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***

The man jerked awake, causing the cuffs to cut deeper into his already raw skin. His back ached against the cold concrete ground and he stared at the ceiling. He couldn’t believe he was here. Wherever that was. The light of day no longer streamed through the window; leaving him in complete darkness. He strained through his memories trying to piece together his past that would have brought him to this cell. Still only images of faces and guns were there. Maybe they are mine, he thought. He couldn’t remember ever touching a gun so had no idea why they were the only thing in his memory. He threw his head against the floor again and again, tears streaming from his eyes and screamed ripping from his lungs. He had not heard to the breathing he had before. That had seem to go along with the sun. For now, the man was alone.

THE WOMAN:

She felt the scream right down to her core. It came from the room to her left, where ‘he’ was being kept. She knew nothing of the man. They brought him here yesterday; she watched from the crack between the door and wall as two men dragged an unconscious man into the room. She heard the man being dropped and then the two men locked the door, one staying guard outside the door. The man’s yells were deep and guttural. She closed her eyes tight and clasped her hands over her ears, but still the screams of pain seeped into her brain. The single light-bulb in the room flickered off and then back on again. The room was larger than the man’s, though no windows allowed in any light. A chair sat in the middle of the room, a thin mattress on which she sat on the far wall and the large metal door across from her. She stared at the door and looked at the small dents in the metal. She looked down at her bloody knuckles and remembered the pain the door caused them.

She had been here three days; one day longer than the man in the other room. She wished for freedom but her only way out was through the door and she only knew one person who had a key. But she knew they would never help her, they were the reason she was here. They came infrequently; either to stop her from batting the door or leave small scrapes of food. Only one person ever came to see her, always the same one. He was tall, shaved head and tanned. He wore black like the others; black jeans, black shirts, and black boots with a leather jacket. The only colour to the uniform was an orange badge on their shirt.

The screaming had stopped and she silently wished it would start again. The man’s yells meant she he was alive; it meant she was no longer alone. And if she wasn’t alone, maybe she had a chance to get away.

***

He was back. She heard the bolt click in the lock and the door slowly swing open. He walked in with no tray of food so she knew he was here for something else; and not knowing scared her. He walked toward her and stood in front of her where she had tucked herself into a ball on the mattress. He looked at her with dark, wicked eyes. She hated his eyes. The colour in them nearly pure black; as dark as night. In the short three days she had been here she had grown to call him ‘Night Eyes’. What scared her the most about was that when he looked at her his eyes always showed something simmering behind their surface. She never had been able to place what that was. Until now. “Lights out,” he growled. What she saw in his eyes was hunger. Raw, pure, unmistakable hunger.