Flash-flash. Double flash.
Flash-flash. No flash.
This is where I look away. Where I always look away. If I didn't, I'd see the malfunction. The problem.
That's why I don't look in the first place.
See, that's the funny part. I know that I can technically get out of here, that I have a right to get out of here.
But whenever I decide to try to do so, I feel the tug of cool, heavy shackles, hear the metallic rustle of chains.
Only, I know I'm not chained because I can't be. Since there's no point in locking a door and chaining someone if they're not some class-A criminal.
I'm not a class-A criminal, in case you were wondering.
"A handicap to the work environment," they told Denholm. My boss. My friend. I know it wasn't meant for my ears to hear but can you blame me?
When Denholm entered his office and I was pretending to be curious about his meeting (he didn't elaborate, obviously), I though we were going to talk about this, think of a good way out of the situation for everyone-the company, Denholm, me.
"Let's go somewhere more private."
I raised one recently re-dyed eyebrow. But this is your office. The private place to talk.
He either didn't notice or deliberately ignored my confusion. My nonexistent money is on the latter.
"What are we doing in IT?" Again, he didn't answer.
He just lead me into a narrow, dimly lit room with blinking lights, noisy ventilators, cables upon cables, and boxes in all shades of grey imaginable.
The air was stuffy, uncomfortably warm. The underlying buzzing of the many grey boxes something I don't really notice anymore, but definitely did when I first entered this cabinet.
There is no chair, not table, no nothing around here, which should have tipped me off the moment I layed eyes on the colourless walls. But it didn't.
Because I made the beginner's mistake of trusting a friend.
It was quick, probably something I should be thankful for. Yet not quick enough for me to miss Denholm's face that was a mask of stone.
Unblinking as he pushed me inside, slamming the door none too gently. No explanation, far less an apology.
My only source of information remains the conversation I eavesdropped on.
I have forgotten what my voice sounds like. The last time I used it, I screamed myself hoarse, pounding on the mundane, crimson door with, literally, everything I had(my fists, my feet, my head).
I can't tell you when that was.
Sometimes I distantly perceive laughter in the distance, usually that of a woman and two men. I may be deceiving myself in my desperation, but they seem to hush when I have one of my outbursts.
Worst of all, their voices give me hope. Present a possibility of salvation...
...because I haven't confirmed that I'm imagining it all just yet.
I want to, deep down, but when I make the slightest of movements to get to the door, the shackles are holding me back again.
But they're not around my wrists, as you might expect.
What they close around is my frantically beating heart.
Tug.
Rustle.
A scream echoes in the deep, deep darkness that is steadily growing at the edges of my consciousness.
Going mad is a tedious process, I realize. When you're simply waiting for it to happen like me.
Most of the time I spend in a state neither sane nor nuts, which, I guess, is driving me crazy in the first place.
I wonder what it's like to be mad.
I guess I'll find out soon.
RR! Thanks!