Survival 101: A to Z

by Elemnestra Aethelflaeda

Your mind can come up with some very strange things to try and distract you from certain unfortunate situations that you might happen to find yourself in.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot, what there is of it. Anything recognisable isn't mine.

Survival 101: A to Z

A is for anxiety.

Anxiety, that creeping feeling of dread, crawling in your stomach. Butterflies doing acrobatics in your stomach. Anxiety that your team might not be safe. That they might be suffering. You know that your captors are probably lying to you, that they don't have your team, and that they never had them, not even a hair, because you're sure you saw them get away.

But then, how many of your memories are wishful thinking, and how many are true, because maybe you're the one lying to yourself, not them. Maybe your team are here, somewhere; hurt, injured, wounded, and you can't do anything about it, can't stop it, can't save them, because you're not with them, and you can't protect them like you should be doing...

No. That's wrong, and you know that's wrong, because they got home, and they're safe, you know it, you saw it. Didn't actually hear the wormhole, because you were too far away, but you told them to go, and you know they went. And now you just have to remember it. Okay? You just have to keep that in mind, because whatever's happening here, your team are safe – you hear me, safe – and these bastards can't do anything to them.

Not anything at all.

B is for blood.

It drips. Drips between your fingers as you clamp them to your side, too concerned with stopping the flow to look up to try and defend against the next blow, the next cut, the next flowering of pain on your abused body. That one hurts too, stings really, but it's not so deep, doesn't have so much blood leaking out of it. You're not so worried about that one.

The cut on your side does worry you, though, and you think it worries your captors as well. You're not sure that they meant to leave a wound this bad this early on. Not that they say anything, or do anything to help, or try to stop your blood dripping onto the cold floor of your cell. But they do stop the additional pain, and then leave you alone to try and stem the flow. And that's really, you figure, probably the best thing they could have done. You wouldn't have trusted them to attempt to fix the wound. Not after they made it in the first place. But the stream of blood is slowing down now, you think, maybe, so maybe it wasn't quite as bad as it had looked to you at first.

Still, maybe this means that they'll stay away for longer this time. You could get behind that idea.

C is for corpse.

Because this sorry, broken carcass – that's another C word – of yours is sure beginning to look like a corpse. Hopefully it won't actually become one anytime soon. You sure as hell don't intend for that to happen, anyway. Then again, the way things seem to be going, it isn't as though you're exactly going to have a lot of input in the matter. And the way this place stinks, you think there might have been another corpse in residence until just recently. Then again, that smell might just be you.

You close your eyes – no point looking at this carcass of yours any longer, it isn't changing – and slump against the wall. The light shows crimson through your eyelids, and you suddenly don't want to look at them, either. The colour has become slightly too familiar, these past few days. But you don't really have the energy to open them again, either, so your choices suddenly don't matter anymore. Again.

You slump down a little further, unable to stop yourself, and wonder if maybe, this time, you'll be able to get some proper sleep in, before they come to wake you up. You really do need some sleep. But you're going to need sleep even more in the time to come, you just know it.

Because it can only get worse.

D is for death.

Or maybe D is for dearth, because there certainly seems to be a dearth of death around here. Specifically, a dearth of your death, because did you mention the smell, earlier? Um. Your brain sounds like it's a little woozy. But then, isn't that like saying you're crazy? That if you know you're crazy then you can't be crazy; and if you know you're not then you are?

Or something sounding like that, anyway...You should know this line, you've read that damn crazy book enough times. And besides, trying to remember will give you something to do to keep your mind off...off what it should be kept off of.

Ah. Preposition. Oops.

Of course, the other end of that line is that you can't leave unless you're crazy. But you don't think that these folks will let you leave once they realise you're losing it. And you really are, aren't you? What is it they're doing to you, that you're feeling so out of it? Besides the obvious, that is?

You're still thinking clearly enough to know that death is a bad idea, though, whatever else your fried mind is cooking up, so that's a step in the right direction. Well, a hobble, maybe. Or a crawl.

Or maybe it's just a step backwards you haven't taken yet.

E is for extraterrestrial.

And extraterrestrials, for all you're sure some of them can be cute and cuddly when they put their minds to it, really, really piss you off sometimes. Like now, for instance. Hell. Extraterrestrials.

ET phone home and all that. Huh. If only.

Why you? Okay, so for the most part it's awesome, sweet, peachy, yadda, yadda, yadda. So on and so forth.

But far too many of the extraterrestrials – okay, you've made your point with the E, you decide you can just call them aliens now – that you've come across just want to kill you. Or otherwise cause people harm. Or have "unfortunate misunderstandings". Or...ya know; they sort of seem to have a deep, deep supply of excuses for wanting to shoot at your team, these alien guys.

Maybe you're being a little unjust, but hey, you think you're allowed to be unjust every once in a while. Or maybe a little oftener. And if you're only allowed to be unjust every time someone shoots at you, then you're most likely still on credit. But it's always nice to meet someone new, you think – and even you can tell you don't really believe that one – and it's amazing how often you can make new friends – and that, you think, is entirely true – it really is amazing how often you don't.

Yeah. Okay. Again with the slightly unjust-and-untrue. But you think that, given your current situation, you're allowed to be pissed off and grumpy. And, well, bending the truth just sort of comes naturally after that.

You're good at bending the truth; just like you're sure you'll be bending it about what happened here if you ever get out.

F is for fear.

You don't fear what's happening, not in so many words; because it is happening, and you can only really fear something that hasn't happened yet. When it is happening, in the actual process of occurring, then you can't fear it because your mind is taken up with trying to block it out. But what you do fear – not that you admit it to anyone but yourself, and sometimes not even then (you're good at lying to yourself) – is that you won't be able to get out of here. Or that you won't be able to get out of here in one piece, not broken, or shattered and in pieces.

You fear staying here, not being here. Fearing being here would be a waste of the energy you have left, because there's nothing you can do to change it.

You do fear, though, something like this happening to your team, to your friends. To have fiends like these, hell, even in the same room as your team – not a fear, precisely, but something that makes your trigger finger itch, makes you pissed as hell, causes an emotion that lets you block out what's happening to you.

If it had been any other thought that caused that, then you'd probably keep it in mind, try and use it to shelter from what happens in this cell. But not that idea.

But then, you already know that the best way to stay alive in a place like this is hate. But these guys don't ever do anything to make the situation personal; if anything, they just don't care about you, are completely impersonal; it makes it kind of hard to hate them. But hate is an H word anyway, so maybe you'll come back to that one later, you think.

A pity you can't leave these fiends behind along with the letter F.

G is for guard.

In this place, the guards all...seem exactly the same, for the most part. Cut from the same cloth, all that. Doing that whole guarding thing they do. Xeroxes of each other, which makes it a lot harder to tell when they've switched shifts, which makes it harder for you to tell how long you've spent in here. It feels like forever, but you're pretty sure it hasn't been all that long. Relatively.

For one thing, you're not really feeling the caffeine withdrawal. You may not be an addict, not like others you could mention, but you do need your coffee – or really, the energy kicks that come with the caffeine.

Or, Door Number Two, your body could just be ignoring caffeine withdrawal in favour of other, more pressing, hurts. That's the less appetizing option. Ooh, speaking of an appetite...you'd kill for a steak. Or Chinese takeout. Or Thai. Or pizza. Or a beer. In fact, you'd do a great deal for any Earth-based junk food.

Or, hell, even the healthy, non-beer-based stuff. Or...no, you're not sure you'd go as far as infirmary-food. Yet.

The stuff here just tastes like cardboard, and you've never really liked to experiment that much with your food. Well, there was that time when you had that stuff that...But it was a dare, you swear. And you're never doing it again...if you can possibly help it.

You can't help but think that your mind is wandering.

You shouldn't let your mind wander: it's too small to be out on its own.

You wonder where you read that. On a T-shirt, most likely. It's true, though; your mind does kind of seem to be wandering. It might be those weird painkillers, or whatever they are, the ones that remind you somewhat of those massively psychedelic drugs you took once on a dare. Have you mentioned those alien painkiller-y-things yet? Maybe not. You're sure you'll get around to it later.

Maybe it's lack of sleep. You should probably get on to that.

Actually, you seem to be getting on to that particular mission with no input from your brain at all, you think drearily, and slump down.

H is for hardship.

You've been going through too much hardship lately, more than you'd like to in order to get home. And, it's kind of strange just how strange it isn't, that these days home to you means the SGC more than it does your house. Well, your house is in there too, because home is a fairly complicated word, but the SGC is definitely a major part of it.

It's a little weird, you think, just how heavily the SGC has become a part of your life. Hell, you don't even seem to have a life outside your work. And, just like you mentioned earlier, that work involves plenty of hardship. Although, you admit to yourself, you could be a little biased on that point, given where you are right now. And apparently, or so you've been told, being biased is not conducive to honesty. Or something.

Not that you would have been at all biased about certain politicians, and making certain of your views abundantly clear to everyone within earshot. Of course not. You'd never do something like that.

But then, you're honest enough with yourself to know that you're not always honest with yourself. There are plenty of things you lie to yourself about, but – as you're lying to yourself – you find it best to not admit to yourself the truth, even when you're being honest.

And if that sentence made as little sense as you thought it did, then maybe that's a sign you need to get back to sleep.

You just keep on waking up whenever you try. That, or being woken up.

I is for intelligence.

Because these guys just don't seem to have any. No, really. You're being serious here. You mean, sure, they might be okay in a limited area of expertise – i.e. causing pain to their unfortunate victims – but other than that? Nope. Nada. Not at all.

For instance, they don't even seem to have any real purpose here. And, honestly? If they had a purpose, you'd think that they'd kind of want you to know it. So you could get depressed and give up, or whatever. Of course, you wouldn't, but it's not like they'd know that.

Alright, you think, so they might be more than just okay in their area of expertise, as you wince, lowering yourself down very carefully to sit.

Ouch. In fact, they may actually be kinda talented in that area. It's a bit of a pity, that. You, for one, would be perfectly content if they were a little less talented.

But in other ways, they just cannot use their brains. If they even have brains. Providing their brains haven't all been eaten by zombies or something. Ooh. Now that's a bad thought.

Of course, you don't know where the thought actually came from in the first place – probably blood loss and funky pain meds – but it's not very nice all the same.

Planet of the Zombies. That could actually be worse than this place. Although, you guess it would depend on which Hollywood film got it right. As in, Dawn of the Dead or Shaun of the Dead?

It is entirely possible, you think, that you're putting on a fine display of a different type of limited intelligence here. Oh well. It's not as though you ever pretended anything different. And you're kind of at a disadvantage here.

J is for jubilation.

Well, okay, jubilation might be pushing it a bit, but you needed to find something that began with a J. In fact, for normal people – and among that number you are certainly not – "satisfied" or even "content" might be pushing it, let alone words like "ecstatic" and "happy" and "joyful".

Although, you should probably face it, most of those descriptions push the definition of your emotional state for you, too. Still. All the same.

You think you should be allowed to exaggerate a bit. It makes you feel better, anyway.

Well, what would really make you feel better is probably actually more along the lines of shooting these guys and getting the hell out of here. Whatever the chances of that happening is.

The point is, you think, that you've been left alone for absolutely hours. Glorious, long hours with no pain involved. Well, no extra pain, anyway. In fact, you've been in this cell for so long with no interaction from the outside world, you're starting to get bored.

Not that it normally takes you long to get bored, but whatever.

They've left you alone for so long you begin to wonder if they've been found out and shut down by the local version of some police department, or the FBI, or something. But that would probably be a little too much to hope for, wouldn't it? Provided you aren't just left in here to rot, anyway.

So: jubilation. Which, like you think you mentioned earlier, is actually a bit of an exaggeration. Especially with the whole boredom thing getting worse. Lying in this cell doing nothing at all is really starting to get old.

Actually, make that: being in this cell at all is really starting to get old.

K is for killing.

Because that's what you did to one of your never-changing guards last night, and now it's what it seems like the rest of them want to do to you. But really it was the other guy's fault; he shouldn't have left his knife – another K word – within reach of a dangerous and pissed off prisoner, no matter how injured that prisoner might happen to be. That prisoner you're talking about here is you, incidentally.

But for all that they decided to beat up on you today, your thoughts are still pretty clear, maybe clearer than they've been for a while. Maybe that "pain focusing the mind" thing is true, just only in certain amounts. And, okay, you think, maybe you weren't focusing too well last night, when you killed that guy.

At least half of it was instinct, if you're being honest with yourself, and wasn't thought through at all. Your subconscious saw a chance and took it, no thought to the consequences, immediate or otherwise. It's almost a pity, really, that killing someone – okay, so he was hardly an innocent person, but still – should become instinct, second-nature, natural.

You knew that years ago, of course, but it's still a little disturbing, when you take the time to think about it. And most of the time you deliberately don't think about it. But in this case...even if you hadn't thought it through...hell, even if you had thought it through, you probably still would have gone ahead and killed the bastard anyway.

You need to be doing something, and lying in a cell and being beaten up – or whatever else takes your captors' fancy – just doesn't count in that regard, in your mind.

L is for last.

You're not sure why, but you can't help thinking about who might have been the last poor schmuck to occupy this here cell. Thinking about who might have been in here before you.

Of course, for all you know, these guys might have just moved their capture-torture business round the block, might be on entirely new quarters, new lodgings. Might be that the last guy in here was a mass-murderer or something, that these are jail cells.

Well, at least you'd almost have something in common then, you think. And then try to shake yourself out of the mood that seems to have ambushed you from nowhere. Then again, that's kind of the point of ambushes, isn't it? That you don't see them coming?

But your job is to see the ambushes coming. To make sure your team doesn't get ambushed, doesn't get caught in a nasty surprise without due warning. It seems like you haven't been too good at that aspect of your job in recent times.

You still don't know why you didn't spot it. You've gone over and over it, in the time you have, and you know there's something you missed; there must be something you missed, that could have forewarned you. 'Course, there's nothing that can be done about it now, and you know that; but it doesn't stop your mind going round and round and round. It's not as though, between sessions with the locals, there's much to occupy your mind.

So you wonder what you missed, and you wonder who the last guy in here was, and you wonder when you're gonna become the last guy. And in between all that, you wonder if you're maybe losing your mind.

But you should be fine, just so long as you don't end up needing the Last Rites (should be).

M is for midnight.

It's midnight. Of course, it could just as easily be mid-morning, what with how the lights are always giving off the same dim light, but you've decided to make it midnight, through your will alone if nothing else. Besides, you're fairly sure you just heard one of those ever-present, identical guards yawn.

People don't generally yawn when it's mid-morning. Well, not unless they're stuck in a particularly boring briefing. Or staring at the same stretch of wall for hours on end, which, come to think of it, is just what those guards are doing.

Huh. Maybe your reasoning is completely false, and it is mid-morning. Or, you know, any other sort of morning. Or mourning.

No. No morbidity.

Morbidity is morbid and unsettling, and you know it's not going to improve anything, however mildly entertaining it can prove initially. Especially when you're doing it out loud, in order to gain reactions. But you said yesterday – or before you went to sleep, whatever – that you were going to try and stop with the morbid thing. 'Cause it is really not helping you any.

Then again, you wonder what the reaction of these guys would be if you tried the morbid thing on...no, actually, you don't think it would be worth it. They'd probably just try and figure out what the hell it was you said for a second, then get on with the task of staring at a wall.

Ya know, this whole language barrier thing can be a bit of a hindrance in annoying and irritating people.

N is for nadir.

And this is bad, but surely it can only get better.

Yeah. You just keep on thinking that. Because it's always been true in the past. You only wish.

But then, to your addled brain, addled by lack of sleep, and too much stress, and pain, and too many of those funky-mind-trip painkillers – which you'd think would defeat the purpose of the whole pain thing, but maybe not; maybe they're meant to be doing something else entirely, and your Tau'ri metabolism, or immune system or something is screwing it up – and now you've forgotten where this sentence was going, because it seems to have become far too long even to your muddled mind, not to mention all those things you listed a second ago.

Your mind is really not doing so well.

But the point is, your brain, being all those messed-up things and more, kind of believes you that it really can only get better. After all, you're at the middle of the alphabet, the nadir, which is just another word for the absolute lowest you can get; surely it can only get better (surely).

But then you remember that it's always darkest just before dawn – even though clichés are still not your thing – and you're pretty darn sure that it's not dawn just yet.

For one thing, you're only halfway through your alphabet. Maybe you should hurry it up a bit (if only mind games like these really did work like that).

O is for optimism.

Because as out of place as it may seem, in this tiny cell, you know you need it. You need to believe you will escape, have to believe it. Because if you don't believe it, you may as well give up. And you're not really feeling like giving up just yet.

'Course, that's just because you're a stubborn sonuvabitch. Not that that's necessarily all that relevant.

Right now, giving up would feel too much like failing.

Failure is not an option.

Where was...oh. Apollo 13. Your mind is coming up with the strangest things. Option is another O word, too. That doesn't make you feel a lot better though, unsurprisingly.

It'd be better if you could just opt out of this one. And, yes, that was on purpose. Alliteration can be a wonderful thing. Just like – as your mind tries to imprint onto your thoughts in indelible ink – optimism can be equally as good for you. You know, for your health. Ah, that might be mental health you mean there, not so much your physical health. Not that you needed reminding or anything.

You're the one that has to live with it, you grumble to yourself, and it's not as though your knee needs any more trauma to deal with. Or, for that matter, the entire rest of you.

Trauma is not a good option for continued optimal existence, you have decided (now if you could just get everyone else to follow along with that).

P is for pain.

And your world just seems to be entirely made up of pain right at this moment in time. At these several moments in time, really. Many moments in time, all covered in a blur of pain. And saying the word – or any words at all – will not make it go away, no matter what illogical logic your brain has made you believe in this time.

And you really do want it to just go away, vanish, just like this is a fairy tale, because those always have happy endings. Of course, you remind yourself with a fact you really don't want to remember, those are only the modern versions that have happy endings. The original stories are full of blood and guts, and someone always dies. You think that you'd like to forget that fact, and your brain drifts away from it, to the current constant in your life. Pain.

You try to ignore it, though, or at least pretend it isn't happening.

But, as much as your pride doesn't want to let you admit it, it really does hurt.

Q is for questions.

And the strange thing is, there aren't any. Questions, that is. Queries, of which there are none. You'd probably be able to cope a little better if there had been questions. But they're not asking any, so you don't have anything to focus on, to keep you grounded. No ingrained responses to be used, no mantras of name, rank and number. Just the pain, that they keep – no (don't think about it), wait, that was P, and you're up to Q now. See? Focus.

And then, without the questioning, you don't have any way to get back at your captors, to annoy them by withholding the information they want. It strikes you as a kind of funny thing to want at this point, to annoy the guys who are doing this, but then, that's habit more than anything else, isn't it? To irritate people until they lose their temper; to make them underestimate you; make them drop their guard.

But these guys aren't asking questions. They don't care about what you know, just about what they can do to you. And all you have to do for that particular aim to be reached is to be there. You don't even have to be all there mentally (but you are, still, just).

R is for rescue.

And, you think to yourself, this hypothetical rescue you are depending on had better come. Because you are depending on it, and you do need to escape. And if a physical, actual rescue team – preferably an SG team, though at this point you really aren't too picky – don't come soon, then you know you will end up taking the only option of escape left to you.

You know you will end up fleeing to someplace inside your head, to some safe refuge away from reality. And you're already leaning in that direction, already getting past the worst of it by vanishing somewhere inside your own head, deep within the ink-stained depths of your own soul. Just like you have before. But you know if you stay there for too long, you won't be able to come back to reality.

And the rescue, if it ever comes, will find nothing but an empty shell, living but void of self. Animate, but dead in all the ways that really count. You don't think the rescuing guys deserve to go through that, to get here just to find...that.

But then, that's assuming the rescue comes, isn't it? Because if it doesn't, then what are you hanging on for? What are you trying to survive for, why try to hang on through each extra day? If the rescue never comes, then wouldn't disappearing into your mind be the better option, rather than stay and be broken? If no one comes, no one will have to try and draw you out of your shell, and it will all be over that much quicker, that much more easily. Wouldn't that be better?

No, you try and tell yourself, it will be coming. You have to hang on, have to survive, because you always have, and this is not going to be an exception. But you're not sure you're listening to yourself.

S is for scarlet.

And that's the colour of your hands, your skin, heck, even your clothes, at the moment. Scarlet. Well, those things were that colour; not really any more, now you've had a bit of a rest from those still-weirdly-non-existent-questions. Because it dries differently, turns into a rusty stain, darker than when it comes out. Usually, anyway, because the more come out, the darker it is, the worse off you're going to be. That's never a good sign, and you think you know more than you want to about the colour of blood, or definitely when it applies to your blood.

You don't think you want to see it anymore, well hell, you know you don't want to see any more of it.

But there is one good thing about all this, these little trickles of scarlet colour. Scarlet means they don't have a sarcophagus, because if they had one they would have used it by now, so they don't, because scarlet means the injuries haven't been healed. And true, the chances of these guys having a sarcophagus is slim, but you really don't want to have to explain to niggling fear at the back of your mind that what if they did?

But that doesn't matter, you think, because you'd find a way to survive even then, and they don't have one anyway, because you'd be able to tell, and anyway you can still see the scarlet, so it's a moot point. And surely your mind wouldn't be quite this fuzzy – you think it's because of blood loss, or maybe just your brain turning itself off – if they'd had one. So they don't, so you can stop worrying about it and pretending you're not (you can't lie that well to yourself).

T is for tension.

You think that the guards outside your door seem somehow tenser today than they have been before. Not that they've told you or anything, but they're standing straighter, tension in the lines of their bodies. It's strange, though, you think; why today?

Maybe they got chewed out by whoever's in charge of them around here. Maybe they're going through a sticky divorce. Probably not all of them, though.

Maybe they're having an inspection today. Maybe this place is being found out and shut down. Yeah, right – you've thought that one before.

Maybe the planet's being invaded. Hopefully not.

Maybe some other prisoner got free. Of course, that's assuming there are other prisoners here. You don't see why there wouldn't be, though.

Maybe you're spending a weird amount of time trying to see into the lives of people who've never done anything other than grunt at you. Not that you have anything else to be doing. Whatever.

But there's obviously trouble on the horizon for someone. You just hope that that someone in question isn't you. You've got enough trouble in your life, you think.

Trials and tribulations all round, you have.

U is for universe.

Because for all you know, there may be all kinds of wonderful, fantastic things out there in the big wide universe – and you've even seen some of them, and wonderful and fantastic they were indeed – but you seem to just keep on running into the other end of the scale. The slums of the universe. You mean, you thought slums on Earth were bad. Which, you know, they were.

But that's hardly the point. Admittedly, you seem to have entirely lost track of what the point is – or was going to be, or whatever – but you don't think that's the point at hand, either. Actually, you think maybe you should stay away from points of any sort in the near future.

Not that you'll have a choice – you mean, forks have points, for crying out loud. Not to mention things like pens. Pencils. Car keys. Still, you don't think you really meant that sort of point when you made the statement. Then again, you could be wrong about that, given you made it relatively some time ago, given the large gaps of time between your thoughts.

That brings up the question of: why are you thinking so slowly?

And the answer is probably along the lines of: exactly the reason why you've been thinking funny the entire time you've inhabited this cell. You're really getting tired of this place.

Of all the planets in the universe, you had to 'gate onto this one...

You think that quote managed to get a little mangled in translation, but whatever. It's true in spirit.

You're also starting to think that you'd really, really like to get out of here, if only so you could think straight again, without getting mixed-up quotes all over your mind.

V is for violence.

These guys, the ones who seem to be in charge of your well-being at the moment, seem to kind of be in to violence. It's not as though you haven't picked up some violent tendencies during your life; but these guys really have it down to an art form.

And you should know, you think; you've been to some pretty varied galleries and museums exhibiting this style over the years, and you'd like to think you're a bit of an expert. This exhibit may not be so fine-tuned, or as intricate or all-encompassing and far-reaching as others you've seen – that you've experienced, in point of fact, possibly the metaphor is getting a little over-extended – but it does have passion, impersonal though it may be.

These guys – though maybe not the guards you seem to have a fixation with, they just stare at walls and be bored and ignore the disturbing sounds – enjoy their work. You seem to have gone through a lot of guys like this in your time – in the past few days, even, what is this place, Psychopaths-R-Us? – but these ones are a little different. It's creeping you out, a bit.

You'd almost thought you were numbing to the...experiences you're going through here – only almost, though, you're being disillusioned of that pretty darn fast – but you've always found pure violence, with no purpose, to be kinda disorientating. You've hurt people before, sure, comes with the territory – whatever your personal thoughts about it, it's the job in front of you, and it has to be done – but you can safely say that you've never done it just for the kicks.

You've been told you're mental, insane, whatever; it's been said you're far too damn good at your job; but you're not a sadist. You've never been into violence for its own sake. You value your sanity a little too highly for that.

Cross that line once, it gets too easy to cross it again.

W is for wail.

Because you have not been able to get any sleep last night, or today, even. And your questions about if there was anyone else being held prisoner here have been firmly answered. Only now that they have been answered, you're wishing you still had your nice, cosy ignorance. Or at least that you hadn't found out in quite this way.

Whoever it is that's making that awful, pitiful wailing noise has definitely ensured that no one in this whole building is gonna be getting a wink of sleep any time soon. Which, while it may be useful for the guards (they don't have to keep waking everyone up by themselves), isn't so good for you.

Not to mention, the constant noise is working just as well as any psychological torture these guys could have thought up. You're just about ready to shoot something. Or snap. Go round the bend. Something.

Someone should really try and sedate that guy. It's starting – more than starting, it started hours back – to get on your nerves. Then again, you're not really sure who exactly you think should be doing the sedating in question. Obviously not the other folk locked up like you, though they're probably the ones most put out by it. Not the guards, who, though probably just as annoyed, unless they've had their ears surgically removed or something, would get busted if they moved an inch.

So that leaves the guys who do all the other work around here; that work you don't like to think about. And maybe the real question here is who the heck are they? And, are you ever going to find out?

X is for xenial.

See? You have managed to pick up some fancy, complicated words in the mess that happens to be your life. Possibly because this word concerns you all too directly: the dictionary – or maybe it was a certain geeky teammate of yours, same thing – told you once it means "of or concerning hospitality towards guests" – which is something that really needs to be looked at in this place. Or, you know, in a whole bunch of places you end up unwillingly visiting actually.

Someone should try and do something about that, and common sense kinda demands that that someone should be you; but hey, how are you supposed to be able to do anything about that? Everyone can make choices; they should be able to decide to do this stuff for themselves. And by that you mean they should decide to stop doing certain stuff. Like, say, stop being such rat-bastards about this whole hospitality thing and not lock people – innocent people, because you really actually weren't doing anything this time – up in cells.

Very unjust of them it is, and they should probably spend some time thinking about what they're doing with their lives and going to a confessional.

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned...

Well, heck yeah, they've sinned alright. They're doing some sinning right now, actually, and you're desperately trying to ignore it, rambling on and on in your attempt... Only the local gods are probably Goa'uld, so confessing to them probably wouldn't be the greatest idea in the galaxy. The Goa'uld are none too hot on hospitality themselves, are they?

No wonder your life seems to be full of non-hospitable folk from one end to the other.

Y is for yesterday.

Yesterday was bad, but so was the day before that, and...you're not really sure how far back you should go with that sentence, because you're not really sure how long you've been here. Not anymore, and not with the lights that never go off, and it's not as though you really want to know how long you've been in this...place.

And yesterday was bad, but you don't think today is going to be any better. In fact, the days could just be going all downhill from here on in. Although that phase – the starting-to-go-downhill phase – might have started a while back, and you're only just realising it now. Although, considering you had an idea a bit like this one yesterday, maybe you did realise it before, and then just forgot about it. And considering that idea too closely isn't a good idea, second-guessing yourself, triple-guessing. That way lies madness (and don't you know it).

On the other hand, yesterday was another day you survived through this...hell, and it was one less day you still have to survive, because it's in the past. Done. Finished. Over with. Gone. Yesterday, though, is still going to impact on today, isn't it? Because what happened yesterday left reminders, didn't it? And the reminders still hurt, and you really are slipping down a steep slope, falling off a cliff, falling downwards into yourself. Falling into the darkness of your own mind.

And now you can see them coming again, just like all the yesterdays before today.

Z is for zephyr.

Huddled on the floor of your cell, you hear footsteps outside, heading towards you. You don't want to look at whoever's coming. Because you know, you just know that they're coming for another painful round. And you think that maybe if you don't look, if you don't actually see them, they won't be there. That you can just ignore them and they'll go away.

Like a child hiding its head underneath the blankets so the bogeyman will go away.

Your tactic of not-looking has exactly the same effect, though – it does absolutely nothing, and you hear the cell door creak open, inch by inch. As it opens, you turn towards it, eyes still closed, because you can't look yet. Still clinging on stubbornly to denial, which sure ain't just a river in Egypt. Gathering together the scattered remnants of your courage, you open your eyes, feeling as you do so a soft breeze, a zephyr making its way across your face.

Looking blurrily up at the figure entering your cell – your eyes aren't so good at the moment, not after the past few days – you register that they don't quite look like who you were expecting. But, you think to yourself slowly, they are exactly who you were hoping for.

They are, in actuality, exactly who you weren't letting yourself hope for; hope can be shattered too easily, and you don't want to go through all that again.

You haul a tired smile onto your face for the benefit of those now entering the small cell.

'Hey, Carter,' you say – murmur, really, slurring and all but unintelligible – to the blurry face before you, and listen to her soft reply.

See? You were right all along. Your team were fine, had never been killed or captured, not by these guys, anyway. And they had come back; and it was all gonna be just fine.

The End