Talyen

I must have paced for hours. There was no clock, I had no form of communication, and the amount of shadows that moved past our enclosure had trickled down. A few stopped to watch me pace. The same spot over and over. But there was not much else to do. No TV. No sound system. There were books, a few, but most were in Mandarin or Spanish. I'd read our copy of Pride and Prejudice so many times I almost screamed at the thought of opening it up again. 

It wouldn't work. I wouldn't be able to stay still for long enough. All I could do was keep moving. In the hope that I could exhaust myself, or with luck, be sedated by one of the staff that watched over us.

*                *                *

The first time I woke in the enclosure I could barely move. My vision was so blurred and all I could do was wretch to get used to the strange, synthetic oxygen that was pumped through the air. In and out of sleep there was light and movement. I was sure I was dying, I wished it would just take me. Hands touched my body but I couldn't flinch away. Was it human skin?

“It's OK.” A deep voice said. “It's just the sedatives. Sleep.”

And like some kind of spell, I did.

*                *                *

The smell of bacon and pastries made my nose twitch. My dry mouth suddenly began to water and I rose from a bed in the centre of a cage.

I didn't realise it was a cage at first, it looked like a vintage apartment. With rich red persian rugs and chairs made of deep woods. Floor to ceiling windows and dark grey diamond tiles. Like a set, without the cameras. What was left of the human race no longer decorated with such colours or patterns. Everything from the mid 2000s onwards was monochrome and plain, with an emphasis on minimalism and cleanliness.

As I wandered over to the windows something in my legs woke. A sensation of weight, a tightness loosening. Wherever my captors had taken me, they had gravity. Something I hadn't experienced in years. Even my breath felt heavy in my lungs. I smiled. 

But it was short-lived. When I met the wall of glass that reached up to the ceilings, there was no garden or deep space beyond it. Just what seemed like a dark corridor. I began to walk along the glass, reaching a corner, then another.

“Stop. There's no door.” I heard a voice behind me say.

I turned to see a person sitting at the table. They had an accent I couldn't place, and they kept their eyes on their plate of food.

“English?” They asked. Still not looking up.

It took a few coughs before I could speak. “Yes.” I said.

“Good.” They nodded. “Put something on.”

They pointed to a small pile on the floor. I was nude, I realised as I looked down. I quickly moved to the items.

A simple tunic and a pair of briefs. Not totally uncomfortable. White cloth, exactly the same as the person at the table was wearing.

Looking up, they pushed a plate toward me.

Maybe it was the strange headache climbing through my brain but their eyes seem to glisten. I sat beside them.

The food tasted and smelled like bacon and croissants, but something told me it wasn’t. Regardless, I moved it into my mouth so quickly, I almost expected my mum to appear, smack me on the back of my head and tell me to stop eating like such a pig.

“I'm Darren.” They said.

“Old name.” Was all I could think to say.

*                *                *

When they finally returned Darren, he was exhausted. They had flooded the tank with gas that knocked me out, and as much as I held out, I let myself fall gently back against the bed. When I came around he was lying beside me. Out of instinct I thanked God and moved to check he was breathing. He was in and out of sleep for days. I brought him his food in bed, propped him up with pillows and stroked his hair back from his forehead when it grew thick with sweat.

The nightmares grew less and less as time went by.

*                *                *

Darren and I didn't speak for a number of days. We had eaten quietly, he showed me where I could sleep and relieve myself, then he picked up a book. 

Like a vintage apartment, we had a clawfoot tub in one corner of the room. The water was surprisingly not freezing. Although Darren and I were always polite enough to look away when each of us used the facilities, there was nothing to stop the crowds.

In the years leading up to my capture, Earth was a warzone, practically just fire and brimstone. A lot of us fled to the moon and outer colonies, but a few years later, They came. 

Their ships were the size of moons themselves. They devoured Earth. Wiping out what little was left of civilization and mining the planet for any scrap resources they could use. We were nothing to them. A sunken ship in the sea of space. 

They wore robot metal armour and used gasses and noise rather than bullets and bombs. The few of us humans left fled to the outer reaches of our galaxy. And the ones they spared the lives of were bought and sold like commodities. Slaves rumors said, but you got the occasional kinky collector, or this, the place I was now.

Darren didn't need to explain how it was some kind of zoo.

*                *                *

“Talyen,” he began one day while I was napping in a chair. It had become a hobby. There was little else to do. “How old are you?” He asked.

I sat up in my chair. My head was heavy.

“Twenty-four. In solar cycles. You?”

I didn't want to pry but he had heard me shit. Would it make it worse to get to know the guy? 

I would be lying if I said I hadn't wanted to question him from day one. He must have been of similar age to me, he spoke English well and maybe I had watched him once or twice, using the bath. Darren wore a constant frown but when he was in the bath, it was almost a smile. His back muscles slowly eased with the warmth of the smooth water. His muscles were bigger than mine.

“You're such a scrawny boy. All you do is sit in your room and play those games.” My mother had laughed, poking her bony fingers into my ribs. I would slap her hands away and stalk off, cussing at her. 

And then she died, and I prayed every day to feel those sharp nails through my t-shirt once again.

“Twenty-six.” Darren said. Then he went back to his book.

The space was quiet. You couldn’t really see the visitors on the other side of the glass. We hadn’t a clue what our captors looked like. But we could see dark silhouettes like shadows. I watched a group stop, peer at us, then shuffle away. 

We weren’t very interesting. 

“Where are you from?” I asked, before the moment slipped past.

Darren put a finger in his book to hold the page.

“New Glasgow, originally.”

“No way!” I blurted. “Me too.”

“New Glasgow was a big place.” 

Did I detect a small smirk? I moved from my chair to perch on the end of the bed where he sat.

“Which zone?” 

“Zone 2.”

“Oh.” 

He looked down at his book in his hands. “But when I was four we moved to Earth.”

“Where abouts?”

“Spain.”

“That’s so cool. We vacationed there a few times… We could never live there. We were…” I hesitated. Stupidly embarrassed. But he had lived on Earth and now he was here, in the same place as I was. Money, I remembered, is obsolete when the world ends. “Zone 26.” I said.

He nodded. His thumbs brushed the pages and I wondered what he was thinking.

“How long have you been here?”

Darren’s eyes met mine again. Then he let out a short laugh. “I… I don't know.” He threw his book on the sheets. “I was 26 when I came here but there’s no days. No clocks. No calendars. Lights on, lights off.”

“Are they days, do you think? Human days?”

He shrugged.

“I don’t know anything.” He said.

Then he closed his eyes, moved down to lay on the bed, and rolled away from me.

*                *                *

When the lights were out I would often lie awake and think of space. I would fall asleep imagining the sound of total silence, imagining what it would be like out there. After a while the thought of stars became paired with the sound of Darren’s deep breaths. I envied how used to his bed he was, how familiar it seemed to feel to him. And yet I pitied how obviously he had given up.

*                *                *

One morning, as I pulled a fresh tunic over his face, he finally spoke. 

“Where am I?” He asked.

“With me. With Talyen.” I said.

Neither of us knew how long he’d been gone for when we discussed it afterwards. Anything about the days they had taken him was foggy.

“I keep turning the dail,” he would say, “but I can’t find the station.”

And we left it at that.

I had his arms through both holes and was tugging.

“Talyen…” He said it slowly.

“Yes. Me. Remember?”

He had been like a ghost, waking to do nothing but eat and stare into the air. He laughed a little like he was drunk.

“Talyen…” He said again. “The man… with the freckles.” Then his smile faded and our eyes met. Slowly, he reached his index finger up to my nose and gently grazed it over the freckles there. Was he recognizing me? Remembering me again?

I tried not to let the hope rise too much inside my chest.

When he dropped his hand I gave a short laugh.

“Si tonto, I’m Talyen.”

*                *                *

I pulled at the books on the shelves, making a small pile of the ones in English.

“You skip your language lessons?” Darren laughed.

“I’m bored.”

“That didn’t take long.”

“I don’t understand.” I said. “If there’s no door, how do they come in and out?”

He shrugged.

I had walked around and around the cell. Banged on the glass, screamed my throat raw. Nothing.

Darren didn’t watch or speak. He just laid in bed, read his books, and did his exercises.

“Pride and Prejudice, 1984... that’s sadistic.” I shook my head. “Great Expectations. Ugh!” I threw the book down.

“They’re classics?” Darren said. But it had the hint of a question. 

“Would it kill them to throw in a little Tolkein?”

He laughed. 

Then without a blink, the room grew cloudy and my head hit the tiles.

“I’m never going to get used to that.” I said, as I pawed at my sore face. 

“Why do you think I’m always here?” Darren gestured at his bed.

The gas wasn’t that bad. Like being put under a sudden anesthetic, then waking up again suddenly to find you’re horizontal. It wasn’t like getting over a come down, more like the feeling after you do a big sneeze. It was surprising, but not totally debilitating.

As usual when we were sedated, there was now food awaiting us on the table. We gratefully tucked in and I was so glad of something to do.

“How do they get this stuff?” I pointed at the vegetables. “It’s like… fresh.”

“I’m sure it’s synthetic. But it’s good.”

“It tastes real.” I nodded. “We didn’t even eat like this before the wars.”

Darren nodded back. “On a special occasion we might have fresh meat or fruit, but not like this.”

“I was raised on that fake packet stuff.”

We paused to enjoy the offerings and I sipped at a cup of water.

“Why Spain?” I asked, bringing up the chat we’d had a week or so ago.

“My dad was Spanish originally. He got a promotion there. My mother was from the British Colonies.”

“Like me then? I was fourth… fifth generation.” I guessed.

Darren nodded.

“You learned English from her?”

“Yes. And we studied it at school. And various other languages.”

“Wow.” I looked down to the plate.

“I was lucky enough to go to a good school.”

“We did French but… when was I ever going to the French Colonies - let alone actual France?”

*                *                *

Darren and I never talked about the noises. The noises one of us might hear coming from the other, late into the darkness, when we both pretended to be asleep.

It was intoxifying sometimes. The room felt smaller than ever. Darren with his sun-bronzed skin and thick jet black hair. I wanted to run my hands through it. 

Eventually, we fell into a roommate kind of friendliness. We discussed the food, our families, our lives before - although - I always seemed to share a little more.

Sometimes he caught me. My eyes creeping over the cover of Great Expectations. Quickly, I would look back down. I didn’t want to make things awkward.

“Do you want to know a trick?” Darren asked one day, as I had come to pester him in boredom.

“A trick? Of course!”

“Get your bed sheets!” He ordered. “We have to be quick.”

I grabbed everything up in my arms and tossed them at Darren.

He began to arrange the sheets so that they fell over the edges on the iron bed frame.

“Get under!” He whispered.

I dropped to my knees and crawled below the bed. Darren followed.

“It’ll be a few minutes before they realise they can’t see us.”

There was just enough space to lay on our sides, a few inches apart from one another. For once, I realised, we had privacy.

His face had never been so close, and he broke out into a wide grin. 

It made my stomach flip and my throat clog. I smiled back, our eyes and lips wide like children caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

“You’re so smart,” I said and I reached up to touch his arm without thinking. Then I pulled it away, rolling back to face the mattress.

Had I given too much away?

All I could hear was our breathing, it was warm under the bed. 

Then, Darren reached out and brushed my face with his fingers.

“These freckles…” Was all he said.

I seemed to hear a ringing in my ears. I turned my eyes to meet his; they seemed softer than before. I moved my face toward his.

His eyes moved over my face, taking me in. I seemed to inhale and then we were kissing. His lips were strong. His hand reached up to cup my face. I leaned against him. Finally letting myself touch him.

Then he paused, pulling away and...we both looked down. The white gas had finally found us.

When I woke, in my own bed, Darren was already reading.

Suddenly I remembered his fingers on my skin, the melted gooiness in my stomach. I sat up, smiling.

“That was fun.” I laughed.

But Darren didn’t react. He just turned away, and flicked the page over.

*                *                *

Days, maybe even weeks, had gone by since the moment under Darren’s bed. We began to stay seperate. I tried to talk to him but he seemed engrossed in his tasks, unaware my voice made any noise.

I decided to stop being so shy. I made no attempt to hide my glances. I watched him, hoping the weight of my gaze would force him to acknowledge me.

“Were you always alone?” I nudged his knee with my elbow as I squeezed my way onto his bed. This was before we had kissed. Before I even considered he had thought of me in any other way than a friend.

He groaned, readjusting his sitting position.

“Why are you so annoying?” He said, his accent gruff, but he was smiling.

“You’re avoiding my question.”

“I’m not.”

“Were you always alone here?”

“No.” He said.

“No?” I sat up, turning to face him.

“No.”

“Elaborate for fucks sake!”

“There was another.” He put his book down a little too hard against the pillow.

“Another… guy?”

“He identified as that, yes.”

“What was he like?”

“Nice. Polite.” He shrugged.

“What was his name?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t speak much. He wasn’t like you.”

“Like me?”

“Annoying.”

I shoved his knee.

He shook his head. Was he blushing? Had I missed it in my quest for information on our captivity?

“He was sad. He was young. He cried a lot. Kept to himself.”

“Poor guy.” I said.

He nodded, his smile fading.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I woke up one day, he was gone.”

“Gone?”

“Just gone. I was alone again, for a little while. Then you.”

“Oh.” Was all I could muster as his eyes seemed to linger, too long on mine.

*                *                *

“That’s enough.” I announced. 

Darren didn’t react, he simply continued with his sit ups.

“I’m sorry.” I held my hands up. “I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry. Can you please just speak to me again?”

Darren paused, his breathing heavy. 

“That kiss… forget it.” I began, but I stopped myself.

He picked up his towel to wipe the sweat from his face.

“Humans are social animals. I can’t be stuck in here with a statue. I’m going to go insane.”

I waited. But he said nothing, he just began a set of push ups. 

“For fuck’s sake!” I shouted, then made my way back to my side of the room.

*             *             *

I had hopped from colony to colony. Me and a few other stragglers we picked up along the way. 

Never staying in one place too long. The ship we had jacked wasn’t big or powerful enough to get as far away from The Colonies as we needed to be. Far enough away not to be eradicated with the rest of our race.

We moved zone to zone, scavenging. Food, supplies, fuel. Anything to keep us alive or that could come in handy and all the while we searched. Searched for a new ship that could take us far, far away.

Valya and Leksa were with me from the start. My two best friends from our early days of conscription. They had been in the same army regiment and they were so in love it would have made me poisonous with rage if they weren’t so awesome. 

“What happened to you?” Darren asked after he’d told me about his old cell mate.

“Toka was just a kid we picked up on Earth before we left. Orphaned and alone, it was a warzone. It was mostly the four of us. Others came and went, joining us and moving on.”

Darren nodded. Most people didn’t want to travel in groups, it was too obvious.

“I had gone out to find something, anything resembling soccer paraphernalia. It was all I could get Toka to talk about. Otherwise, he was quiet.”

Darren smiled at that.

“I raided a mall, restaurants, rail stations and one or two fuel centres.” Those were for people who used their own ships for travel between Earth and The Colonies. 

“I went too far. But I had been searching for almost a day and nothing.” Moving about slowly in my little magnetic pod that kept me attached to the roads in the small colony town. I floated through empty houses, careful not to tangle my bungee belt that kept me safely secured to my pod.

“I was starving and I began encroaching on territory we hadn’t scanned and surveyed yet.”

Darren looked down. Was he remembering his own capture?

“It wasn’t long before I saw it. Dark clouds, far too low. Running as fast as I could wasn’t enough, the dark smoke was on me before I could make it back. Then I was here… with you.”

*                *                *

My eyes opened to the white ceiling, the bright lights, the smell of syrup. Sitting up, my eyes immediately landed on Darren’s bed. 

Empty.

Empty?

I scanned the room. I rushed out of my own bed and checked under his. One bowl on the table. One set of new linens on my armchair.

He was gone.

Then I was pacing.

Occasionally I would stop by his bed, pick up the book he was reading. The only tell that there had been someone else here.

Had there been someone else here? 

I suddenly felt sick.

My thoughts were suddenly consumed with what Darren had said about the person before me. 

“I woke up one day, he was gone.”

“Gone?”

“Just gone…”

Was this the same? Had Darren’s time run out? I felt my eyes water. How stupid. How stupid I had been to think I could let myself get attached.

But then...the bed was perfectly neat; no dust, no hairs. Not a trace.

Darren had been here… hadn’t he? I wretched.

No. I told myself. Stop.

If there hadn’t been another person here, why was there a bed? The bed was real. 

“Very real!” I shouted, as I climbed into it. Alone. 

I was exhausted. The room seemed to get smaller and smaller. 

I realised as the lights dimmed I hadn’t eaten. Hours passed, a whole day perhaps and I had paced. Just paced. 

“Darren.” I muttered. Then black.

*                *                *

After I had helped dress him, trying hard not to think too much about how he was letting me touch him, I set his breakfast down in front of him and made him eat.

He devoured his plate quickly, before laying back on the bed, satisfied. 

He kept speaking to me in Spanish. 

“No hablo Español,” I repeated. “We didn’t get around to that yet.” 

I gave him his books and let him be.

The next morning he was up before I was, doing his work out.

“Buenos días.” I chirped.

He stopped, looking up at me.

“Oh…morning.”

Is it morning, I thought, if there is no sun to rise? 

“Are you ok?” I asked.

“Yes.” He looked away.

I sat to eat the food left for us.

“You seem more yourself today.’

“I feel… less groggy.”

“Can you remember your name?” I joked.

He rolled his eyes, but smirked a little.

“Yes. I am Darren. You are Talyen.”

“Full marks.” I smiled. Then I turned away toward my plate.

We didn’t speak much that day, but he was acting his usual self. I let him be, just glad he was back and I wasn’t alone.

*                *                *

When the lights dimmed again and I climbed into bed, I waited to hear him do the same, to listen to his soothing deep breaths.

But instead, there was nothing, just footsteps. Then a voice, barely above a whisper beside me.

“Talyen?”

“Yes?”

Without a word, Darren pulled aside my duvet and climbed in beside me. I didn’t move, letting him move his body toward me, his chest against my back.

“Is this ok?” He said.

“Yes.”

He put an arm over me, embracing me.

“Is this ok?”

“Yes.” I repeated. Trying not to let my voice crack. His body was on mine, so warm. Those toned thighs and pecks I’d avoided admiring too often were touching me. My heart raced.

“I’m sorry.” He said, his voice weak, like he was crying.

“It’s ok.”

“I…”

“It’s ok, Darren.” I said.

“I wanted to…I wanted you…I just…”

He seemed to hug me tighter.

“I get it.” I said. “I woke up and you were just gone…” I sighed. 

He was afraid. Afraid of letting himself feel for another…only to lose them. 

But he was here now. Beside me.

We both laid quietly, our raspy breathing slowing, and I let myself drift to sleep, his lips on my neck.

Alice Rose (she/her) is an emerging writer from the UK. Shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award (Feb 2017), Rose has also been published at Crêpe & Penn, CafeAphra, ReflexFiction and others. Rose writes from her small, St Albans flat, feeding other people’s cats and attempting to keep her plants alive. You can find her at alicerwrites.wordpress.com or on Twitter: @a1ice_r0se