Chapter Two

I tell myself it's all a dream

And the monsters are not all they seem

- 'Hungry for Another One' by JT Music

Six jumped for the lever, trying hard not to put her foot into the hole in the center of one of the toilet paper rolls as she did so. Twisting an ankle wouldn't be fun and she didn't want to turn back, not now that she had come farther than she ever had before. The stench of the surrounding toilets closed up her throat and made her want to gag, but she suppressed the urge, pulling down on the lever with all her weight.

The lights crackled as they sputtered out and Six let go of the lever, dropping to the floor and squeezed through the bars which, the moment before, had been sizzling with electricity, but now were quiet as iron was supposed to be. The lights creaked as if reminding Six that the lever would come unstuck at any moment. The little girl took the hint and fled through the room as fast as her legs could carry her, only catching scant glances of her surroundings as she went.

Playthings. A little train track. A merry-go-round. Blocks.

I suppose a child played here, Six thought to herself, but even though she knew she had gone no further than the window before in her dream, the child's room was too familiar for her never to have seen it before. She would have liked to stop and ponder, but the clicking of the lights prompted her on.

Six slipped through the bars at the opposite side of the room not a moment too soon. The second her hands left the bars they began to hum and the lightbulbs ignited again. Whatever child once lived here must have been quite unhappy, trapped in there all alone, Six thought, peering back into the child's room. They are not here now, though, so perhaps they escaped in the end.

She dwelled on this thought for a while as she advanced. The corridor was filled with many doors, but Six ignored them. Their handles were far too far out of reach. Only the door at the end stood open, and it was toward this that Six went.

Through the doorway, into another chamber, went Six. She had very little time to look about at her surroundings – hanging cages, mattress against the wall, screens, and several strange lumpy forms in the middle of the room – before a bright, piercing light shone directly upon her. Six raised her hands in front of her face, stumbling backwards as the shining form of an eye printed its afterimage into her brain. She could feel her skin shriveling, baking, burning in the harsh glare of the eye's light. Her feet seemed to crystalize into leaden lumps and she struggled backwards. The shadow of a column touched her like cool water running over a burn and Six submerged herself in its welcoming pool.

I thought darkness was unkind, Six thought, panting. But now I see that light can be just as cruel.

The beam turned away from her position and Six was able to peek around the column and see what had harmed her.

There was a carved eyeball set into the wood above the doorways leading out of the room. As Six watched, the eye swiveled, casting a radiating glow across the floor. Where it looked, the floor was baptized in light. Where it turned away was shadow, and there, Six felt, it was safe to pass.

The strange clumps Six had seen before were illuminated in the deadly light and she could now make out the curve of a leg, seemingly formed of dust, or arms twisted upwards to protect a small, fracturing head.

More children like me, thought Six. Only not so lucky. I suppose they were trying to find their way out. Too bad they were caught here. Otherwise they might have found me and we could have escaped together.

The eye swung back toward Six and she ducked back again, biting her lip and thinking hard. After the first initial shock of being almost turned to stone or solid dust, the eyeball wasn't really that scary after all. It shouldn't be too hard to trick. After all, there were shadows near the feet of the doorframes. If only the other children had thought of going toward the eye, then maybe they wouldn't have been caught so easily, Six speculated. As soon as the eye moved its glare away from her position, Six ducked and sprinted forward, flattening herself against the closed doors and inching sideways beneath the eyeball. Its glare passed in front of her, nearly dipping her toes in light, but she curled them inward, standing pigeon-toed to avoid being burned.

After some sidestepping and scrambling, Six made it to the other side of the room. The eye's beam was blocked by what seemed to be a stack of metal cabinets. Six leaned against one of the drawers and found it stuck shut and immovable, most likely soldered shut by the hot beam of the watching eye.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember the last time she had felt safe – really, truly safe – but nothing came to mind. Six remembered how her wish for light had summoned the lighter, and now she wished again, screwing her eyes shut in concentration. No words were enough to describe that poignant wish, so she channeled her feelings and emotions into that nameless desire and waited for the magic to work the rest.

A chittering noise made Six open her eyes. Staring upward she caught a glimpse of a Nome turn and slip away into the depths of a cage with no backing and vanish into the wall.

My wish was answered, Six thought in delight and began to climb the rungs formed from the fused-shut cabinet drawer handles and crisscrossed cage bars. After some climbing and jumping, Six found herself diving into the open cage and crawling through the tunnel behind it. A moment later she dropped into a secret room and stared once again at one of the strange creatures that haunted the place. She stretched out her hands and the Nome winced. "I'm not going to hurt you," Six whispered, trying to make her voice as soft as possible. "Won't you come here?"

Trembling, the Nome reached out and touched her hand with its own grimy one. Six smiled and gathered up the creature in her arms, feeling it go limp with pleasure as she hugged it.

Who knew how long the two of them spent enjoying each other's company, curled together as if dreading to be apart? Who knows how long Six held the Nome, not wanting to let go, stroking its long head hairs and letting her weariness seep away? Certainly not either of them, and even when Six did let go, the Nome cuddled close to her side as if wishing the embrace had lasted longer and that it could be in her arms again.

The Nome toddled after Six as she walked over to examine the framed picture leaning against the wall, holding her hand as she tried to decide whether the picture was of a pair of plump Nomes sitting down or a pair of houses close together. She decided, at last, that they were more like houses.

The time came, at last, to depart, and the Nome tried to follow her out of the room, but Six shooed him away. "It's not safe out there," she told it. "It would be better for you to stay here. Do you understand?"

The thing did not seem to understand, for it raised up its arms like a child begging to be picked up, but Six refused, climbing back out the way she had come and feeling rather sad as she did so.

I hate to leave, she thought, but it is better this way. Better that the Nome stay there in comfort than come with me and be captured or seen by that evil eye. I can hardly protect myself, much less anyone else. No, it is much better for me to stay alone, at least for now. If I were bigger and stronger, then perhaps things would be different.

…

The gloom of the place settled in quickly after Six left the Nome and the darkness seemed more fierce than ever. At least now I know a meaning for the darkness, Six thought to herself, glancing down from her perch on the second level at the evil eye. Darkness is there to cover things that should not be seen, or that wishes to stay unknown. Light is there to shine the truth, even if that truth is better left unseen. Both have their places and both can be dangerous, but now I see the need for darkness.

Six's steps became softer as she trod through an open door and found her path muffled by carpet. She wiggled her toes in it, stooping over and rubbing her hands through it, enjoying its softness. The door closed shut behind her and Six jumped, standing upright and pulling out her lighter, wishing she had not stopped to enjoy the sensation.

The room she had come into, Six now realized, was lined with beds. Not adult beds like the ones she had seen before in the cells, but child-sized beds with rails along to sides to keep sleeping children from rolling off, and a slumbering child slept in each. Toy boxes filled with blocks stood by the nearest bed, and the whispering sigh of dreams shushed from parted lips.

I wonder if they are dreaming of me the same way I am dreaming of them, Six thought, and took a muffled step closer to the nearest dreaming child.

The creak of a door made Six freeze in her steps and the silhouette of a dark figure in the opening doorway by the adjoining wall made her heart stop beating. Her legs, with no prior recollection of any order from her brain, began moving her rapidly forward and she slid underneath the bed, extinguishing the light she held. There was a knothole in the chest she hunkered behind and through it she peered at this sight:

No longer drawn in ink, the long-armed man stood between the beds, his face cloaked in darkness. Six could hear him grinding his teeth like an old man smacking his gums and the creak of his neck as he twisted it from side to side, seeming to look over the children. A smell came from him like that of lint and smoke and year-old dried-out filth that hovered over him like subtle, shady cologne. His hands groped from side to side, arranging a blanket here, touching a face there, and his feet made the floorboards creak, their stumpy legs shuffling them along the uncarpeted path. He moved his face toward her position and at first Six thought he wore a blindfold, but then could see that his eyes were simply covered by long, tired wrinkles that sagged almost to his nose, keeping him permanently in the dark.

His ears must be quite keen to know where the children are, Six thought, her mind still inexplicably working even through her terror. But what the Nome told me is true: he doesn't appear to see a thing. If I stay on the carpet, perhaps I can move quietly enough to get away.

With this thought, Six began to sneak away from her hiding spot, never letting her eyes leave the threat before her. The next bed in the set had no opening for her beneath it and Six gathered up her courage to go around as quickly as she could. Before her strength of will was gathered, however, Six heard a noise behind her that shattered her resolve completely. She cringed against the leg of the bed as the long-armed man began to hiss in a cracking whisper the fragments of what might have been in another mouth and another land a nursery rhyme or a song.

"Little lambs, tender meat… baaing lambs, food to eat… cracking jaws, firelight… resting for the feast tonight." The man chanted on over the sleeping children, his long fingers popping as he clenched them, cheeks smacking juicily as they stretched, displaying brown, rotting teeth. "Little lambs, tender meat…" he began again, but Six didn't stop to hear more. Before he could continue she was running, running for her life and sanity for the far door, afraid that at any moment she would hear that horrible long neck twisting toward her and hear the swish of the long arms grasping in her direction, the crack of knuckles as the fingers twined around her waist.

She hardly knew where she went, scrambling like a rat into cover and then climbing like a monkey out of reach. It wasn't until she was concealed by a vent that she realized that she might just be safe, but then she remembered the man's probing arms and imagined them plunging in after her. Even though she knew they could not possibly reach her there, she did not stop until the vent ended and dumped her, trembling, on the other side.

He didn't see me, Six reassured herself, watching a rat scurry, squeaking, out of sight. The long-armed man never saw me. He can't know where I am. I shouldn't be so frightened. It's all just a dream.

With that consoling thought, Six stood upright. Even though her hands still shook, she felt just a little bit better. She hopped off the box she stood on and landed on the floor. I suppose I should follow the rat, she thought to herself. Perhaps he can lead me out of here.

This plan fell apart a few seconds later as Six suddenly felt an acute pain in her middle, her stomach growling as if threatening to eat itself alive. She hunched over, groaning and gasping, her heart singing in her ears.

What is wrong with me? she wondered, the first bout passing somewhat and letting her straighten. The feeling was akin to hunger, but stronger than anything she had ever felt before, tearing at her midsection and crying with pain.

Before she had gone more than thirty steps, the feeling was back, but even stronger, bowing her knees toward the ground. A three-toned song beat in her ears and black spots danced before her eyes, shining like the so-called 'light at the end of the tunnel'.

It ended, finally, and Six looked about, desperately searching for something to eat before her hunger devoured herself whole. She could see bars in the top part of the wall, and through that a place that looked like it might be some drab excuse for an eating area. But I can't get there, Six thought desperately. Not in this state, at least.

Up a short flight of stairs took her eye-level with the bars, and through it she spied the small, dark figure of a boy cloaked in the darkness, his eyes sunken and hopeless. He stared back at her, but no trace of surprise or any other emotion showed on his face.

"Please," Six was able to murmur, but then the pangs were upon her again, worse than the two other times combined. She could not raise her head, clamped in a perpetual stooping position, a dark shadow before her eyes hissing the words 'must eat, must eat' in an ever-going chant. "Help me," Six tried to whisper, but all that came out was a gasp: "H… h… h…"

Something flew past her head and landed before her feet. Still hunched over like a little old lady, Six grabbed at it. She had no idea whether what she held was bread or meat, but she sunk her teeth into it gladly, devouring the whole thing in a panicked glut that reached obscenity in its fierceness, shoving the food into her mouth in horrible, terrific bites that would get the food to her stomach as quickly as possible. Anything, anything to satiate the terrible hunger that gnawed at her insides. Anything to quench the madness.

In a moment, the darkness before her eyes subsided and Six became aware that the horrible hunger had gone. She unfolded herself, straightening back into a standing position. Her hands burned with a pinching sort of pain and she realized that she must have bitten them in her greed. Rubbing them on her raincoat she turned around. The boy behind the bars was standing on the stool and watching her with keen interest, his eyes looking more alive than the rest of him. His hand clenched the bars that separated them and he rested his head against them.

"It happens to all of us," he said in a hoarse whisper. "All of us who are chosen. A moment later and you wouldn't have cared what you had eaten." He gave something like a laugh, but too humorless and dry to have borne that name.

"Chosen?" Six whispered back, coming forward to clasp the bars she could reach. The boy squatted so he was about eye-level.

"We kids get separated out," he said. "Some to be guests, and some to be…" He shuddered, unwilling to continue. "You must be a guest too, huh?" he asked. "But why were you chosen? I can't see anything wrong with you." He appraised her with his sunken, dark-circled eyes.

"Or with you," Six countered, giving the boy the same look.

The boy flapped his right arm, which hung limply at his side. "Dead arm," he said simply. "They only take the kids with something wrong with 'em to become guests. The deformed ones. The ugly ones. They all get to become guests."

"What about the rest?" asked Six.

The boy shivered, unwilling to speak. Six poked his hand between the bars and he drew away. "Well, tell me," she demanded.

"T… taken," said the boy, hesitating.

"Taken where?" pressed Six.

The boy drew back and sat on his seat, curling his good arm around his knees and putting his head down. "The… the Janitor," he whispered. "Takes them. Bundles them up. He almost bundled me, but then he saw my bad arm and called me a guest. Now I get the Hunger like the others."

"The Janitor?" asked Six. "You mean the long-armed man? Is that what he is? A janitor?"

The boy turned his hollow eyes to her. "You should go," he whispered. "At least you're on the good side of the bars."

"What about you?" asked Six.

The boy gave another dry wraith of a laugh. "The Hunger's too bad now," he said. "Even if I could escape it would find me and then I wouldn't care what I ate. I could drink my own blood. I could eat you." His gaze was suddenly sharp and Six felt a stab of fear, knocking her back a step. The boy's lips twitched, but she couldn't tell whether it was upwards in a satirical smile or downwards in a pinched frown. "And I wouldn't even feel sorry about it."

The boy's sudden energy subsided and he slumped, his hair hanging over his eyes. "Please. Leave me."

Six, although reluctant to leave the despairing boy, began climbing toward the broken bars over the adjacent window. It can't be what he thinks, Six thought. The Hunger went away quickly enough once I had something to eat. It's only dream hunger, after all. But oh, how real it felt in that moment.

And with that thought and one last questioning look back at the boy, Six dropped into the next room and out of sight.