Too cold

The man woke with a scream. A small, terrified noise that left his lips and was absorbed in the stillness around him. There was no echo. And no response.

He sat up and swallowed, his tongue dry in his throat, the air in his room stale and cold. His palm distributed his sweat across his face, and he made a mental note to shower today, maybe even with some hot water if there was any. The tiles on the floor were freezing and he pulled his feet back and sat on them, hiding them, keeping them warm. He squinted into the dim room, his vision blurry. It was getting worse every day, the blurriness. The set of glasses he had picked was helping, but it wouldn’t be for long. Damn eyes.

But his ears worked better than they ever had, trained now in the stillness and they picked up a faint sound, something rhythmical, something disturbing. An alarm? What kind of alarm?

His heartbeat quickened and he grappled for socks and white sneakers, pulled a long-sleeved shirt over his shaven head. His joints ached. It was so cold in this god damn place.

His steps were silent as he made his way to the corridor, his door wide open, like every night. Too dangerous to close it. Who would know what he might miss if he closed it?

He could still hear the sound, from close to the kitchen maybe and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, fear stirring the acid in his stomach. Or maybe that was hunger. He tried to remember when he had last eaten and if he could afford to eat today. He shook his head. Maybe tomorrow.

“Agnes?” he asked into the soundless void. Once he had found it peaceful here, so quiet, so deprived of any squabbling, any honking cars, any ringing phones. But lately it had a menacing feel to it, a hushed threat. The stillness was overwhelming.

“Agnes?” he called again, louder, more pressing.

“Can you hear that? “

She gave no answer. Nobody gave any answers. None of his colleagues, his friends. He had thought they were a team, in it together and all that. But they had abandoned him. Had all left him. Had doomed him to be on his own. Bloody cowards. But not Agnes. She was still here.

He crept forward, every step a monumental task but one he had to master. That alarm would drive him insane sooner or later, so he had no choice than to investigate. If only Agnes would show up.

“Agnes!” he shouted, angry now, annoyed with her and his friends and this whole cursed place.

Still there was no answer.

He braced a hand on a wall, his chest suddenly tight, every breath catching in his throat. Panic pulsed through his veins.

“No , no , no” he whispered, dragging his feet over the tiles, willing himself forward when he wanted nothing more than to turn and hide and forget. But there was no hiding and no forgetting. He was trapped here with no way out.

“Agnes” he whimpered, a tear streaking the grime on his face.

“Please, Agnes”

His voice was hoarse now, his lungs unable to fill, the pounding of his heartbeat drowning out the whimsical sound of the alarm.

He heaved and retched and threw up the meagre contents of his stomach. Bile mostly, some little bits of solids that had remained in his stomach and acid that burned the back of his throat.

He sank down, the cold tiles instantly absorbing the heat his body was still producing and making him shiver. He closed his eyes, trying to remember what the sun had felt like on his skin. Trying to remember when he had last been at a beach or in a forest, with breathing, living things around him, with the wind in his hair. His hand brushed over his bald head. Practical they had said, and he had nodded and given up his dark lush hair. The woman that had cut it has smiled at him, a little sad maybe but he had been too excited to notice. What else had he missed, back then? What else had they said, had they promised or worse, had they not disclosed? He had gotten a bad deal here.

His muscles started twitching, trying to generate some heat and the lizard part of his brain told him he had to move to not freeze to death where he sat. And that alarm was still blaring.

He didn’t quite manage to get up and walk, so he turned onto his hands and knees and crawled, slow and with leaden movements, just setting one hand in from of the other, his legs following as if in trance. When he passed the next room he stared straight ahead, not daring to look at his friends, his colleagues, lined up in the room, staring back with wide eyes and gaping mouths. He wouldn’t be able to deal with their judgement, their mocking comments. And he didn’t want to hear their reasons for abandoning him in this ghastly place.

He squeezed his eyes shut, still on all fours, willing his body on and when he finally reached the window, he trusted his legs enough to support him. He pulled himself up, bracing both hands against the window frame, his eyes locked onto his shoes. His trembling fingers felt their way along the wall and found a round button, raised from the panel.

“Shut the fuck up” he whispered and pressed the button. Silence rang in his ears as the alarm ceased and he let out a shuddering breath. After a long while the man swallowed and tried to summon the courage to lift his head, to look outside, to see. To get confirmation of what he already knew. To have his heart broken.

He pressed his lips together, and nodded to himself, tears welling up again and then he started a short countdown in his head, drawing a shallow breath. There was no way to avoid this.

He lifted his chin.

Stared through the window.

Closed his eyes and turned away.

He sank to the floor, his back sliding down the wall, all strength leaving his body, all hope dissolving into the stale air.

He forgot to breathe.

Forgot to swallow, to scream, to cry.

Forgot to think.

If only he could forget the image in his mind, of Agnes, outside, her body crumbled in the dust, her face swollen, her eyes dark and hollow.

He retched and vomited again, not even turning his head to not vomit onto his own legs. He didn’t wipe his mouth, did not wipe away the silent cold tears, did not move away from the freezing floors. He just sat there.

He stared against the wall opposite of him, the cursed white walls of this sterile place. Everything was white and cold and soulless. Everything but him. He still had a soul. He was the only living, breathing thing here. Alone. Abandoned.

He sat for an hour or two, still and silent and when he moved again it was fluent, automatic, instinctive. He stood, setting one foot in front of the other and walked back to his room, avoiding the windows, and the doorway to the room halfway down the corridor. The one that held what was left of his friends and family. Of his life here. His room was also white, and his bed was white and the ceiling. The whiteboard was white, but it was full of specks of colour, of little pictures. He looked at them one by one, the photos of his friends, each one of them smiling back at him. And each one decorated with a big black cross right through the middle.

Patrick. He had been the first, early on.

Michael. Gone.

Harris. Also gone.

Lorraine. Peter. Milan. Silent Fjordan, the Swedish guy. Or Danish maybe? And the others.

He picked up the black marker, needing only a second to take a final look at Agnes’s unblemished face, her freckles, her blue eyes. Then he crossed her off the board. So easy, to make the transition. Alive. Dead. Here. Not here.

He huffed.

The only picture left was his own, in the bottom left corner, his hair still full back then, his stupid grin so unsuspecting of what was to come. They should have told him. Should have warned him.

The marker hovered over his picture.

When they came for this place, how would they know who was first? Who was last? Would it matter to them? Would they come at all? Or just leave them here to rot?

He bit his lip, staring into his own face. Then he wrote his message. Right over his picture and across all the other pictures and past the border of the white bord and when he was done, he tossed the marker and laughed out loud and turned away and strode back to where he had just come from, to take a closer look at his friends halfway down the corridor and to go and be with Agnes, out there in the dust.

The cold neon light reflected off the white board, illuminating his words.

Made it to Day 282.

Too cold.

Fuck Mars.