Chapter Text
“Hello?”
Silence fills the line.
”Hello?” Nothing but dead air answers. “Is someone there?”
Click, the line goes dead.
You sit on a single mattress, desperately trying to avoid contact with the cold, concrete floor. Double layered shirts and a thick blanket are all you have to fight off the chill. The sun set some time ago- an hour or so, maybe more. It’s hard to tell with no clock in the basement. The small calendar hanging by the stairs only shows the date.
The chill in the air has grown more noticeable with each passing day. Summer is finally coming to an end. An idea that feels almost out of body. How are the seasons changing already? The world is still turning, despite everything.
You drag your gaze around the basement, searching for something else to fight off the cold. It’s mostly bare, with concrete walls, a concrete floor and a single tiny window to the outside world. A window you know from experience is too small to squeeze through. There’s an old bathroom shoved into one corner, barely more than a closet with a toilet and a sink just outside it.
The only other thing of note is a built-in shelf. Canned goods fill about half the space, some new, some old. A manual can opener sits beside them, having done nothing but piss you off every time you tried to use it.
A thud echoes through the basement. Upstairs.
You track heavy footsteps moving across the ceiling. They stop directly above the basement door. A series of clicks fills the space as the locks disengage. Every time he comes downstairs, you try to count them. At least four.
The door opens, then shuts. Footsteps descend the stairs.
Dude appears.
His long, greasy hair is tucked behind his ears, leaving his face unobscured for once. His duster hangs heavily from his shoulders, almost wearing him instead of the other way around. He stares at you for several long moments, a bag dangling from his fingertips.Then he crosses the distance between the mattress and stops right in front of you. His fingers play with the strap, bouncing and slightly swinging the bag.
“Everything … okay?” Dude hesitates with each word, like he isn’t entirely sure how conversations are supposed to work.
The question itself feels loaded. The fact you're trapped in this basement at all is the opposite of okay. You stare at him, unsure what to say.
He stares back, at least as far as you can tell. The dark lenses of his sunglasses stare blankly in your direction. The basement falls dead silent.
Dude finally holds the bag out towards you, a silent peace offering. With some reluctance, you take it from his hand and set it in your lap. Warmth slowly bleeds through the plastic bag right into your skin.
“Why,” Dude’s fingers drift towards your collar where the two shirts are visible. “Are you doubled up?”
“It’s cold.” You lean back, trying to stay out of reach.
“Cold…” Dude repeated the word like it’s unfamiliar to him. He lowers his hand and turns his head, slowly from side to side. As if he’s scanning the basement for the source of said cold.
“Has … does it come and go?” He asks.
“What?”
“Does the cold come and go?” He repeats.
“It’s almost fall.” Irritation creeps into your voice as you gesture toward the calendar. “And I’m locked in a fucking basement.” It’s hard to bite back any emotions. There aren't a lot of ways to express yourself down here.
Dude turns to look at the calendar. His gaze lingers there for nearly a full minute. It’s a wonder he is aware of anything going on in the world. Slowly, he turns back towards you.
“Right…” He shifts his weight from foot to foot. His duster against his muddy boots. The mud looks dry and flaky. It goes all the way up to his ankle. Perhaps he was trudging through the woods once again.
“Eat.” He points towards the food in your lap, changing the subject away from your uncomfortable cold state. The container has already started cooling. Or maybe your body is just that frigid.
Dude turns on his heel, abruptly leaving you. He walks towards the stairs but pauses beside the shelves. He lifts a hand, pointing at each can as he counts out loud. He counts once, then again. He makes sure to point at each can as he counts it. Once he finishes he picks up the can opener, opening and closing it three times. He twists the small handle three times as well before he’s fully satisfied.
Dude sets the can opener right back where it was. He glances over his shoulder at you one last time.
Dude ascends the stairs, his heavy footsteps echo through the basement. The door shuts with a heavy thud. Each lock clicks back into place. Sealing you in just that much more with every click.
You keep your eyes on the stairs. Listening as the heavy footsteps start to come from above. Dude’s footsteps wander in ways you can’t understand. The layout upstairs is a mystery. The only part you know is the basement door opens up to a kitchen. Just ten steps away from the door is the back door to the house. It was bolted shut with multiple locks, possibly matching the ones on the basement.
Eventually, the footsteps stop and the basement falls silent once more.
You finally turn our attention to the bag in your lap. Digging through the bag reveals a plain white takeout container and a bottle filled with thick green liquid. The label boasts about vitamins, health and blended plants. Inside the container is some kind of chicken and rice dish.
Mercifully, there are plastic utensils.
You dig into the meal, realizing you’re hungrier than you thought. The food disappears within minutes. With great reluctance you force yourself to drink the green sludge. It tastes exactly how you’d expect a bunch of blended plants to taste.
You barely make it half way through the bottle before the locks click again.
You freeze.
He’s coming back again? That’s not right. After the last meal of the day he never comes back down. Those are on the days he does remember to feed you.
Dude appears at the bottom of the stairs, a thick blanket tucked under his arm. He stands awkwardly at the bottom of the steps. He just looks at you for a long moment as his fingers rub and tug at the fabric of the blanket.
His sunglasses are pushed up onto the top of his head. Without them, his expression somehow looks more unsettling. More human than the cold stare of black lenses. He drops his hand down to his side. A sigh slips past his lips before he takes slow steps forwards. He stops short of the mattress giving you much more space than he did earlier. Even if you reach your arm out you can’t touch him.
Dude tosses the blanket at you without a word.
It lands a foot away with a heavy flop.
You stare in shock at it for a moment. It’s a thick quilt, stitched together from colorful patches. Old and worn, soft with age. You blink, unsure what to do with this or why he’s acting more off than normal. He gave you clothes when yours started to stink, as well as food. But it stopped there. The chill nipping at your cheeks spurs you into action.
You set the drink and container on the floor and lean forward, stretching as far as possible. You just barely hook your fingers into the fabric and drag it towards you. Just touching it is already warning up your fingertips.
You snatch it up and wrap the blanket tightly around yourself. Warmth soon starts to spread across your body. Tucking it tighter around yourself you try hard to cover every inch of skin you have, and your muscles even start to relax.
You glance up at Dude.
His green eyes stare back.
Silence hangs between you, but it feels heavier than usual. Not the awkward quiet that seems to follow him around. This feels … heavy.
You can’t tell what he wants from you or if you even want to give him anything.
A thank you?
Confirmation the blanket is warm enough?
A plea to be let out?
Dude shoves his hands into his coat pockets. Without the glasses to hide them, you can finally see his eyes properly. They dart constantly around the room, bouncing from wall to shelf to floor, never staying still for more than a second- yet he refuses to look directly at you.
He’s nervous, maybe even frantic. Something has stirred up his anxiety but you can’t be sure what. Anything from the mailman to planes has set him off.
Something rattles inside his pocket. It’s familiar enough that you can pinpoint the sound down to a pill bottle. Before you can question it, he pulls the bottle free.
It’s small enough to fit in his palm. White plastic with the label mostly hidden beneath his fingers. He stares down at it for a moment before popping the lid open and shaking a few pills into his hand.
Then he looks up at you, finally meeting your eyes dead-on.
His eyes flick between your face and the pills resting in his palm. Back and forth. You watch silently as he rolls the pills between his fingers. He shoves the bottle back into his pocket and pinches the pills carefully between two fingers.
Then he throws them.
The pills hit the mattress and bounce off onto the concrete floor. One skips left, and the other to the right. The small thunk of each pill echoes in the empty basement as they bounce off. The pair of you watch both pills come to a stop several feet away.
Dude lets out a strained sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan. He runs a hand over his face, clearly regretting the stupid idea.
He steps closer to the mattress, stopping where the blanket originally landed. Digging the bottle out once again, he repeats the process.
His hand stretches towards you. You stare at his hand, unsure if you should actually accept random pills. Then again, it’s not like you have any choice. You stretch your hand out as far as you can without moving off the mattress. He drops the pills into your open palm. One bounces free, hitting the floor beside the mattress.
You inspect the remaining pill, rolling it between your fingers. It’s smooth, with no markings on either side. In the basement light you can just make out the off-white, almost orange tint.
“You need to take it.” Dude says quietly. His gaze flicks towards the fallen pill. “You need to take both.”
His thumb rubs back and forth along the grooves of the bottle cap. The label is still impossible to read, leaving the whole thing a mystery. He makes no move to leave. It dawns on you that he isn’t going to leave until he sees you swallow the pill.
You look down at the pill, your throat tightens up. The task suddenly feels enormous. You pop the pill into your mouth before you can think any more. There is no chickening out of this. Citrus washes over your tongue as the pill starts to dissolve. You snatch the green sludge drink back up. A mouth full of sludge doesn't even help the pill go down. You have to down another mouthful to get it down. You show your empty mouth to Dude.
Dude doesn't move.
Both.
You glance down at the pill on the floor, picking it up with some apprehension. Repeating the process once more except this time you need the entire bottle of sludge to get the pill down.
You show him your empty mouth once more.
Dude studies you for several long seconds before finally giving a small nod. He turns towards the stairs but stops midstep. As if he forgot something. Slowly, he looks back over his shoulder.
“Are you … warm enough?” He asks.
You nod, fighting the taste of citrus and plants that make you want to gag.
He nods back.
Then he disappears upstairs. The basement door shuts with a thud. One by one, the locks click back into place.
The basement falls silent once more.
The sounds of footsteps above are the only soundtrack in your life nowadays.