Üksi - Free (7)

llandar shared some links said
9

Hey Meh, I have no idea what happens next in this story. Which is why your feedback helps! Let me know what you think should happen next, or if this whole thing sucks and we should start over.

Previous installments: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Hammering on the walls doesn’t help. It makes a horrible racket that reverberates through our oil container. It’s literally wearing down my fingers and hand into ragged meat. But it feels good. And it passes the time. So I guess that’s something.

It occupies my mind. Most of the people in here - there are 17 of us - spend the hours drifting in and out of awareness. Keeping your thoughts present and focused is difficult, and it’s easy to slip into a mindless hibernation. The result is a dozen or so bodies at any one time standing perfectly still, their heads twitching periodically as they zero in on sounds.

It’d be horrific it weren’t so boring.

I change up my position every few hours, or maybe days, it’s hard to tell. The difference in texture in the webs of rust is something, at least. A few of us insist on making words with each other to keep from losing what tiny bit of sanity we have left, but more and more of us are succumbing.

And then, a breakthrough.

Literally. I scrape my hands along the wall until I find a particularly rusted spot, pitted and flaking. The texture is nice. I figure it’ll be something different. I start to pound my fist against it. I never had a sense of rhythm before, but now I’d be lucky to pound out an SOS on time. After about 20 minutes I notice the metal is flexing. It sounds different. Hollow. I keep hitting. After what I’m guessing is six hours or so, a crystalline THUNK echoes throughout the room.

I can’t see, but I feel every head in the room swivel to zero in on me. It’s a terrifying feeling and for a split second I wonder if I’m about to be ripped to pieces. That fear rises as I feel the air shift with the movement of all the bodies towards me. It happens fast. Before I can react they’re on me, clawing, pushing, and thrashing. I fall to the ground and hear dozens of hands beating on the wall. Metal screeches as grasping hands rip at it with mindless strength.

It takes hours, but time is all but meaningless to us at this point. Hands are worn to claws to bloody nubs against the steel, but eventually even the metal fails. The mass of bodies swells and subsides as the hole widens and more of us rip our way through.

Outside the air is hot and dry. I can feel the heat of the sun on my skin. The excitement has gotten to most of my fellow prisoners, and their howls bounce across the landscape as they tear off towards the village. This isn’t going to be good.

“We have to stop them!” Solomon, growling at me as he chases after the pack. I follow. Can we really stop them?

Should we?