There was no way to differentiate how much time had passed. So much had, or hadn't, that the concept of time itself felt sickening. Invisible clocks had circled long past the point of madness, beyond existential nausea. Only the fury remained. Churning within like a smouldering, irate, engine. Honing Lucian's mind like the Northern Star as he festered in the shivering darkness.
He wandered, caged in cool nothingness. Chilled, but never freezing. The shivers would come, the shivers would go. He remembered eating, but he couldn't remember when. He remembered it hadn't been enough, that his stomach had continued to gnaw at itself then as it was now.
There was only the oily blackness, and the wall. He reached for it, slid his palm across its smooth surface to the extent of his arm, until his fingers trailed off into the enveloping dark. Diving his hand back to the vacuum with the room without end. Without echo. Where sound died with such ferocity it seemed lost as soon as it left his lips. Where his screams hushed to inaudible whispers. Unable to escape him as much as he was the cell.
The walls wrapped and wrapped, an endless cold curve without corner. A gradual gradient slopped from the floor, forcing him to lean forward to feel edge, to find the boundary. Subtracting a comfortable place from which to lean against. He'd tried to measure the space countless times. Walking into the abyss, counting his strides until he'd reach the other end. The distance always changing, his counts always different. From sixteen, to three, to forty-seven, to hundreds. No matter the diligence, no matter the care.
Lucian spilled into what he could only imagine was the centre and lay. The pungent dark's nothingness had become unbearably bright, he cast an arm across his closed eyes in an attempt to shield himself.
Within the endless, consuming darkness Lucian had forgotten what he looked like. Forgotten the colour of his eyes, and what use they might have had. He'd forgotten his face, but he hadn't forgotten theirs.
Punished was a trite word for the silence they flailed him with. He fed himself by focusing on his grievance, focusing on his hate. Of those that had wronged him. Those whom he'd rallied against before his fall.
And then came a cough.
A sound so stunning, so striking, Lucian doubted its existence. He held his breath. Strained from blinking. Waited for a glimmer, a sigh, a freckle of a noise, until he couldn't stand it. Until he wheezed out an almost timid, unsure, "Hello?"
The word ached as it escaped, and in the black blanketing ocean it dissolved, drowning his hope. Until, arriving like a shadow, its echo returned. The same word, shaded differently. Soaked in uncertainty, dripping with disbelief and caution.
Hairs on end, Lucian tried again, volleying the hello back with more certainty and girth. Once more rang a sudden, affirming answer.
Their voices called to one another in desperation. Lucian stood, and ran, threading through the darkness in a disorienting dance, until he lost his way, until he lost his will. The voice remained out of reach, calling directions and pleas with equal frustration. Begging Lucian to find him. Out of breath and sorts Lucian stood puffed, realising only then how long it had been since he'd touched the boundaries of the space. How impossible the distance seemed. He crumbled upon the cold, polished floor.
The voice's anguish, crawled to hate, hate for those that had anchored them, for their tormentors. Lucian's disdain rose in harmony, joining like a choir. Vile words flung forth from shared pain, howling until they tired. As the velocity of the sentences slowed, their course changed.
With time, the pendulating highs and lows of their insipid conversation grew tired. Their commissary morphed to exploration, and wonder. Their exhaustion led to discussion, when had each last slept? Could either remember a difference between dream and wakeful delirium? Had either found an end to the edges?
Introductions came late. Hours, days, years, it was impossible to tell. Longer than any would perceive as proper or polite. With Angelo's name, came his woes, his story. Painful words avalanched to smite, and Lucian noted the injustices that polluted his life mirrored his own. Like a cauldron their commiserating bubbled to scorn and churned the infernos within. Escalating to vengeful howls, espousing plot after plot of justice, revenge, and salvation. Until again their fires quelled, tranquilled by the undeniable nothingness they had to work with. Their inability to find one another in the darkness an insurmountable obstacle that extinguished what momentum their scathing tongues had garnished.
Cyclical conversation paused and resumed, their shared misery swinging to fury, and back like a pendulum. Over and over the journey gathered joy. In the murk that blackened their hearts, each stranger found a sliver of serenity in each other's company. From that beacon Lucian realized that the darkness had permeated within him long before his imprisonment. And in that textured darkness, an invasive, thorned, tangling jungle of weeds had grown. At the centre of which, now, a garden had partitioned, where a friendship had blossomed. And the darkness shone a little brighter.
Thanks for reading!
-Mr. Write