IX.

And then I’m alive again. Gasping, rasping. Barely breathing. My hands shoot to my neck as though to pry open the airways; my throat tears with each cough. I am shivering badly. But the breath… the breath moves unbidden.

I am prone on something firm. In total darkness, it presses cold against my skin, naked skin—yes, I am naked. This is not home. I do not recognize the scent in the air: a sweet dampness, like a sandy cove after weeks of rain. On my lips, the taste of dank mineral fizz.

A rustling erupts just beyond my feet.

My knees jump to my chest. “Who’s there?” I shout. The words come out coarse and mangled. “Where am I—a ship? A barn? Speak!”

Now a flare of golden light flickers to my right. My gaze darts to find a haggard face hovering behind an orb of torchlight. His eyes are deep black pools, his grin toothless and wet. And his head… his head is divided by the shadow of bars.

Bars.

This man before me—is he a prisoner, then?

He must have seen something of my confusion, for he lets out a sharp laugh.

“Not I,” he says. “You, sir—you.” A stout, puffy finger briefly emerges in the light to accuse.

“Me?” I say. “Me, what?”

“You, sir. You are the prisoner here. Not I.” He smacks his lips. The bottom one hangs loose like a swollen red appendage. It is particularly wet.

I prop myself up on my side and squint into the torchlight. From the corner of my eye, I notice my skin still fluoresces with the pink glow of the gas. But this will resolve itself before tomorrow’s Execution.

“Have we met?” I say.

Another laugh. “I know you—yes, don’t we all? But you… you do not know me.”

“Tell me where I am—why am I not at home? What has happened with the—”

—and then—fragments—colour and motion through opaque glass—kicking, shouting—dust—

Them.

“What happened?” I bolt upright. The room pitches. “At the Execution—what happened? Please.”

His grin falters. His wet lip curls down. “Shame,” he barks. “Shame, shame.”

“Please—won’t you tell me?”

“Answers you want, is it?” he says, spitting at me through the bars. “Ask your cellmate!” He whips his wrist in a fluid arc and extinguishes the flame. For a moment, the sudden return to darkness makes me feel as if the floor has been torn from under me. The rustling beyond my bed starts again.

“Who’s there,” I demand. “State your name and House of Origin.”

It is uncivilized to share a cell without proper introduction. It is unacceptable behaviour. I swing my legs over the ledge of the cold slab and press my feet into the ground. The texture is like rough stone slick with algae.

I stand and, with one hand extended before me, feel my way in the dark towards my churlish cellmate. I am not a violent man. But I will correct him if he persists in this discourtesy.

I advance. Another step, my outstretched hand seeking, seeking.

“Sir,” I say, more sharply. “You will answer when addressed.”

No reply. The rustling subsides. What remains is breath. Low, irregular, drawn as if through obstruction. My hand triangulates upon its source—and my fingers meet resistance. 

I recoil, then steady myself and reach again. Yes, yes—warm flesh. It quivers beneath my touch, but does not retreat. I prod: here a shoulder, there a kneecap. It is a small frame, of skin and bone and little else, clutching itself in a tight ball.

“Declare yourself, sir,” I insist. “Or I will identify you by manual means.”

My hand goes searching for the face, first meeting the top of the head. It is a stubbly and uneven landscape; the shorn hair prickles my fingers, broken in places by raised welts and open sores. I press on.

“You will speak,” I say. “Or I shall know you of my own accord.”

A sound answers me. Not a name, not a word—a low, aching hiss.

But it is a hiss I recognize; a tone and timbre I know well. My hand, poised upon the bridge of the nose, freezes.

No.

That is not—

The hair—no…

I draw back slightly. “State your name,” I say.

But the name does not come. It does not need to.

“Jerry?” I whisper.