This fic has all of the trigger warnings of Episode 4. If you were bothered by The Dark Room, then I would not suggest reading. Otherwise, reviews are much appreciated. Enjoy!
I don't know how long it's been since that night. There's a clock in the corner, but after the first couple of days I lost track of how many times it's been ten thirty-eight, or twelve ten, or six fifteen. My arms hurt from banging on the steel walls, my throat burns from nonstop screaming for help despite knowing I'm underground. I don't know why I'm still alive. I don't know how many times I've been dosed. I refused food and water for a while, afraid of the drugs he'd obviously put in them, but I couldn't hold out forever. Every time I black out now, I'm surprised when I open my eyes next. He killed Rachael, and he baited Kate until she tried to kill herself, too. So what about me?
For a while I tried to justify Jefferson being behind all of this. Then I stopped. It doesn't matter why. Not anymore. This is happening, to me now. I have to focus on finding a way out.
I can't go back. Every time I even think about it, my head swims and the back of my brain gets heavy and fuzzy and dark and I bleed. I get scared, and I stop, because being murdered by a crazy fucking serial photographer seems nicer than flinging myself unwittingly into a time-spiral. And besides, as long as I'm still here, there's a chance I can escape, that I can get Chloe back. I try not to remember the look she had on her face when she hit the ground. Expressionless. I don't want to see that again.
Instead, I memorize the patterns of the days and I think my way around them, searching for lulls. I'm smart, I remind myself. I'm a problem solver. I've been MacGyvering the shit out of this murder mystery since day one, and I don't need my powers to maintain that skill.
At six o'clock (I'm not sure if it's AM or PM anymore), a little door opens at the base of one of the walls and a metal tray slides in with food. A bottle of water (drugged, I note. Always drugged. Sometimes if I don't drink the water I don't black out), a piece of fruit, a nasty white goop that might be old cafeteria mashed potatoes, and something microwaved out of a tv dinner box. If I'm so desperate for water that I drink from the bottle, I'm always gone. I usually wake up at nine o'clock with an awful headache and fresh bruises. If I don't, if I stay awake, I don't hear from anyone again until two thirty, then again at eight. I stay awake during this time, even if I have to dose my head in the toilet (flushable, thank god) to resist falling asleep naturally. As scary as the drugs are, I have I feeling I don't want to be conscious for whatever it is that he does to me when I'm out.
My clothes have been tampered with, but I never wake up sore that way. I thank God, not just for myself but for all of the other girls that had gone through this before me. I try not to think about it too much.
So there's three meal rotations. Four metal walls. A toilet. One hooded light bulb hanging down but out of reach. And there must be a camera in one of the dark corners near the ceiling that I can't see; I mean, he must know when I eat and drink and when I don't. Every six meals I get a new set of clothes and I have to return the ones I've been wearing. Every nine meals I get a plastic cup full of shampoo and a half bar of soap. Here's hoping I never have to wash my hair bent over a toilet ever again.
That's it. No human contact beyond a hand pushing the tray in and out, and whatever's going on when I'm passed out. Even more numbing than the constant burn of fear in my belly is the aching, infuriating, nauseating boredom of sitting in an empty room for hours. And hours. And hours.
I wonder if he's curious as to how I keep bloodying up my tops. I've tried to go back three times since the last meal rotation. If I don't eat or drink, I'm too tired to rewind. If I eat or drink, I'm blacked out or in a daze. He's trapped me more than he realizes.
And honestly, I don't even know how far back I'd have to go to escape, to save Chloe. I've never gone that far out without a picture, or a trigger. What if I rewound three days? Then that would be another three days I'd have to endure of this hell again.
I could play dead. Just collapse and lay in one place for a few hours, bloody up my face a little. But then what? What do I do when he comes in to check on me? He's probably got a syringe and a gun at the ready just in case.
I look up at the motionless hanging lightbulb, then at the toilet. My foggy brain is just starting to put together a plan when a new sound fills the space.
New sound. Something new. I jerk to my feet and look around wildly, listening. Voices. His voice, low and demanding. I press my ear to the wall with the little door. Another voice.
A girl. Another girl. My heart plummets down into my gut. She's begging. I can barely make any of it out through the-
The wall slides away. I pitch forward, panicked, and am shoved backwards onto the hard floor. The shock of the blow stuns me, and I'm not quick enough to get back to my feet before I hear the door slam shut again.
"Let me out of here, you fucking crazy asshole!" Someone inside the room screams, banging the sides of her fists against the steel. "I'll fucking destroy you! I'll have people looking for me in an hour you son of a bitch!"
I look up at her, vision spinning. My throat tightens up in a second, my face goes hot with both relief and a new panic.
"Victoria?" I croak from the ground.
She spins around, blue eyes going wide when they settle on me. Her yells die in her mouth. For a moment she doesn't move at all, face streaked with tears and clothing mussed and face twisted in confusion.
"Max." It's barely a whisper. Hearing another person say my name, hearing another person's voice, makes me burst into tears. "Oh my God. Max. Holy shit."
She's diving down to me in a heartbeat, arms wrapping around my shoulders and knees collapsed against the tile. I can't stop sobbing.
"Holy shit," she keeps muttering. "I fucking knew it. I knew you were alive. Nobody would fucking listen to me but I knew it."
I clutch at the back of her blouse, navy blue and velvety, and bury my face into her shoulder. Oh God, I haven't cried once since I got here. I can't believe this is. It must be a dream. She smells like vanilla lotion. I feel like I'm going to die. She says something about Chloe, or Chloe's car or a fire or something, but I can't make sense of it right now, nor am I particularly invested in it. Hearing her name only makes me cry harder.
She pulls back and I hate her for it, at least until I feel her fingertips tracing lines over my face.
"Jesus," she breathes. It makes me laugh, and the laughing almost makes me start crying again.
"Give me a break," I half smile, half blubber. "I've been washing my face in a toilet for-"
Oh my god. I grab her by the shoulders. "How long have I been missing?"
She grimaces at me, biting her lips between her teeth. Her eyes are bloodshot and her mascara is running and she looks so fucking beautiful right now.
"Three weeks," she murmurs. Her face twists up as tears start beading up in her eyes again. "You've been gone for three weeks and two days, you fucking idiot."
"Three weeks," I repeat. The substance of the words is alien on my tongue. "I've been washing my face in a toilet for three weeks."