The Prison

by Stefano Pastor

  Nico snapped because that was the occasion. He threw himself out of the room.

  The young man saw him and burst out laughing again.

  “You’re funny.”

  Then he turned to go to the pursuit.

  The man grabbed his hips and pushed with all his strength against the wall. The young man, who was so light, ended up against a crystal-glass, shattering it.

  Nico turned away; he knew what was happening. The man was trying to keep him occupied, allowing him to get to the Chamber. He swooped in the hallway, headed for the stairs. It was then that he saw her. Katia was alone and afraid, hidden in the hallway, crushed against the wall. She had to have them followed, too.

  At that moment, Nico had to make a decision. Barter a hope, perhaps even his salvation, with his mother’s life. A mother who was not such, who had always hurt him, who had never protected him. A mother who maybe he still loved, but it was just that love to enslave him and prevent him from being happy.

  Once again, she won. He swerved from its way and ran to meet her. He grabbed her arm and forced her to follow him.

  She was full of terror; she must have heard the discussion in the living room and knew that she would die. When she realized Nico wanted to drag her up the stairs, but she resisted. For her, the only salvation was that door, even though now it was sealed. She did not plan to move away. Nico fought silently, imploring her with his eyes.

  In the living room, the man grabbed a chair and hit the young man who was trying to get up. Then again and again, until the chair fell apart. Then he sank, with one of the legs of the chair, trying to use it as a sword, but it was unable to penetrate. He used it as a bludgeon on the youth’s head until he moved his arm so fast and imprisoned his hand. The man still tried to kick him, but the young man had already turned up and with one thrust hurled it away from him. The man fell on the couch and disappeared.

  The young man reorganized the crumpled suit with a smile pulled on his face.

  “Max, Max, when will you learn.”

  Then his eyes pointed at the inlet and on the scale.

  “Where are we going?” Katia managed to ask, but Nico continued to pull her, step by step, and it was more and more shocking.

  Too long, they were too slow they will never make it.

  They came into the corridor, upstairs, and the anguish of Nico increased only. He did not remember it so long. The door to his room was at the very end, far away. He kept running.

  This time, Katia did not complain. She was there and knew what was coming after them.

  Nico was counting the seconds, mentally. One. Two. Three. Four. At four Katia began to scream, and he continued to pull her. He had to be there, she had seen him. But Nico did not turn, for fear of losing that little courage that he had. The door was getting closer. He threw himself on the handle with both hands. And if he had not opened? If it was all a mistake and found it locked? Instead, it opened, instantly, at his touch. It flew open.

  Nico lost his balance and flew to the ground. Katia surpassed him, with a jump. She was in the room and shouted: “What should I do?”

  Nico was lying on the floor, right in the middle of the door; he tried to crawl into the room, and made the mistake of turning around. The young man was there, behind him a wild expression on his face. He felt grasping his ankles and dragged away. He started screaming, trying to cling to the door jamb. But the young man was too strong; he felt an excruciating pain in his ankles.

  Katia was holding onto the handle, open-mouthed, too conflicted to intervene. When Nico's muscles gave up the incredible happened: Katia started screaming, brandishing one of his shoes by high heels. She hit the young man in the eye and the heel entered in full. They heard a terrifying scream, and Nico found himself free for a moment. He did not lose a single moment; he crawled on the ground, trying to get into the room. Katia took the other shoe and tried to hit him again.

  Nico clung to the door to be able to get up, and then grabbed his mother by the skirt, pulling her in. The young man was already recovering from the heel, and his eye was a bloody stain. He roared with anger. Katia lost his balance and fell to the ground inside the room. Nico shoved the door slamming it with all his strength hitting the creature in the face, then leaned against it. He trembled all over and watched in horror the door handle, waiting to move. There was no lock to lock. He seemed to hear the door move, but maybe it was just his imagination.

  Katia was sitting on the ground, but did not try to get up; she gazed the door only with staring eyes. Even she could not understand. It took a couple of minutes before Nico accepted things although they defied all logic. Then he dared to break away from the door and walk back slowly towards his mother.

  “He cannot enter,” he told her, hoping not to be immediately denied. But the door continued to stay closed.

  “There is no lock!” screeched Katia.

  “Yes, there is!” Nico said.

  She stood alone because Nico was too busy watching that door to help her. Then she found the courage to approach the threshold.

  “What does it mean? We don’t hear anything, is he gone?”

  Nico doubted it very much. He had to be still there, more enraged than ever, trying to tear down that door. But them, there, they were somehow sealed and did not feel anything.

  “Why does he not enter?”

  “He can’t,” murmured Nico.

  She frowned and looked at him skeptically. “Something like garlic and holy water?”

  “Steel,” Nico said. “Or perhaps something even heavier, like lead.”

  “Huh?”

  “I think this whole room is like a… safe. Yes, we’re inside a giant safe.”

  Katia was skeptical, but Nico saw tension loosening, in her eyes.

  “It wasn’t locked.”

  Nico smiled. “You’re wrong; I’m the key. Somehow he adapted the lock to me. Only I can open it.”

  Then Katia did something scary, that left Nico breathless. She reached the door and tried to lower the handle. But that didn’t budge a millimeter.

  “Fuck! I think you’re right.” Then she nodded. “Try it!”

  “Are you insane?” shouted Nico. “Have you forgotten what the other side is?”

  Katia sighed, not upset. “It was just to be certain that it would work. It is not my aspiration to remain locked in a safe.”

  “But we’re stuck!” he cried again. “There’s no way out. Not with what awaits us out there.”

  Katia finally turned to look at the room and whistled. Unfortunately, even there the windows were all sealed.

  “And this is yours?”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “Max told me.”

  This disturbed him. “What did he say to you?”

  “He had prepared a room for you. I thought… well, but I thought he was going to ask me to marry him. No, sorry, what was I supposed to think? One tells you that he has already prepared the room for your child, and you… never mind.”

  Nico felt suddenly all the tension of the night to overwhelm and lurched. He dropped into a chair, annihilated by fatigue.

  “It wasn’t for me.”

  “Meaning?”

  “That was not for me! Was for him! His dream. A place to be safe at last! He did not want anything else for a lifetime. Watch!” he pointed to the library, then the furniture. “He furnished with what he liked best, with what he considered important. It wasn’t for me; it was for him, he was supposed to be in here.”

  Katia was starting to understand. “Did he give to you? Why?”

  Nico shook his head; he didn’t want to think about it, not now. Katia instead was still very confused, too many things did not add up for her.

  “If he really cannot enter here, as you say, then why don’t we go? He didn’t need to…” She stopped because the image of the man they abandoned downstairs along with the creature troubled even her. “He could bring us here, isn’t it?”

  Nico shook his head.
<
br />   “He would not allow him. He heard every speech we made, every time. He knows where we were. No, he would never let us get this far. The only hope was that I understood, that I remembered what he had said. That I trusted him.”

  Katia began walking around the room, looking at everything, more and more perplexed.

  “What’s the point? Why let us come here?”

  “Not being killed isn’t that a good reason enough?”

  She raised her arms to the sky. “But we’re going to die anyway! It is sealed, there is no air circulation, and how can we last?”

  Nico shrugged.

  “It doesn’t make sense!” pursued her. “This is a room. There’s nothing; there are no reserves of food, there is no way to resist a siege. What kind of protection should provide to us? This is a bloody death trap!”

  Nico got up with difficulty, and he studied the room with different eyes. “Why he sent us here, then?”

  “What do I know?”

  “He sacrificed his life to get us this far; he must have had a reason.”

  Katia again showed a moment of confusion.

  “Maybe he will not kill him. Not yet.”

  He had fifty years to prepare for that moment; he knew it would happen. Already twice he had risked the catastrophe, the man was aware that no one was perfect, a mistake can happen. He had sealed the entire house to stop him, but it wouldn’t have been enough anyway. Then he built that Chamber. Why hide there? No, it wasn’t possible: his interest was not to survive but to stop this monster.

  “There is something,” he murmured.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  What had he told the man in the living room? He was talking to the creature, but his every word was studied. They were messages from him, not the monster. He told him what to do, how to behave, how to save all their lives.

  All became clear fast.

  “There are pitfalls! The house is full of traps!”

  “Why does it matter?”

  Already, what it had to do with them? The creature had checked everywhere, but he didn’t find any. He accused the man of lying. So why did he say that?

  “They get activated from here! That is what it is this place, a control room.”

  Katia raised an eyebrow.

  “Even the doors? Could we exit?” Seeing the altered look by Nico, she changed the topic. “And where? Do you see a computer, something like that?”

  It had to be there. The mechanism of the door meant that it operated with a sophisticated electronic brain.

  “So what would change? What do you know about computers? We have never used one in our lives! “, she continued.” We would not know even how to turn it on.”

  Nico started to poke around on every side, opening drawers and doors. Katia sighed again, resigned. “Want some help?”

  Nico turned to look at her. “You saved my life.”

  She feigned nonchalance. “Oh really? You saved me too, I guess.”

  “I didn’t expect this.”

  “Why wouldn’t I? I’m your mother.”

  “You don’t care about me. You’ve never cared.”

  He continued to turn his back, and maybe it was better that way. It was easier to talk. Katia went to the library and began to move the books, to see if they hid some mechanism.

  “You’re overreacting.”

  “You never protected me; you’ve always been against me.”

  “You see that?”

  “Did I bother you?”

  “Well, Yes, you were annoying,” she admitted. “Most of the times it was just like that. I was not suitable to have a child. I didn’t have time and didn’t want. You were… a nuisance, yes.”

  She expected a reaction that did not come, and then continued.

  “You were a commitment, often too burdensome. But… sometimes I needed it. Knowing having a son, knowing that you relied on me completely, forcing me to have a limit. Not to exceed too much, not to let me go. Sometimes, when things were terrible, I needed you. To get by, not to be alone.”

  “Do you think that’s enough?”

  “That’s what happened in the lottery of life. You have to let it be enough.”

  She waited, too long. She grew tired of touching those old books and returned in the middle of the room.

  “Do you think I am your prison?”

  Nico replied. He was no longer sure of anything. He and his mother knew only to hurt each other, and that would continue he couldn’t see any future with her, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to get rid of her.

  He sat at his desk. It was very nice; it looked old, of great value. His mother unfastened even this illusion; one look was enough.

  “It’s a fake, you see from a mile away.”

  Nico frowned. “What do you know?”

  “I won’t do much in life, but I assure you that I recognize at a glance the things that are valuable. I can assure you that this is rubbish. It looks old, but it’s just the craftsmanship. It doesn’t have anything of ancient.”

  It had to be there. Whatever they searched had to be there. The right place, the most logical. The man had chosen carefully every single piece of the room. If that desk had no value, then it was important just for its use.

  They took all the drawers and looked inside. Katia felt the edge centimeter by centimeter, looking for some secret button. In the end, nothing was left, just the furniture, without finding anything.

  “I must have done something wrong…,” murmured Nico disappointed.

  The man had confidence in him. Despite everything, despite all appearances, his confidence had never failed. What did he wish for more than anything else? He repeated it many times. He wanted someone who would save him. It was not a sacrifice; he had remained deliberately with the creature because he knew he would not kill him. Not right away, not so fast. He had put his life in the hands of Nico, had given him the means to save him.

  But he couldn’t! The man was alone, completely alone, in the hands of that monster, and yet he had the illusion that he could do something. Nico punched the desk, angrily. But nothing happened.

  “Calm down, came on. It’s no use.”

  Suddenly enlightenment came again. “I am the key.”

  “Eh? Again?”

  “Yes, yes, again! As with the door! I’m the key, only I can find!”

  Katia took a step, pointing to the desk.

  “Please, suit yourself.”

  Nico did it. He checked all the edges, then each part that had already been checked by Katia.

  “Satisfied?” she mocked him when he had finished.

  Nico shook his head. He didn’t want to get depressed, didn’t want to give up, not when it was so important.

  “We’ve got it all wrong! I’ve got it all wrong!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We searched something secret, hidden. But it is not so! Why would he hide it? This was his room; no one else could get into it.”

  Katia looked at him puzzled.

  “And where is it then?” she pointed to the room. “Do you see something?”

  Nico pointed to the desk. “Here!”

  “You’ve already checked and rechecked! If there were anything, we would have discovered it!”

  “But we searched something secret! Instead, it is not the case.”

  “Let me see, then! Show me the great mystery.”

  With the heart in his throat, Nico sat down. The armchair was very comfortable. He pushed it forward and put his elbows on her desk.

  “See, that’s how you normally do, no?”

  Katia hid a smile. “You’re not very suitable.”

  He imagined being the man, instead. What would he do? He rested both palms on the desk in front of him. But even this time a secret compartment opened.

  “See?” Katia said.

  “It is here!” Nico shouted, trying to contain the enthusiasm. “It is here! I found it!”

  Katia looked at him puzzled. “Where is it? I can’t se
e anything.”

  “From there you can’t. Come behind me.”

  Katia remained speechless. A part of the desk had changed color, a rectangle in front of Nico. She leaned incredulously.

  “It’s a monitor! The wood is a monitor!”

  “I don’t think its wood,” said Nico. “It just seems it.”

  “What’s next? There is no keyboard, what should I do?”

  Nico had no idea. The monitor was virtually empty, apart from a few icons on one side.

  “It will be a touch screen,” said Katia. “Try to touch them.”

  Nico was surprised to find her so informed. She looked up at the sky. “Poor us! Have you not been to a casino? No, too young. Just do it, don’t waste time.”

  “Which one do I pull?”

  Katia leaned to read better.

  “I don’t think you care about the catalog of his books, I imagine, and even his tax returns. Try this, where it says home.”

  Nico did so; before them appeared three-dimensional representation of the house with transparent walls. The model revolved alone, slowly.

  “Oh fuck!” he said, pointing to a point on the screen. “Here is where we are now, I guess.”

  His Chamber looked like a safe; it was a cube with the walls darker than the rest of the house, made of a different material.

  “And what the hell is this?”

  Katia pointed it with her finger, beating up on the monitor almost wanted to punch it. Under the house, right at its center, there was something that she couldn’t identify. It was cylindrical and continued down as a long tube. Nico still did not understand. But then came back to his mind the words of the man: he said that her mother had long sought a suitable home. But suitable for what?

  “And now? What do I do now?”

  Katia was thinking. “Don’t rush me.”

  Nico reached out a hand, and she screamed: “Don’t start playing! You risk making trouble! Let’s think, before.”

  “I don’t see…”

  “Click here!” Katia pointed.

  She was free to touch the monitor at will because the computer replied only to Nico’s commands.

  “What interests us? It is on this floor! I want to know what’s going on downstairs!”

  “Do you want to learn how to use it first? Click here!”