02.28.14

18 days. I’ve survived here for 18 days. Nobody’s come for me yet. The food isn’t bad, I would go on a hunger strike, but somehow I don’t think they’d care. I haven’t had much to do except lay on my bed and stare at the ceiling. I eventually caved and began to pull books from the bookshelf, but even that felt pointless.

I felt numb. Like every cell of my body was drained of any emotion. My stomach clenched itself into knots and hadn’t loosened up for days. That is, until about five days ago, when a small voice peeped through my door.

“You aren’t dead yet?”

I sat up from my bed. “Excuse me?”

“You lasted longer than the last inmate.” The voice explained. “Most of the people in your cell don’t last more than a week.”

I staggered to my feet and walked over to the cell door. “What do you mean?”

“That’s the betrayal cell.” the voice continued. “The cell where people whose loved ones gave them over to Future Tech go.”

A lump swelled in my throat. “Yeah? Is it?”

“You don’t sound old.” there was some shifting around off to my left. “So… are you a kid? Or a friend of an intern?”

“You don’t deserve to know what goes on in my life!” I snarled. “Who the hell are you to ask something like that?”

“What?” the voice came back confused. “Uh… I’m Jonah. 215 if the guards ever ask.”

A boy’s name. My hands turned to ice. I had some sort of hope, his voice was so high, I wanted, wished, that it wasn’t because he was… “How old are you, Jonah?” I asked.

The cell beside me fell silent for a long time, before eventually coming back, shaky. “Well… what year is it?”

“It’s… 2014.” My stomach turned from knots into a puddle of mush.

“I’m 10.” Jonah said.

“You’re…,” I stopped mid sentence. “No way.” I whispered.

“How old are you?” Jonah’s voice became louder, sounding like he was pressed up against our adjoining walls.

“I’m-” I froze. A trail of ice trickled down the back of my neck. I hadn’t realized then but… the day I got my journal, the day this all began… was my birthday. My whole life went wrong the day I turned- “15.” I finished.

“15…” Jonah murmured. “So… it was probably your parents then, huh?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I gripped the sides of my arms so tight that I could feel my fingernails drawing blood.

“Oh, okay,” Jonah didn’t seem to notice how upset I was. “What do you want to talk about, then?”

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I’m just not feeling up to it right now.”

“Why don’t you tell me what sort of books you have in your room!” Jonah’s voice perked up. “I’ve read all of the ones in my room so many times, we could trade!”

“They let you do that?” I asked.

“Oh, they don’t do anything, I do all the work!” excitement raced through Jonah’s voice.

What he said confused me, but I went over to my shelf and began rattling of the books on my shelf anyways. When I got to Harry Potter, Jonah squeaked.

“Oh! Those books are my favorite! Can I have one of them? I’ll give you Jekyll and Hyde as a trade!”

“They gave a ten year old Jekyll and Hyde?” I wrinkled my nose.

“Do you want to trade or not?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Okay! Just give me a second.”

“To do what?”

Jonah didn’t respond, but I could hear his breathing became shorter and heavier, as if he were in pain. Small groans escaped him as more time passed.

“Jonah! Are you okay?” I pressed my hands against the wall, trying to get a response, but I received none. I stood there, plastered to the wall, until I felt a tap on my back.

Confused, I turned around and stifled a scream. Just a few inches behind me hovered a small hand holding a book. The hand was connected to an arm that stretched, unnaturally long, across the cell and out through the cell bars.

“What the hell is this?!” I shrieked.

“Just take the book please!” Jonah’s voice was strained, tears bubbled from his voice. “It hurts!”

Eyeing his arm with a fascinated horror, I plucked the book from Jonah’s hand.

“Now give me one of the Harry Potter books!”

“Which one?”

“It doesn't matter, please hurry!”

I ripped my eyes away from Jonah’s arm just long enough to grab the first book of the series and placed it in Jonah’s hand. His arm shot back out the door and I heard a sigh of relief from the other cell.

“The first book?” he finally said.

“I figured it was a good idea to start from the beginning.” I sat down, trying to erase the horror-inducing arm from my memory.

“Good point!” Paper rustled and Jonah fell silent. After what felt like a half hour his voice came again. “H-hey, um… I don’t think I know your name.”

“Oh… right, I’m Avery.” I blushed, how could I have forgotten that important detail.

“Oh! Well! Hey, Avery.” Jonah said.

“Yeah?”

“Can I maybe… read the book to you?”

“Read the book?” I blinked, confused.

“W-well… I don’t know what a lot of these words mean… I thought maybe you could help me?” Jonah put as much sympathy-inducing cuteness into his words as he could.

“Oh, okay.” I leaned against the wall. “Go ahead.”

Since that fateful moment, Jonah and I have become what he calls “book buddies.” I take a turn reading a chapter of a book out loud, and then he responds with a chapter from his own book. We’re working our way through Harry Potter right now, but, in my own time I’ve been reading Jekyll and Hyde, I don’t know why, something just seems to draw me to it. But, the important thing is, for the first time since I was thrown into this Hell hole, I actually feel…. Okay. And that’s the most important part.