DAY SIX

I stopped eating. Not in some dramatic act of self-flagellation, a twisted form of punishment. Nor was it a calculated statement, a silent protest against the world or anyone in it. It was simpler, and far more terrifying. I just couldn't anymore. The act of swallowing felt monumental, a herculean task my body refused to undertake.

Everything felt heavy, weighted down by an invisible force. My limbs felt foreign, detached, like clumsy prosthetics I was forced to drag around. My head felt loose on my shoulders, a disconnected bobble, threatening to roll off at any moment. The vibrant world around me had dulled, leached of its color, leaving behind a monotonous grey.

He came down with food. A plate piled high with… I don't even remember what it was. It could have been ambrosia, the food of the gods, and it would have tasted like ash in my mouth.

I didn’t move. Didn't twitch. Didn't even blink, I think. I was a statue carved from apathy, a monument to despair.

He sat across from me, just far enough that I couldn’t reach him if I wanted to – a deliberate distance. Or maybe it was just the length of the table. Either way, the gap felt insurmountable. And truthfully, I didn't have the strength. Not to reach him, not to argue, not to even lift a fork.

“You have to eat,” he said, his voice laced with a weary kind of concern. It wasn't anger, not yet. It was the patient plea of someone who had been through this before, who knew the drill.

I didn’t answer. What could I say? How could I explain the leaden feeling in my soul, the utter lack of appetite for life itself, let alone a plate of food?

He pushed the plate toward me, the ceramic scraping softly against the wooden table. “Please.” The word hung in the air, fragile and desperate.

I stared at the wall. A blank, beige canvas. More interesting than the food, more engaging than him. Anything was.

He stood up slowly, his movements deliberate, each one a small defeat. Disappointment dripped from him like rain after a storm, soaking the air with a palpable sense of failure. I could practically feel the weight of it pressing down on me, another invisible burden to add to the pile.

When the door closed with a soft click, severing the connection, the last vestige of hope that maybe, just maybe, I could be pulled back… when that door closed, I whispered, my voice barely audible, “Rot in hell.”

I wasn’t sure if he heard. And in that moment, I wasn't sure if I even cared. All that mattered was the hollow ache in my stomach, a physical manifestation of the emptiness that had consumed me whole.

DAY SEVEN

I think he’s watching me right now. That constant, unnerving prickle on the back of my neck isn’t paranoia; it's a certainty. I feel the camera like a presence — colder than the air in this desolate cell, sharper than the stone beneath my bare feet. Each blink feels amplified, each shallow breath a performance for his unseen eyes.

I’m not sure what he wants from me anymore. Initially, it was obedience. Then, information. Now… I can only guess. Maybe he's waiting for me to give up, to finally crack under the pressure and confess to something, anything. Maybe he wants me to beg for mercy, to offer him a glimpse of vulnerability that he can then dissect and exploit.

I won’t.

Not yet. The thought of giving him that satisfaction, of handing him the victory he so craves, is enough to keep me standing.

Not today. Today, I will meet his gaze, however distant and impersonal it may be, with a stubborn defiance. Today, I will breathe, I will think, I will remember. Today, I will deny him the spectacle of my despair. Today, I will survive. But tomorrow… tomorrow is a different story. And I dread to think what tomorrow holds.