James woke with a start. He did that a lot recently and it always took him several minutes to realise where he was. Staring around at the stark, empty cell was usually enough to bring it all back.

The tiny cot that was his bed, the toilet that lacked any privacy in the corner, the empty desk and uncomfortable chair across from the cot, and of course the wall of steel chain-link that he knew from personal, very painful experience was electrified. This had been his home for … who knew how long.

Was it weeks? Months? James had no idea. There were no windows and the bright overhead lights were always on so it was impossible to not only tell what time of day it was, but also how many days had passed since he had first woke up in this miserable place.


He had no idea how he’d gotten there or who had locked him up. The last thing he remembered was leaving his art class and then nothing, until he had woken up inside the cell. There was no one to ask what had happened and why he was there either. Someone brought him a tray of awful food he’d never seen before three times a day but no matter how many times he’d pleaded with them they never answered him. They kept their hood pulled low to cover their face, shoved the tray under the gap in the bottom of the cell door and moved onto the next person.

He knew there were other people in this place with him, he could see them, but none of them had any more answers as to why they were there than he did and if they talked to each other too much a strange smelling gas was pumped through the vents into the room that knocked them all out for several hours. Sometimes new people were brought in, often carried as he assumed he must have been, and sometimes people were led out, but no one ever came back after they left.

He sighed heavily and swung his legs over the edge of the cot, leaning his elbows on his knees to scrub the exhaustion from his eyes. It was then that he realised what had woken him; someone was crying.

Glancing up in the direction of the sound James noticed a blonde woman who had definitely not been there when he’d gone to sleep. How had they gotten her in there without him hearing? Had they drugged everyone again before bringing her in?


The woman’s hand closed around the steel of the fence and her body instantly went rigid. A second later she shrieked loudly, her eyes rolled back into her head and James watched helplessly as her hand came free of the steel and she fell backwards, landing awkwardly against the toilet behind her before rolling limply onto floor.

“Idiot,” the man in the next cell muttered.

James stared in horror at the woman’s prone form on the floor. He had tried to warn her, she wouldn’t listen. There was no way he could have gotten over to her to stop her, he’d done everything he could. Right?

He expected them to pump the gas into the room immediately and he’d wake up hours later to find the woman gone. But he stood there for what seemed like hours staring at her and no one came. She didn’t move at all and he couldn’t even tell if she was still breathing. He wasn’t sure which would be worse; the thought of her being dead, or the thought that she wasn’t and she’d wake up and start shouting again, putting them all in danger.


He didn’t know how long he’d been staring at her, trying to see any sign of life, when the door at the end of the corridor flew open.