The Cell (for lack of a better title)
A.k.a.: The Cell (good title pending)
Chapter One: Trapped
My POV
It was in the dankest and darkest of all forbidding places one could imagine. I could no longer distinguish day from night, nor could I light from dark. It seemed as though I was forever engulfed in pitch black, where no light existed; thus no shadow could be seen as a separate and frightening entity of which was held apart from my surroundings. I was trapped, trapped in an endless void disguised as a detour from reality where no hint of substance penetrated the lonely, cold barrier dividing what is known as the real and the unreal. I'm trapped, forever trapped, in the infinite sea whose every wave holds yet another of man's fears.
On one end of my cell sat a computer. It had been left on for the past couple weeks, but I wasn't paying for the power around that place, whatever that place was. I must've hit my head when I was first brought here, because I sure don't have a clue about any of this now. Slowly, I brought myself to stand, and I took a seat in front of the screen. Oddly it was on the Internet, and logged onto someone's screen name: Shaya792@aol.com." Not caring to look into other people's private affairs, I spun around in the office chair that was conveniently fitted with wheels. However, upon hurling myself blindly into complete darkness, I was forced to grab onto the desk the computer rested atop.
With a sudden realization, my guilt of prying into a stranger's business was relieved. After all, I was the prisoner, and I certainly deserved to know at least why I was being held captive. Timorously, I peered into the e-mail, and I immediately noticed a similarity. One person sent all the mail currently in the computer's record:
"Brian792@aol.com."
The subject lines made absolutely no sense, and befuddled me for as long as I pondered their meaning. Displaying text such as 'By the gray brick wall' and 'Half Mg plus Rn divided by two minus thirty-five', the only logical conclusion I could possibly construe was that it was in some kind of code. To puzzle me further, the messages themselves were even more mystifying than the subjects. The messages merely repeated the subject line over and over again, ending with miscellaneously placed letters and keys, as though someone had dropped their head down upon the keyboard until the drool from a somnolent typist shorted the computer system.
I deeply desired to know the meaning of the messages. Cracking the code would prove tremendously demanding of me, however, as none of the subjects had anything in common. The only one I considered straightforward enough to allow me to connect the line with a sensible meaning was the first one that appeared: 'Half Mg plus Rn divided by two minus thirty- five'. I wondered...could Mg represent the element 'Magnesium' and could Rn represent the element 'Radon'? I had memorized a large portion of the periodic table of elements in my spare time, and knew that Magnesium was the 14th element and Radon the 86th. It sounded like a mathematics operation, so I worked it out:
12 divided by two... 'That's six...' Plus 86 divided by two minus 35... 'That's eight...'
"If that's it, what do the numbers six and eight represent?" I thought aloud. Suddenly, I was struck with knowledge. Six was the number assigned to carbon when classifying the elements by their atomic weight. Eight was the number for oxygen. "Well, that makes sense. Let's just do one more operation..." I then added the elements carbon and oxygen together. CO2! Of course! Carbon dioxide! But what did that have to do with anything? I had to find out. What secret did this 'Brian792' possess that was so important so as to ensure that only those who could crack complicated codes would gain seemingly useless information? Or perhaps, there was a deeper meaning to the solution 'carbon dioxide' than just the elements and mathematics involved. But what?
And what was the gibberish at the end for? Surely not to confuse people; the subject and initial message was enough to accomplish that task. The questions filled my mind and haunted me for the rest of the night, or it could've been a week, for all I knew. I was just alone, in that dark room, which could be incredibly small or fantastically enormous, for I was without knowledge, nor was I with perception. All seemed to escaped existence, with the exception of that one mysterious room and the portions of food I received from an unknown source regularly, but I can't really tell if even that is real. For all I know, I might be insane right now.
A/N: Don't worry, Invader Zim stuff is coming up in the next chapter, or maybe the third, but these are short chapters, so it'll go by fast, I'm sure.
Chapter One: Trapped
My POV
It was in the dankest and darkest of all forbidding places one could imagine. I could no longer distinguish day from night, nor could I light from dark. It seemed as though I was forever engulfed in pitch black, where no light existed; thus no shadow could be seen as a separate and frightening entity of which was held apart from my surroundings. I was trapped, trapped in an endless void disguised as a detour from reality where no hint of substance penetrated the lonely, cold barrier dividing what is known as the real and the unreal. I'm trapped, forever trapped, in the infinite sea whose every wave holds yet another of man's fears.
On one end of my cell sat a computer. It had been left on for the past couple weeks, but I wasn't paying for the power around that place, whatever that place was. I must've hit my head when I was first brought here, because I sure don't have a clue about any of this now. Slowly, I brought myself to stand, and I took a seat in front of the screen. Oddly it was on the Internet, and logged onto someone's screen name: Shaya792@aol.com." Not caring to look into other people's private affairs, I spun around in the office chair that was conveniently fitted with wheels. However, upon hurling myself blindly into complete darkness, I was forced to grab onto the desk the computer rested atop.
With a sudden realization, my guilt of prying into a stranger's business was relieved. After all, I was the prisoner, and I certainly deserved to know at least why I was being held captive. Timorously, I peered into the e-mail, and I immediately noticed a similarity. One person sent all the mail currently in the computer's record:
"Brian792@aol.com."
The subject lines made absolutely no sense, and befuddled me for as long as I pondered their meaning. Displaying text such as 'By the gray brick wall' and 'Half Mg plus Rn divided by two minus thirty-five', the only logical conclusion I could possibly construe was that it was in some kind of code. To puzzle me further, the messages themselves were even more mystifying than the subjects. The messages merely repeated the subject line over and over again, ending with miscellaneously placed letters and keys, as though someone had dropped their head down upon the keyboard until the drool from a somnolent typist shorted the computer system.
I deeply desired to know the meaning of the messages. Cracking the code would prove tremendously demanding of me, however, as none of the subjects had anything in common. The only one I considered straightforward enough to allow me to connect the line with a sensible meaning was the first one that appeared: 'Half Mg plus Rn divided by two minus thirty- five'. I wondered...could Mg represent the element 'Magnesium' and could Rn represent the element 'Radon'? I had memorized a large portion of the periodic table of elements in my spare time, and knew that Magnesium was the 14th element and Radon the 86th. It sounded like a mathematics operation, so I worked it out:
12 divided by two... 'That's six...' Plus 86 divided by two minus 35... 'That's eight...'
"If that's it, what do the numbers six and eight represent?" I thought aloud. Suddenly, I was struck with knowledge. Six was the number assigned to carbon when classifying the elements by their atomic weight. Eight was the number for oxygen. "Well, that makes sense. Let's just do one more operation..." I then added the elements carbon and oxygen together. CO2! Of course! Carbon dioxide! But what did that have to do with anything? I had to find out. What secret did this 'Brian792' possess that was so important so as to ensure that only those who could crack complicated codes would gain seemingly useless information? Or perhaps, there was a deeper meaning to the solution 'carbon dioxide' than just the elements and mathematics involved. But what?
And what was the gibberish at the end for? Surely not to confuse people; the subject and initial message was enough to accomplish that task. The questions filled my mind and haunted me for the rest of the night, or it could've been a week, for all I knew. I was just alone, in that dark room, which could be incredibly small or fantastically enormous, for I was without knowledge, nor was I with perception. All seemed to escaped existence, with the exception of that one mysterious room and the portions of food I received from an unknown source regularly, but I can't really tell if even that is real. For all I know, I might be insane right now.
A/N: Don't worry, Invader Zim stuff is coming up in the next chapter, or maybe the third, but these are short chapters, so it'll go by fast, I'm sure.