AN - They'll be short chapters but they likely be posted more frequently -
Chapter 1 - Quiet Solitude
All it takes is a single twitch.
A single snap.
One fracture.
To break the silence.
The world. It's all been condensed into this small room. This small room under the earth, under the house, under the basement and into the tunnels. This is his world and no one else's. He would live here and die here. This was his crevice in the universe, and it's all he needed. He was fed once a day, sometimes half eaten food, other times it was poorly cooked meat, or even raw meat. Sometimes, he wasn't fed at all. The water was a bottle he would have to ration every three days, sometimes a week. But this was his world. It was his and no one else's. There was no sound besides his breathing, besides the thumping of his heart, besides his own words, besides his groans. He barely remembered what the light outside looked like, the moon or the sun, what was green? Does it look like yellow? What is yellow? He was raving for questions yet he sought no answers.
He would often entertain himself by counting how many cracks were in the wall, or seeing how long he could count.
He got to over 4000 before his stomach distracted him and he lost count.
Yes he wondered what else there was to the universe but he was content with his world, he was fine in his small box. It was something he was familiar with and found comfort.
That is until he began to hear the…whispers. At first it sounded like the wind, then sometimes it was abrupt and short, only for a second but louder than anything he could've imagined. Then, the whispers grew louder, he began to hear more than just a wisp, but he heard entire conversations that were sometimes even about him. The people above didn't want him, they didn't like him, he didn't know why, but that is what he knew and all he's known. At first he was interested in their conversations, but they became too loud. They were no longer whispers but screams. Unimaginable noises of tweets, horns, and the vibrations ringing through the earth. They screamed into his ears until they bled and gained his attention, but they wanted more than that, they wouldn't stop until he was asleep. His world had become a torture room. He couldn't hide, his room had nothing besides a leaky faucet that only worked randomly.
He couldn't take it. He tried to cover his ears but they grew louder, and louder, demanding him and everything, to die and to–water rushed out from the faucet drenching his entire body and red knit sweater, his dirty trousers were drenched but at least somewhat clean. He wiped his glasses with his damp sweater, feeling naked without them on. The entire faucet had come off, ripping a part of the wall with it. A pipe now resided where the faucet was at.
Something had changed.
The whispers…
…they were gone.
He smiled, it hurt to do so and blood leaked from the side of his head due to the faucet colliding with him, but that didn't deter him. He was happy. The screaming was gone. The crying had faded away. The barks and unfamiliar noises were obsolete.
He had found…his quiet solitude.
But no. Something had changed. He noticed this days after the pipe had burst. He could no longer focus on the crevices or consistently count for long periods. He would unwillingly fade out of focus, sometimes laying still for days and then abruptly awake, back in control of his own thoughts and body. It's as though he had lost the ability to remain content, 'Why?' He wondered. He had stayed this way for what felt like his life, and now he couldn't do it. What was the difference?
He could feel the cold breeze.
The pipe now had a low whistle of wind. It was like a fog seeping into the room. He hated it. It was unfamiliar, he never felt anything like this. Yes, he knew what the cold felt like, but he didn't know what the stingings all over his body was, or the way the wind seeped under his skin somehow piercing his body. He loathed the pipe. He despised it. He wanted to destroy it. His world was being invaded by something he didn't know and the worst part was that he didn't know how to get rid of it. He practically lived on the other side of the room, where the steel door resided. Even then, he felt like the air was trying to crush his lungs, he cried out something he didn't quite understand, it was buried into the depths of his mind, from a time he didn't remember but knew somehow, but it was a cry for help for comfort for something familiar.
"Mom!"
For the first time ever, the door opened. He had wondered sometimes if it was even able to open. He fell flat on his back, his head colliding on the floor from the unexpected exit. Perhaps he shouldn't lean so heavily on doors, but how could he have known, he thought it wasn't able to open, and now…it was. He looked around to see dim yellow lights stretching throughout the hall. He huddled closer into his red knit sweater, afraid of the seemingly endless hallways, but he looked back at the infernal pipe and decided he would rather leave the room for the new world. He was undoubtedly terrified but he didn't like the torture room any more than the hallway. The room was once his quiet solitude, but now it was a room where he had a mouth but he could not breathe.
And so he walked on, through the endless maze with nothing on his mind except…
empty thoughts…