was warm, too. A few sharp turns later, she was met with a sight she was sure she’d never see again. The open ocean, sprawled out for miles in front of her, its gentle waves beckoning and promising things she didn’t dare to hope for. She tore her eyes away from the sea and looked down. A few feet below her, at the surface of the water, a suitcase was tied off to a loose bolt on the side of the vessel, and there was what appeared to be an oar stuck through its handle. The perfect setup for an escape. The drop wasn’t as short as she had predicted, but she landed on the suitcase with little trouble, and flick of her lighter did away with the rope that attached it to The Maw.Somehow, she felt like she was breaking more than one connection. -- source link
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