Season 01 - Episode 21

‘order is mandatory’

Black.

Deep, thick, endless black.

In every direction.

Forever.

Ri finds the vast open space calming. She lies on the floor so her chains don't pull down and in this way, she floats. All is still and peaceful and she feels as if she has floated forever.

Now comes a difference. A trembling below. The links of her chains rattle and now a great, dull roar swells out of the dark. Ri has never felt anything like this before. She crouches as the noise and shaking increase. The floor shifts under her and she is thrown onto her side.

Eyes wide in the darkness, Ri lays still and waits. The blackness is enraged for some reason. She cannot imagine why. Finally, its fury peaks and gradually fades away and all is as before.

Time passes, she doesn't know how much. She never knows. Now there are voices. Sometimes a tall line of light appears. Sometimes it swells to a block that frames a figure who talks. This time there is no light, no line, no block, just voices. She knows one of them, has heard it many times. The other voice is new.

“No!” says the familiar voice. “Please! Just leave! I'll take my chances.”

“The evacuation order is mandatory,” crackles the new voice, it sounds mechanical.

“But I can't leave,” says the voice she knows.

“Is there anyone else here?” says the other voice. “What about in there?”

“No!” cries the familiar voice, desperately. “Don't!”

Suddenly there is a great crash and the block of light appears. No tall thin line to swell slowly sideways, just crashing and splintering and sudden, blinding light. The block before was always fleeting but now it remains. It blinks at Ri as figures flash through it, then continues, pouring into her space.

She shrinks from heavy booted legs and stares around in terror. Where is her endless blackness? Where is the vast open space? The light is painting in walls and a ceiling, dingy, grey and crowding in close.

“Sir!” says another crackly voice above her. “He's got a girl chained up in here!”

“On the ground!” shouts the crackly voice outside. “Face to the floor!”

“Wait!” says the familiar voice. “Wait, please! You don't understand.”

The new walls are so close, the new ceiling is so low. Ri feels the room pressing in on her, crushing her so that she cannot breathe. The black figures are breaking her chains, lifting her up. She can feel the heat from their bodies.

“Listen to me!” wails the familiar voice. “You can't let her out! She's a claustrophobe!”

“Nice try, pervert!” barks the crackly voice outside. “That's a myth.”

Ri is drowning in heat and noise and memories. The bad times, before the open blackness. Boxes full of people, stacked up on top of her and below her and all around her on every side, going on forever, all pressing in on her. She can't breathe. She can't breathe. She can't breathe. Something inside her begins to boil.

“No!” cries her father. She remembers him now, his voice, face and smell. A brief feeling of safety and soothing. Then the fast swelling panic inside her pops and everything blurs sideways. She is vaguely aware of sound and motion but the fear is absolute, driving her on. Everything comes in flashes and none of it makes sense.

Then silence again. Nothing moves.

She is still in the tiny room with the too close walls and the too low ceiling. All the people are still here too only now they're all on the floor with her father and none of them are moving. Ri doesn't understand why they are covered in red nor why they are all so sticky.

Her endless black space, her place of peace and calm, is lost.

The panic starts to build again.

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