All shrivelled up and perfectly still, Julia didn't notice the seconds, then the minutes go by until, finally, she closed her eyes and welcomed a pleasant session of daydreaming. Stepping out from a whiteness of cotton, she saw herself as a young girl, her hair in the wind, on a running wheel. This amusement park illusion that became much too real included children laughing in an unnatural and drawn out way.
Julia couldn't put a time frame on the event she would have loved to lose herself in forever. But she was abruptly ripped away from her thoughts by the screeching of metal. In the room she had never left, everyone was sleeping peacefully, huddled against one another to keep warm. An umpteenth sound was heard signifying, yet again, that a box identical to the one Julia and her fellow prisoners were held in, had just been placed in a location close-by. 'How long did I doze off for?' and 'What day is it?' were the kinds of questions Julia couldn't find answers to.
You could again hear the racket from the machinery's parts rubbing together. Now wide awake and in the exact same position as when she fell asleep, Julia watched opposite her, on one side of the room, glimpses of light dance off the walls as the prison box was being put in place. With her eyes overly wide open so she wouldn't fall asleep again, she watched the thing sliding just above the outstretched bodies. On the other side of the succession of inert souls, she could see a silhouette crouched down.
Off to the side, in a corner of the cramped space, a man with his boxers pulled down to his knees, was defecating. When the lights from the outside again filtered into the room and sharply illuminated the prisoners, Julia could clearly see the face of the person who was relieving himself. His eyes twinkling in the darkness, he had turned toward Julia even though she had remained perfectly still.
After a few seconds spent staring at each other, the stranger, now dressed again, stood up and went over to his fellow prisoners to go back and lie down. Another metal box was placed right nearby and Julia went back to sleep as though the sickening scene she had just witnessed was just a bad dream.
6
Without the least glimmer of hope about their detention, the prisoners all seemed to be resigned to accepting the conditions of their incarceration. Oddly ignoring the smell of excrement in the room, they gathered around the metal feeders and ate. The levitating light module didn't have to compel them.
Near one of the feeders, Julia watched the prisoner who got away with breaking the toilet taboo during the last sleep cycle. He paid no attention to Julia and eagerly ate the white mush that had been served continuously at regular intervals for about the past 12 hours.
In the crowd, Julius seemed to be the only one preoccupied about the incident. He went from prisoner to prisoner doing his own investigation. He made his way over to Julia and got next to her.
"Nobody saw anything!" he told her. "If I find out who did that, I'm gonna..."
Julius didn't get the time to finish his sentence when Julia interrupted him, without taking her eyes off the guilty party's emerald green eyes.
"We've been imprisoned in this box for a while and we have no idea when we're going to get out. And I'm sorry to tell you this, but no one is going to manage not to take a piss or a dump. I'm even surprised it didn't happen sooner."
Disconcerted by Julia's coarse language but especially by the truth of what she said, Julius didn't reply. Julia turned toward him, looked at him with a childish expression, and said, "And maybe it was you!"
Those words brought a faint smile to both their faces, but the light conversation would be of short duration. Julia's attention now turned to Sally, who was sitting on the ground right near the feeders trying to give Dorian something to eat. She had him leaning against the wall and had his head leaning backward. With the tips of her fingers cupped together, she fed him a small amount of the mush. The substance got all over the place. Some of it slid into Dorian's mutilated mouth, but almost as soon as it went in he regurgitated it just like a newborn would.
Julius, who was watching them, asked Julia, "How... is he?"
"His stumps were cauterized so there's no risk of infection or bleeding. But the pain... It must be unbearable."
"Isn't there something we can do?"
"Other than relieving his suffering, no. But even if I could, Sally won't let me near him."
After a long silence, Julius asked, "What happened to him? The red eyes, the aggressiveness, and the way he was behaving like an animal. How do you explain that?"
"It's not a virus and it's not from the food either, otherwise the whole group would be in the same state he's in. And after all that work to keep us alive, why poison us?"
"Could it have something to do with stress? Kind of like that thing that happens to soldiers who come back from war?"
"Post-traumatic stress disorder? Not likely. On the other hand, since it's an isolated case, I bet some form of schizophrenia."
"Meaning?"
"Schizophrenia can occur at any age when there's an outside stimulus. In Dorian's case, everything we've been through could have been enough, but the kind of symptom he has, those red eyes, I don't know what that means. After all, maybe I was just a medical student before I got here."
At the other end of the room, each of Sally's attempts to feed Dorian was one big failure. The white mush was now all over Dorian's body. Sally was exasperated and was showing signs of being seriously impatient. Inside the room, Dorian's moaning compounded by his stomach rumblings made the couple the center of attention.
"I should insist," Julia said to Julius before getting up.
He held her back by putting his hand on her shoulder. His expression said everything.
"Wait. We found a way to get out of here. Marcus is recruiting volunteers to help us.
Julia looked quickly in Marcus' direction and could see him quietly speaking with one of the prisoners.
"We don't know when we'll do it, but it will be soon. Be ready."
Julia nodded, got up, and made her way through the other prisoners and over to Sally.
"Leave me alone," sputtered Sally with her head down, even before Julia was within her field of vision.
Julia stopped short so as not to make matters worse and addressed Sally in the quietest voice she could find.
"I just want to help you. I can replace you for a while. Nothing says you have to do this by yourself. It'll do you good to get a break and you have to eat, too.
It was true. Even at that distance, Sally was unrecognizable. Her hair was dishevelled, which made her look like an old witch, and her face had a purple tinge to it. She didn't look up. Her response was all emotion.
"He refuses to eat... and I should do the same thing."
Then, raising her voice in an exaggerated way to be sure all the other prisoners could hear, she said, "I'd rather die and kill the child I'm carrying rather than give them the satisfaction of having us both."
The discussion went from private to public in a fraction of a second. Everyone was focused on the two women.
"You should lower your voice," whispered Julia as she knelt down to get a little closer. It's not the right time. We agreed about this. You have to trust me."
After a short moment, Sally, who had remained perfectly still, looked up at Julia. Surprised by what she saw on her friend's face, Julia didn't dare move. In the bare amount of light where she almost couldn't see, she saw that the young woman's eyes were pigmented with blood vessels that spread out a little more as she stared. Her irises and pupils were melded into a dark mass in the center of each eyeball.
Julia didn't know how to react to what she just saw. Sally stood up, after carefully resting Dorian's head on the ground. Like a danger that you wait for to happen, Julia stood up and was more clearly able to see what was behind the change in her friend's behavior.
"Sally, your eyes," she managed to whisper while trying not to reveal too much the panic she felt.
But without even listening to her, Sally moved closer, forcing Julia to step back. Now nose to nose with the
woman she forced against one of the walls, Sally chastised her severely.
"I asked you to leave me alone, but you can't help wanting to control everything and give orders!"
Then, in a louder voice, "But with me, that won't work anymore!"
That last sentence, along with drawing more attention to the two prisoners, moreover plunged Julia into a deep state of incomprehension. Inside the room, everyone was following the conversation from a distance when it took another turn. Sally took a firm hold of Julia's neck with one hand. In an instantaneous reflex action, Julia slapped her to make her move back.
The confrontation ended when Marcus intervened. He pushed Sally back and glowered at her. She gave him a toothy grin and then went back to sit with Dorian.
Julius, who had taken a moment to join the pair Marcus and Julia, asked Julia, "Is everything all right?"
Stammering and still very emotional, Julia whispered to him, "Her... her eyes. They're starting to look like Dorian's."
In a flash, this revelation brought heavy silence over the three of them. Standing apart from the rest of the prisoners who had gone back to eating, they looked worriedly at one another.
"We have to get out of here, and fast," Marcus suggested to the other two. "If that wasn't an isolated case, things are quickly going be unmanageable."
"Were you able to convince people to help us?" Julius asked Marcus.
"Not yet," answered Marcus. "But I'm going to try again."
After getting Julius' nod of approval for his initiative, Marcus left the couple behind and made his way through the crowd to find reinforcements.
"Did you want to talk to me about something else?" a worried Julius asked Julia. "Anything to do with what Sally said?"
Julia, who felt the pressure, looked intently at her friend.
"We're pregnant."
"What? You and Sally both?"
"I don't know," said Julia before continuing. "We may all be pregnant."
Caught off guard by the secret, Julius couldn't help but turn toward the other prisoners to ascertain the scope of the problem. He stared at Julia and questioned her again, thinking she'd have an answer all ready.
"But... how?"
"I have no idea."
After heavy silence between the two prisoners who were looking at each other, the light module that had been monitoring the premises disappeared. Without anyone expecting it, including those in the group who were eating, the metal feeding boxes retracted into the walls. The prisoners didn't have time to curse and moan at the thing when a sharp jolt followed by a violent rotating movement sent them all flying over to one of the walls in the cramped space.
Marcus, who understood that the prison box had just been picked up to be moved, immediately went over to Julius. Once he was next to him, he blurted out, "Hit me! Hit me as hard as you can!
"What? No, I won't! Why?" asked Julius.
"We have to create a diversion! To get one of these damn walls to open up! That may be our last chance to get out of here alive."
Without fully understanding why, Julius still hesitated. Marcus threw the first right punch. Julius staggered to the side and fell against the closest wall.
"I'm sorry," said Marcus, "but we don't have time to discuss this."
After a fraction of a second where he got back into the game, and as much surprised as he was irritated, Julius barrelled headlong into his brother enemy. Just like in a football tackle, the two men were entangled and darted back and forth in the room and violently ricocheted off the other prisoners. Now on the metal floor, they continued fighting and exchanging sharp blows.
While everyone in the room was careful to move away from the fight, a robotic voice was soon heard.
— Stop. You, stop.
The words had barely come crackling out when a light module appeared. It levitated above the two men fighting, shined a light on them like in a theatre, and then repeated its limited vocabulary.
— Stop. You, stop. Or else.
Now in a fight where neither prisoner seemed to want to stop, a punch to Marcus' face left him with a gash. Furious, he instantly dealt out the same to Julius.
Julia, who had also kept her distance from the fight, knew that she had to try something. For the first time since they were imprisoned, the mechanism with the light bulb head was vulnerable. Julia was able to see what it looked liked.
An electric arc coming out of the underside of the hovering craft was about to strike Marcus and Julius with a paralyzing discharge. Alerted to what was threatening her friends, Julia threw herself on the danger. She took the module completely by surprise when she seized it with both hands. Now hanging from the object that reacted to her weight, she was dragged toward one of the walls. An opening formed that was barely larger than the size of a human's head. Trying as best it could to entreat her, the levitating drone repeated in its robotic voice that had become ridiculous.
— Stop. You stop.
Julia paid no attention. She was hanging tight. Her feet were almost not touching the ground anymore. She noticed the tiny opening in the wall.
"Julius, Marcus! The opening. Quick!" she shouted.
The young men stopped their nonetheless real fight and got up. They ran over and grabbed the edges of the scant opening that appeared in the room. Using every muscle they could muster, they managed to enlarge the diameter ever so slightly.
Julia, who was still dealing with the light module by exerting quite an effort, for her part managed to propel it against one of the walls. The blow caused the module's eye to shut off and the room was again plunged into near-darkness. But the drone hadn't given up and was levitating clumsily. After dangerously flying over the rest of the prisoners, who stepped aside, the module ended up ploughing straight into one of the walls in the room. By so doing, the machine signed its own death warrant and as it bounced off the floor, tiny sparks squirt out from deep within its bowels.
In the prison box that was moving, victory didn't last long. Her exploit accomplished, Julia ran to help Marcus and Julius who were dealing with the modular wall. Like the iris of a camera lens, the workings remained rigid and retracted and therefore required more strength from the three people trying to force it open.
Julia screamed at the top of her lungs to get help from the rest of the captives. Sally quickly joined the trio and in a show of solidarity was followed by a small detachment of prisoners. To the screeching and banging of metal, the wall was starting to give under the force being exerted on its mechanisms. By the end of the effort that for the very first time had the strangers working together as a group, an opening large enough for a person to get through had been created. But a wall similar to the one they just made an opening in stopped the prisoners in their attempt to escape. Julius, who had no intention of letting things end there, exploded into a rage. He stepped away from his fellow prisoners for a moment to think. As a dumbfounded crowd looked on, Julius, whose body was now dripping with sweat, eyed what was left of the light module. Though it was out of commission, it managed to crackle a few electric convulsions. Julius took long strides to get over to it, grabbed it with one hand, went back to the gaping hole that had been made in the wall, and used it to pound on the surface.
A second drone, then a third appeared inside the prison. In front of part of the group that assembled together to form a barrier, a strange fight began between men and machines. While Julius was smashing what was left of the light module against the second wall and started to go at the alloy with slits, one by one, the prisoners tried to get the lights to move back. In their robotic voices, the lights screamed out their never-ending warning and used darts to electrocute their assailants, who crumpled to the floor in convulsions.
Julius kept hitting the wall. He was putting more and more dents in it and pretty soon managed to make an opening. For the moment, faced with the wave of humans confronting them, the flying objects were forced to pull back. Inside the room, the retreat by their tormentors allowed the captives to rejoice for a b
rief moment. Screeching followed by a final jolt marked the end of the box's journey.
After a moment of hesitation where each prisoner looked at the prisoner next to them with a worried expression, an alarm shrilled and at the same time a red light went on. The dissuasive effect immediately became unbearable. One by one, the men and women lay on the ground and curled up in hopes of finding some sense of safety. Even Julius, battling violently, had to resolve himself to abandon his successful attempt at making a hole in the wall of the damn tin can.
It was only when the mechanism that you saw and heard stopped that a large opening appeared in one of the walls. Immediately after that, a powerful beacon roused the prisoners from their lethargic state.
— You get up. Or die, roared the mechanical voice at a volume adequately adjusted to simulate anger.
Disoriented and having been driven crazy, one of the prisoners suddenly stood up. Screaming, he ran toward the center of the violent beam of light giving orders and while in full movement, he was gunned down by a weapon that came out of nowhere. The kamikaze's body burst into shreds all over the room and blood spurt everywhere. The quiet that suddenly came over the room was as thick as a hail of bullets.
With their hands over their eyes to shield them from the blinding beam of light, under mortal threat, the young men and women got up without needing further prompting.
— Man, you go forward. Man, now.
In the wide open space inside the box where they had been captive for less than 24 hours, everyone now looked at the person next to them and read an expression of profound incomprehension.
Julius and Julia were next to each other and were looking at one another when, one by one, multiple lights appeared in the opening. These lights were smaller. They framed the huge beacon in the center.
— You, go forward. Or else, die! said the voice accompanied by frightening feedback.
With a real threat from the lights twirling above their heads, the young men left their female counterparts behind them. Julius went over to Sally and after exchanging glances with her, took Dorian away. Without even getting a chance to say goodbye to her friends, Julia watched them leave in the direction of the strong light and disappear into its dazzling beam.
Of Meat And Bones - Episode One Page 5