Chapter Two

H  O  R  R  O  R       S  T  O  R  Y

Adam was still on the dirt floor when he woke up. 

Rage was the first emotion he felt, followed by a severe sense of a loss of oneself. 

He felt as if his body was growing and shrinking like a water balloon hitting a sharp curb. 

He hesitated to open his eyes.

Orange filled his vision. 

There was one single torch across a gated wall, coating half the room in orange and the other half in dark gray. Not a hint of real darkness in sight. Artificial. 

Again the world felt wrong. 

Adam dragged his eyes down to his hand.

It looked as if someone sucked the muscle from his bones and shortened the fuck out of his limbs. 

His anger only grew. 

A temper began to form like a tree taking root. 

The root dug deep. 

Closing his eyes Adam puffed out his chest and forced himself to take a long, deep breath. Though pain was no stranger to him, it felt nearly impossible to do. His eyes heated up. 

A memory of a kick, straight to his ribs, hot and fresh, and he balled his eyes out on that cold carpet floor that same warm summer night. 

How annoying. 

Adam flexed his fingers. In the center of his hand not a single callus nor scar sat upon his skin. 

“What the fuck man.”

The voice scratched against his throat. 

Fucked body. Fucked mind. Shit. This is bad. 

Adam rolled onto his back. 

I need water. 

Adam glanced around. In the corner of the room, closest to the light, sat a single cup and bowl. 

It looked cold. 

A lot of time passed after that. It took Adam longer than he would have liked to get himself situated and out of the mess. 

He sacrificed a shirt to get himself clean.

I’m going to fucking kill them. There hasn’t been a single FUCKING thing I’ve done in my life to credit this. Not a single. Fucking. Thing.   

When he finally managed to make it to the cup and bowl it was fucking fish and rice. He absolutely HATED the combination. 

“I’m going to lose my shit.”

Adam frowned. 

And time began to pass. 

D  E  N  I  A  L : MONTH ONE OF ISOLATION

“I am ADAM fucking BOYD-”

The sound barely carried a few feet out the door. The silence was as heavy as the sea. 

The hum grew louder. 

“This is crazy. I literally just…”

Adam sat on the floor. Head in his hands. 

“Isabella will come for me. She has to.” 

The silence sat with Adam and wondered who that bella was. 

“I grew up. Got kicked out. Picked up gym, met my old man. Taught me to fight. I got into MMA. I never killed, nor did any real crime apart from school fights and suspensions, and I even finished highschool, sort of. It was a special school, but you know, still passed-”

The silence stared.

“This has to be a joke, right?”

Silence laid in a blanket of silk at his feet.

“Frankly this is all too weird to be real.”

No one responded. 

Orange flames peaked brightly across the room. 

It never turns off. 

Adam stared into the glow of the orange flame. The two sat in silence and pondered.

“I’ll wake up soon.”

Adam never woke up. 

B  A  R  G  A  I  N  I  N  G : MONTH TWO OF ISOLATION

“I get this isn’t a joke anymore-”

Adam was tweaking. 

There was nothing in here. Nothing to see, nothing to do. Even if he tried and practiced, his mind always found time to wonder where it shouldn’t.

He was getting twitchy. 

“I-I DEFINITELY have the money to pay, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Adam said to no one. 

The hum grew louder.

The temper’s roots covered the ground. 

“All I see is orange. Please, god I’ll do anything to see a different color.”

Adam’s chest ached. 

“I don’t mean to brag, but I am a professional fighter. I can take a good beating, and my score is 0-8, since I just started.”

Nothing.

Not even the sound of a bug skittering around could be heard in the entire cell block. There were no signs of life, nothing but the cup and bowl that appear in the corner every day at the same time in the same way with the same food. He wasn’t even sure he was real anymore. 

“Listen, I swear I’m a good guy.”

Adam frowned. 

“If this is hell for being a fag I’m going to find the person who made this and gut them like a fucking cow.”

Adam rubbed his chest. 

His anger was molten.

“The longer I’m in here the worse it will be for everyone else.”

No one responded. 

Adam felt his ego wilt. 

The looming pressure of wrongness surrounded him again. In his chest a heartbeat bloomed, while another sat below his sternum. He massaged the bone, pushing it against the organ gently in what felt physically soothing, but uncomfortable in theory. 

“I can work. I can give you money. I can give you anything…”

Well  almost anything.

Adam let his hand fall.   

“I’m starting to think no one is listening to me.”

No one was listening.

D  E  P  R  E  S  S  I  O  N : MONTH THREE OF ISOLATION

Nothing mattered anymore.

The orange light tinted the world and ran hot wire through his eyes. 

He had nothing. Not his strength. Not his family. Not his home. Not his body. His safety was ripped from him the moment that semi came his way. 

There really was no point anymore.

Adam waited for the time to heal him. To change the situation. But nothing ever came. 

No one ever came. 

His food always appeared in that same corner, whether he watched or not. 

The food would just.. appear. There was no sound, no clank, nothing. It would just be there from one moment to the next. Like it was on a timer. 

Adam had stopped talking. 

The silence and him laid together in a warm, orange coat. It flicked every now and then like a real flame.

In the silence, somewhere in Adam’s feet, something stirred. It was muggy and thick, and the feeling would have been missed, if Adam wasn’t anywhere else but here. Then the same ache pushed against the back of his eyes.

Foreign was a good word to describe what he was feeling. 

The ringing began to scream.

A  C  C  E  P  T  A  N  C  E : MONTH FOUR OF ISOLATION

The situation was unstable.

His body was heating up, like a motor running on diesel. The energy it pushed made him want to dance right out of his skin. It wasn’t even clear if this was an infection, or something he was making up. 

He had been alone for too long. 

“The world is wrong.”

Adam laid on his stomach in the corner of the room, no bed or hay in sight. 

“This body isn’t mine.”

Adam wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but he was almost positive the melanin in his skin was sucked out of him like a busted faucet. Even the shape of his nails were longer than his own, and the lines on his palms raced in different directions than before.

He was also sure this body was that of a child.

Either that or the man was severely malnourished.

“It’s a wonder why those hits hurt.”

The pain had felt fresh, like a scraped knee straight off a cement floor.  

“There is no going home.”

Adam stared at the roof. It was dirt too.

“There is no one coming to save me.”

A  N  G  E  R : MONTH FIVE OF ISOLATION

Adam was trying to punch his way through the wall, eyes wild, teeth drawn and bared against the orange washed wall.

He was drenched in sweat, face flushed red in dehydration.

He was livid.

There was no way to explain away the damage his psyche was taking due to this isolation. 

He may have struggled in school, as well as holding a job after high school, but he knew when something was hurting him. 

Sometimes he would hear whispers of children laughing. 

A flash of two boys talking. One twirled a flower, prying the root in two, destroying the base. The other stood with his hands on his hips, laughing and standing tall. 

Another kid runs past. 

The two collide. 

Adam’s brain decides to stab itself straight in the stem and the memory fades away. 

Memory?

Adam swore he saw a flash of orange in the dark side of the room. 

Paranoia gripped him by the neck. 

The situation was breaking him. 

Adam looked down at his feet. He was covered in filth. He really wanted a bath. 

Looking back up to his hands the man watched as blood dripped down his fingers. It felt warm. 

“I can’t fight it anymore.”

The orange of the room deepened. 

The humming was roaring.