Luce

----------------------------------------

Voices drag me from the darkness. Then the smell of something plastic-y, like shopping bags, hits my nose.

Where am I?

My limbs are both heavy yet ache for movement, body both restless and lethargic. Why do I feel so... odd? Mind fogged and thoughts slow to surface, trying to think feels futile. Fragments of memories float like balloons in a lazy wind; they should be easy to reach but they slip through my hand as if they're just mist.

Dull light filters through my closed eyelids, and while I could open my eyes and look about, I don't want to. Not knowing where I am, who I'm with... it's disconcerting. I want to get my bearings first and foremost.

Faking sleep is hard. Everyone's done it at some point — whether it's to hide from the palpable presence lurking in the corner of your bedroom when you jolt awake at 3am, or to avoid the awkward pleasantries and goodbyes when waking beside the one-night-stand you don't exactly regret but have no intention of seeing again. There's pressure those times as the real or imagined consequences loom over you; this, life quite probably on the line, is worse.

Breaths are easier to manage than movements. Those small, involuntary shudders that happen as the fear seeps in. Elise taught me some methods to stay calm — breathing exercises and grounding techniques that, granted, do help a bit now. But those shudders I can't help are what I fear will give me away.

People tell you to 'go to your happy place' when trying to calm down, but I've never found mine. So instead I focus on the voices. They're just noise at first; noise that, having already sharpened into two distinct voices, begins forming words that my mind still struggles to connect to their meanings...

"Stop this."

Silence falls, settles thick and heavy over me and whoever else is here.

The back of my neck prickles, burns as though I'm being watched.

Do they know?

People say it's 'fight or flight' but there's a third instinct and it's freeze, and my default unfortunately seems to be the latter. But I struggle against my useless default, push it aside and just breathe. Carry on exactly as I've been doing for however long I've been doing it so far. Deep, even breaths. Try and keep still but not stiffly so. Just don't react. Don't react.

Did I move? Breathe too loudly? Make a small sound?

A long while passes. The tension thickens the air, forms a lump in my throat that seems to grow as I resist the urge to swallow it, afraid it'll sound as loud to others as it will in my own ears. I need to know more: where I am, why I'm here, who's here with me...

"You're awake."

Shit.

With no other options, I open my eyes. Squint a little against the light, though it's dull. Beneath me is a blue mat. A camping mat? It crinkles a little as I shift on it, trying to organise my uncoordinated and aching limbs so I can pull myself into a sitting position. Room spinning before my eyes, head swirling with it, I have to put an arm out to one side to support my swaying frame. My hand rests palm-down on bare concrete, cold and rough to the touch as fine-grain sandpaper. That might be why I'm on the mat. How considerate.

There's bars before me, like those in a prison, and a woman sits beyond them.

Is she in a cell or am I?

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

A quick flick of my eyes to the left then right gives me the answer which, granted, was obvious anyway.

I am.

She sits on the bare concrete, legs crossed and eyes on me. I'd ask if she put me in here were it not for her tatty clothes, tartan and denim that's all fray and tears and stains. But although her clothes suggest one thing, I can't help but notice something... off. She's a little too polished, too clean, too well. There's a sharpness to her face's bone-structure —all high-cheekbones and sharp planes, vulpine almost— that's a bit too-sharp to be natural, as if she's underfed but not totally starved. At least, not yet. About her head is an autumnal mane, the colour of fresh felled leaves. Wild but not uncared for. Her eyes, their colour somewhere between blue-grey and green, are bright and alert as they watch me with a curiosity matching my own as I stare back.

"How long...?" I ask, trailing off as the rasp of my voice burns its way through my throat. A fragment of a memory becomes tangible: me, screaming my throat bloody, the burn of a needle at the side of my neck and something covering my mouth.

"...did I know you were awake?" She finishes for me, coaxing me back to the present. Her voice has a strong Welsh twang to it, no lilt of the North though — must be from somewhere down South, like me. Cardiff, maybe? Her eyes meet mine. "Long enough. He didn't notice, don't worry."

Her face is hard to read. Opaque.

"He?"

"Christian."

First name basis. I don't know if that's odd, not until I meet him myself. The thought brings a shudder that doesn't go unnoticed. That opacity to her features lifts just a moment, giving way to a flash of curiosity before shutting me out again.

"Does he go by anything else? Chris, Ian—"

"Christian. He doesn't like diminutives."

I nod slowly, focus drifting to the room beyond her. What little of it I can see. About a foot or so behind the woman is an uncomfortable looking chair, reminiscent of the ones you'd find in a secondary school or university. It's bolted to the ground, probably so it can't be picked up and used as a weapon. There’s an odd shape just behind it, too far into the dark for me to make it out clearly. May be a box with something on top of it? I can’t be sure. Hints of other things lurk beyond that, shadows more like furniture than people —thankfully—, but I can't make out exactly what they are, either. There's a staircase leading to a room above in the far left corner.

At last, my voice returns to me. Though it still hurts to speak, I croak out, "Where am I?

"The basement."

"Of?"

"The house."

I have to restrain a glare at her curtness. I don't know if she's being evasive or if she just thinks I'm stupid and need to be spoken to in short, direct sentences. "Which is where?"

"I don't know." The first time any semblance of emotion has crept into her voice. Something like sadness... or anger. Bitterness. She doesn't like not knowing.

Ditto.

"How long have you been here?"

She shifts slightly then, leans a fraction closer toward me. "A while. I don't know exactly."

"Roughly?"

"A few years."

That should be comforting. There's a chance this won't be a swift end. Time to think, to plan, to live a little longer... But then comes the question of why?

Maybe sooner would be better.

Fuck sake. I shouldn't be considering this. Not now. It's like the call of the void, 'L'apelle du vide': there's an abyss before me and I'm considering the way in which to throw myself in instead of how to get across to the other side.

"Why so long?"

She laughs, the sound sharp yet seemingly borne of honest shock. She quickly sobers up, face once again becoming unreadable. Movement draws my gaze down to her hands, folded right-over-left in her lap. Her left hand shifts slightly as she rubs the frayed fabric of her sleeve's hem between her forefinger and thumb. "If you're asking why I've stayed, do you think there are many other choices here?"

I shake my head once. Then again, more decisively. "So you've been on this side of the bars?"

"Many times." I cock my head slightly, asking without words. She responds with a slight sly smile. "He doesn't like misbehaviour."

"Then how are you still alive?"

That seems to leave her short an answer. I'm not sure if it it's a nervous tendency or a way of self-soothing, but she begins rubbing that worn sleeve again. Almost as soon as it starts, the curious movement stops abruptly; though her face is turned away, I can't help but think she caught me watching.

"I suppose he hasn't found anyone better." She answers at last. Throughout the last few minutes, her voice has been edged with something I can only name as confidence; she knows things, more than me at the very least. But when she says this? She's uncertain.

I swallow. There's a part of me that wants to follow the line of 'better at what', but there are cracks forming in the mask she wears and I want to know what lies beneath them. So instead, I ask, "What's your name?"

She hesitates. Just slightly. "Delilah."

I nod. Given the circumstances I can't exactly say 'nice to meet you Delilah', so a simple acknowledgement will have to do. "Lucille. Luce. That's mine."

"Luce." Delilah repeats. "I don't..."

I wait for her to finish. When enough time passes that it becomes apparent she won't, I press for an answer. "Don't what?"

"I don't like to learn people's names."

"Why?"

"It makes it harder."

Her words hang in the air between us; their meaning takes a shamefully long while for me to understand: it makes it harder to know who is going to die next.

Maybe I won't have as long down here as I thought.