Week 355: Wake

[Abbey Rose]

Wake
1121

"We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory."
Denis Diderot
​

When you first woke up, it was dark. The smell of dust and dirt filled your senses, though you do not know how. The age and decay of the area was palpable, though again, you could not tell how you know this.

Then the light it hit. It was blindingly bright, an invader to this tomblike void that you found yourself in. A moving mote of existence and light that you had to squint your eyes against. You wondered what was going on. Who had awoken you, and why had you been asleep in the first place?

Your hand, a strange mechanical thing that felt familiar and distant all at the same time, shielded yourself against the light. You needed time for your eyes to adjust and for your body to wake up. Time to figure out where you were, as well as a myriad of other questions that your body could not figure out the words to.

“Hey.” A rough voice calls out, proper in its enunciation but with an edge of impatience. The voice of a man near the end of his shift, some hindbrain thought told you. “We got one here. It’s waking up.” The voice, now obviously a man, was referring to you, it seemed. Confusion permeated through your brain again. One? How many of you were there? What was he looking for?

You try to speak, to say anything and communicate. A series of whines and clicks push through your vocals. Nothing approaching the common language of the time, though of course you could not know that. You struggle to sit up, but you’ve been asleep so long, and were still so tired. You did not know you could even get tired. It should have been impossible for someone like yourself.

The voice calls out again, and a rough hand presses you back down, pushing your back against the dirt. “Already trying to move? That’s encouraging. But unnecessary. Stay down until the diggers come around.” You remember thinking of how cold that voice was. Mercilessly cold, in fact. This was not a man near the end of his shift, you decided. It was a man currently a few hours past that end, reading line items and waiting for the moment he could go home. A man devoid of any empathy or emotion.

You try to speak again, whirs and clicks echoing throughout the chamber. Your ears perceive other sounds, too. Workers and movers laughing and hauling dirt and other things around. A cart gradually getting closer, one of its wheels turning awkwardly with squeaks that seemed almost deafening to your overtuned senses. You struggle to raise again, some more of your strength returning, but it feels useless against that one hand in the center of your chest. If you breathed, you would be hyperventilating now.

“All those whirs. No words, however. Maybe the voice box is broken? That won’t be good for business.” Another box to be checked, it feels. Something told you this man was evaluating you, appraising you like a prized steer. “The engineers will check. Maybe some of them can repair it.” There is the slightest change of pressure on your chest. The man had shrugged.

Your eyes, finally adjusting, start to take in his features. Clean cut, dour. Black feathers kept out of the way for practicality sake. This was not a happy enlii you found yourself trapped by. Dirt smeared furs and leathers told of a life lived outdoors, but the cold stare of those icy black eyes told you it was a life barely lived. A life that could barely consider itself, let alone the lives of others. His free hand held up a ball of obviously magical green light, casting a sickly glow around his features.

“Delos!” A voice calls out from behind the man, but he doesn’t even turn, those evil eyes still roaming all over you. Calculating your value. It made you anxious, ready to bolt and run if you could only get the strength to move. If only that deep level exhaustion did not still permeate your being. An exhaustion that you did not understand, that seemed like a foreign invader in yourself.

“Delos! Did you find one?” The voice calls again, and another light joins the first. With it, you can see the cavern around you. Dark, dripping, wet. You figured it was some sort of mineshaft. Or dig site. Had you been buried? Oh Vis, you wish you could remember anything. Why were you here?

“Yeah.” The cold voice replies. “A lively one, at that.” Other lights begin to join the gathering, all of them shining down on you. Blinding you. You raise your arm against them, a bronze metal bar to try and protect your vision. More clicks, whirs, and a few other more panicked noises pass through your vocals, trying to communicate. Trying to get them to understand you.

The vague faces you can see offer no recognition, however. Only silently stare down at you. Many curious, some nervous at your movements. But none seeing you, you can feel. Only a neutral expression at the next part of their job.

But none as cold as this Delos. The others thought of you as something, at least. He could only see the numbers and traits that made up you. You did not exist to that man as anything more as another item on a list. If there were a hundred of you, you thought, then he would do it exactly like this a hundred times.

The first voice chuckles. “You weren’t kidding. Damn thing sounds like a cicada in the summer, chirping and screeching away.” The light from the voices head moves, the man obviously shaking his head. “We can’t carry it like that, though. Could hurt the diggers. Zap it or knock it out or something.”

“Right.” The man known as Delos, still maintaining that ever present pressure on your chest, starts to bring the green light ball closer to you. You can detect a faint crackling within, and fear catches your chest. There was pain in that ball. Pain and possibly oblivion.

Your struggles grow frantic. You had to get out, had to escape. Blue lights start to flare out from you as you start to struggle. Your own panicked calls fill your hearing. You can feel something inside you moving, processing orders or a request or maybe just plain fear. The lethargy was starting to leave. You were feeling your legs again. Maybe it would be eno-

“Good night, demvir.” The enlil says as the green orb makes contact with your stomach. Pain washes over you. Your shrill cries of pain drown out whatever anyone is saying. Then oblivion welcomes you.