text: Helen shook. Her muscles ached from shaking. She had always hated the darkness but grew to dread the sliver of light that came when the door creaked open. She closed her eyes to the darkness and tried to take herself far away. She traveled to her grandfather's house, where he would tell her stories that brought tears to his eyes while he smiled. She went to memories as they faded and held them like a limb. Still, the black pierced her eyelids and betrayed her delusions. Helen felt her way into a corner and took a deep breath of stale air. Her mind found its way back to its most convincing tangent; her room transformed into the peace and certainty of a tomb. Helen held her breath and drifted off before the next. A sharp pain woke her from her restless sleep. As quickly as she opened her eyes to the black, her hand shot out and grabbed at the rat that had been feasting on her. She fought the desire to squeeze the life out of it as it contorted to bite at the flesh of her hand. Holding its head tightly, the rat continued to claw at her in a struggle for its life. Helen tied a rope of torn cloth around its tail, then threw the rat hard against the concrete floor. As Helen hoped, the stunned rat fled frantically. Helen held a loose grip on her rope and let the rat lead her. Climbing up the rough walls, the rat found its exit easily in the darkness. Helen felt along the rope and found a small crack in the concrete at the edge of her reach. She wondered how the rat could have squeezed through. Still holding the rope, she felt around for her bucket and placed it directly beneath the crack to use as a stool. Helen pulled at the rat, still fighting to get free. She planned to kill it to avoid being bitten again, but as she reeled in its gnawed off tail she realized she simply hated it. Helen began to chip away at the concrete. She had managed to slide one of the iron rings off of the bucket and bend it into a brittle tool. The concrete crumbled faster than it ate away at the rusted iron, but soon wore it down to a sharp splinter Helen could not hold in her fingertips. Standing on the bucket, she twisted her hand to fit through the crack. Her skin tore in deep lines as she reached past her wrist. As she stretched to reach further the bucket broke. Helen's wrist snapped as she dropped. Her cry shocked her. She had lost her voice soon after arriving and hadn't heard it since. Dragging her swollen hand from the hole, she cracked her teeth as she bit down in pain. Helen sat against the wall and let out a terrible sound that echoed for too long. The sound of the door's mechanism alerted her to the arrival of her host and Helen quickly shielded her eyes in the crook of her arm. The door creaked open slowly and the figure stepped in. They did not speak. Helen's eyes still burned from the occasions she had tried to see her captor or neglected to shield her eyes. The being shone a blinding light towards Helen, who had become accustomed to darkness and could not focus her eyes through the pain. "Why?" Helen asked, knowing she would never get her answer. They brought Helen's food and water, hardly a mouthful left to pool in an indentation in the floor and left immediately. The closing door shifted the stagnant air. She finished her stale bread and water before she finished starving. Helen could not remember how she had gotten here, only waking up to black. Time passed. Helen could only guess how long it had been by the length of her fingernails, that had broken in the cracks of the door and grown back brittle. The rat without a tail returned as Helen sat motionless. At first, the bravery of the rat shocked her but as she held it, she realized it had no choice. The rat was starved and skeletal. It fought weakly for a moment before surrendering to Helen's grip. Helen snapped its neck with a thumb and wept for it. The wrist healed wrong and the crack in the wall grew. She wasn't sure if it was resolve or boredom that made her continue, knowing it was hopeless. Rat bones carved lines in the crumbling concrete and after those wore down, Helen used callused fingertips. Her captor came and went with no set pattern. Helen kept trying to communicate as they refused to acknowledge her. Always shining the light. She starved on the meager bread and soon began to feel like the rat without a tail. Helen's hatred grew and she stopped caring *why*. She couldn't be certain her captor was even human and it had treated her worse than an animal. Helen shook. Her joints ached as she held herself up against the wall. She waited. Helen wondered if waiting for nothing was a contradiction and felt comfort knowing her wait would soon be over no matter the outcome. Eventually, the familiar sound of the door's mechanism woke her from a trance. Straining to see through a sliver in her eyelids, she waited for the figure to enter. The intensity of the light made Helen reel but she caught a glimpse of her captor's silhouette. Helen lunged at the figure, who collapsed weakly to the floor. "Why!" Helen screamed, over and over as she clawed at her captor, who was still shining the light in Helen's eyes. They did not fight back and still kept completely silent. Even now they could not acknowledge Helen and this infuriated her even more. Moments passed although Helen realized moments were subjective and she had no frame of reference. She stood and the figure remained motionless on the floor. The light still shined. Helen felt along the wall for the door and left frantically, pushing it shut behind her. She exited into a hallway with a single flickering neon light. Eventually, her eyes adjusted and she was finally able to see. Her arms were caked in blood, concrete dust and crossed with scars. The wrist that had broken was discolored and twisted. She was emaciated and broken but she was alive. Water dripped onto Helen's head and she noticed a small crack in the ceiling. The hallway ended with an identical door and Helen proceeded towards it. In the center of the hallway Helen found a small door-less room. Inside was a shelf that held nearly a full loaf of the stale bread she had been fed. As Helen choked it down her dry throat, she noticed a large hole in an upper corner of the room. Helen continued down the hallway and lifted the latch to the door opposite her cell. As it opened, the hallway filled with the same intense light that her captor had used. Helen screamed and shielded her eyes as she pushed the door closed again. Believing she had gotten turned around, she ran down the hallway to the other door and opened it cautiously. A faint glow emanated from the crack in the door and as it opened fully, she saw the being she had known as her captor still face down on the floor. Their flesh gave off a light that was fading slowly. Confused, Helen approached the figure cautiously and tested it with a kick. Confident they were dead, Helen turned them over. Helen ignored the light as she recognized their face but could not quite place it. Then, Helen saw the being's wrist. It had been broken and healed in the same position as hers. Helen stood over her own body, nearly starved beyond recognition. A husk of herself. In shock, she backed into the hallway slowly as she tried to convince herself it was a hallucination. Helen returned to the light filled room and, with closed eyes, began to feel along the walls for an exit. She felt no other doorway but refused to believe it until she had circled the room several times. She only felt the same rough concrete walls from her cell. On her last pass, Helen tripped over something placed against the wall that she recognized as a bucket identical to the one she had been using. Feeling the wall directly above where it was placed, Helen found what she expected; a hole carved into the concrete. The mouth was wider and it continued further than the one Helen had carved. Helen felt around the edges and was confident she could fit. Without hesitation, she accepted her insanity and pulled herself in. The light persisted through the claustrophobic tunnel forcing Helen to keep her eyes closed as she crawled. She felt a smooth edge in the concrete ahead and eventually squeezed through to a gap in the wall. This small space seemed to exist for ventilation, though the air was still stagnant. The tunnel narrowed as Helen inched forwards and her body soon blocked all the light coming from the room as she found herself stuck. She opened her eyes. The tunnel continued several feet and ended with another hole carved into the corner. It was faintly illuminated by the pattern of the hallway's flickering neon light. And she watched it flicker for what felt like forever.