Cube
Disclaimer: I don't own Batman, god knows who owns the rights to "Cube" now, but it ain't me.
He woke up, and the room was white.
White.
White.
It was small, maybe 9x9, or 13x13. He had no judge of distance. It was a room…no, cell, made up of panels. No furniture.
No door.
"Hello?" he called timidly.
It reverberated slightly across the white linen expanse of the wall.
"H-hello. Can anybody hear me?" he tapped a wall. Solid.
"I'm-" and there he had to stop.
Because he had no idea what to say next. He couldn't remember who he was. What he liked, his mental state, his phone number. He was a complete blank.
"Hello!" He started.
There, behind him was a cheerful man with a moustache.
"Howdy." He grinned. "Gotcha your stool, pal." He set the beat-up item down.
"Sorry I couldn't get it here sooner."
Relief melted his anxiety.
"Hey, it's alright." He said, so happy to see another person he didn't question where he had come from or why. "I'm just glad you came."
"My pleasure." Gus reassured him. He glanced at the stool, his grin turning to a frown.
"There's strawberry jam on this stool." Gus picked it up and scrubbed it with a greasy handkerchief from his pocket.
"Hey, never mind." He laughed a little. "For one crazy minute there, I thought I was trapped inside this place."
Gus's laughter wafted from behind him.
"I can't begin to tell you how relieved I am just to see-"
The thud of a slamming door.
He was alone again.
He ran to the wall, patting and feeling, trying to see where the other man had gone. There was no opening, no gap that he could pry with his fingers, it was as if it was just a normal wall. But Gus had to've gotten out somehow.
He knocked futilely on the wall.
"Good afternoon, sir. Is something the matter?"
His head whipped around. There was a well-dressed gentleman standing where there had been none before.
"I assume you were looking for me. The name's Arkham, I'm the manager."
He stared at the man.
"Manager? Of what?"
"Why, this entire establishment, of course." Arkham said a little proudly.
He moved toward Arkham. "What's going on here?"
The man chuckled. "Nothing that I know of. I just wanted to say 'hullo', and make sure you had everything you needed."
"Look, that's not what I mean." He said exasperatedly. He turned to the panel that Arkham was nearest to and tried it. Nothing.
He turned back to Arkham.
"What is this place? What's it for?"
Arkham chuckled and patted him on the arm. "We ask ourselves that question, once in a while."
The man turned to face the wall. "Some people find it hard to believe, to good to be true, I guess."
He shook his head. "B-but I don't understand why I'm bei-"
"I thought you might not understand." Arkham cut him off. "That's why I dropped by."
He sighed. "One thing I suppose nobody's told you about is the call button."
He felt hope spring anew. "The what?"
Arkham smiled wryly. "I thought not."
"It's right over here on the wall." He walked to the opposite end of the room and pointed to what had seemed to be blank wall just a minute ago.
"If you need anything, just ring any time of the day or night."
His brow furrowed. "I-I never noticed this before."
Arkham smiled pompously. "Oh yes, all the cubes-" and he stopped and looked up at him in distress. He looked back at the man, feeling something in his grasp at last.
Arkham fumbled for a recovery. "Um-that is- that call button was always here."
He didn't let it go. "There are other cubes?"
Arkham looked like he wanted to get away. "I didn't mean to say that."
"Why not?"
"Well, it's not you shouldn't know, certainly, I just hate to mislead you."
His stare seemed to burn Arkham like a laser. "But there are other places with people trapped inside them?"
"No, that's not accurate at all; no one is trapped." Arkham answered hastily. "Some people seem quite content and stay. Of course, there are others who wish to leave, and if they really want to, there's no real problem."
He gripped Arkham by the shoulders. "Well what do they do?"
Arkham gazed back at him nonchalantly. "They just leave."
He gave him a little shake. "How?"
Arkham chuckled good-naturedly. "In various ways." He removed the hands from his person.
"All of us on the managerial level got out one way or another."
He gritted his teeth in frustration. "But how, I mean, give me an example."
Arkham smiled. "Well; the simple, direct approach is best." He touched the other man's arm.
"Now if you'll excuse me sir, I've got other matters to attend to." Arkham walked to the opposite wall.
He panicked at seeing this.
"Now-now wait a minute!" Arkham stopped and turned around; he hadn't expected him to. He stopped short.
"Can I…can I go with you?" He asked timidly.
Arkham smiled apologetically. "I'm afraid you can't get out this way, sir."
He grinned wider. "This is… my door!" and he swung it shut with a muted thump.
It seemed like his fingers always reached the crack a second too late. His eyes burned with disappointment, and he went back to trying other walls. His fingers picked and pried. His hands felt and pressed. He knocked.
And something on the other side knocked back.
Author's note: It's been so long since I've written anything, even longer anything for this site. This is based on Jim Henson's "Cube", a fantastic movie to watch if you've got an hour to kill(only there might be spoilers for the end of this). The opening and closing dialogue is taken nearly verbatim from it; I'm not being unoriginal, I'm just trying to stay true to its origins before I take it crazy places. There will be more Batman characters later, I swear!