Chapters:

Back against The Wall

Don’t Escape

The wall was rough and cold, grating my fingers, but the words were clear.

Don’t Escape

I could feel the damp in the bare concrete, in the grooves spelling out the two words. I felt the chill on the wall even though I was freezing myself. I was wet, drenched from head to toe. My hair was long, plastered to my face, funnelling the water down my temples.

Don’t Escape

Whoever had been locked up here had etched the words deep into the wall. The marks were so deep, even with my eyes not able to see my hand in front of my face, I could trace the letters. They are unmistakeable. It must have taken them weeks… Months?

The darkness was impenetrable, but already I could feel my eyes starting to adjust to the darkness. It wasn’t an absolute absence of light. Somewhere a trickle was seeping through into my cell, unwelcome and unwanted. High up, where a roof is supposed to be… Am I imagining things, or is there a dark shaft of light, only shades of grey separating it from complete darkness, siphoning in from outside? I stare at the rectangle above my head, willing it to be light, and as my pupils widen I see that it is light, but it must be the light of a starless moonless sky sinking into the room.

Don’t Escape

My body gives an involuntary shiver, the cold and wet drawing into my bones. I’m going to die of cold, I can feel the warmth of life draining out of me, and the panic drives my heart to beat faster. I need to get out of here. I must get out of here. But where is here? Why am I even locked up? Who is my captor?

As I slide down, my back against the deafening engraving on the wall, the thoughts start to envelope me, choking me, like the excess of darkness blinds me, and I realize… These questions aren’t the ones that I’m afraid of. It’s the one that I have no way of answering: 

“Who am I?”

And from the course cement at my back the wall whispers an answer:

Don’t Escape