Darkness

I couldn’t tell how much time passed after that.

The brief moments of light I was granted were most often broken up into getting insulted, being called worthless and sometimes hit. Every time, I would get the same afterwards:

A single bar of what they called “food”.

I quickly learned how to use the toilet in the darkness; to avoid the rigorous beatings I had gotten on occasion otherwise.

My hair had almost reached my toes by the time I first got to leave the room. My body had changed. I could feel it.

I was led into a circular room, with other kids arriving there at the same time.

They all looked different. One of them had cuts spread over their entire body, while another’s skin barely resembled that of a human, almost charred.

Above us, a seating arrangement surrounded the room, covered by incredibly thick glass panels.

A loud voice pierced through my ears.

“Go on, I think you all know what you’re supposed to do now. Run wild.”

The other kids all lunged at each other, as the one with charred skin was suddenly set on fire. He screamed in agony, but began walking toward me with a look of pure hatred in his eyes. The same that evil man always had when he looked at me.

I begged for him to stop, but he didn’t listen. He inched ever closer, with no sign of stopping. His screams only intensified over time.

“Please stop. Please. Don’t hurt me. I know I’m worthless, but I want to live. Please!”

I cried, but he still wouldn’t listen.

I glanced upwards at the glass, but every single person within that room seemed unimpressed by what was happening below them.

An odd sensation I had never felt before filled my lower body. Even though the boy hadn’t reached me yet, I felt like I was dying. I was cowering at the wall, my legs refusing to move any further.

As I looked down on my body, I could see and feel blood flowing from down there. At the sight of it, I immediately fainted.

There was nothing. Not a single speck of light.

Then, I spoke. “Illuminate, oh great darkness!”

A purple hue flowed from my fingers, and it was light.

I could finally see, but there was still nothing around me. I was floating in absolute emptiness, only the purple sphere I had just created accompanying me. I slowly approached it, tightly embracing it once I had reached it.

It felt cold, yet soothing. The nothingness within kept me from thinking. It was perfect. The utter hollowness filled me up immediately. I could drown in that feeling.

“Hey you, wake up!” I wash shaken awake still inside the room. Everything of that remained of the other kids were their bodies mangled into impossibly achievable positions, blood flowing from every orifice. The body of the boy that had approached me had disappeared, a puddle of black liquid spread before my feet.

“Interesting. And it coincided with her first menstrual cycle, you say?” The voice made me shiver immediately. It was him. What was he talking about?

He briefly glanced over at me, and then at the room around me.

I banged my head against the wall behind me, trying to shake off the two people currently touching me. The entire wall of glass above had cracked completely. Blood flowed down into the room below.

“You did well, Yuri. Truly magnificent work. Now, can you tell me what you felt when it activated?”

“Nothing.”

“What?” He was seething with rage all of a sudden. “What do you mean, nothing? Surely there had to have been something.”

“No. I fainted. There was nothing. It was empty. Nothing was there. Nobody. Nothing.”

“I suppose you’re telling the truth. You know what happens if I find out you lied to me.” He reached his hand out to me. “Now, come on. There’s a lot I’ll have to tell you.”

He led me into a new room, fully illuminated, and even equipped with something that reflected my face. There were small, purple spots inside my pitch-black eyes. They were beautiful.

“This is your new room, Yuri. Now, come over here and sit down, there’s something very important you need to keep track off now.”

I sat down next to him on the bed. It was way softer than the previous one.

He stared into my eyes for a moment, raising an eyebrow after inspecting them a little closer.

“Interesting…” he muttered to himself.

“Alright, let’s get straight to the point.” He gripped my hand firmly and proceeded to explain the female reproductive system and cycle down to every miniscule detail.

Every month? This is disgusting. What even is a month? Whatever. He said it, so it has to be right.

After he finished talking, he asked a simple question.

“Did you understand that? You’ll have to take care of that yourself. I’m sure you’ll manage.”

Then he stood up and left the room, closing the large steel door behind him. I fully expected the lights to shut off, but they didn’t.

There was a weird device mounted next to the door, practically inviting me to flip it. As I did, the light turned off. Much more comfortable. I could barely see before, but now I was able to make out most of the room.

The next time I fell asleep, my mind descended back into that same soothing nothingness. I reached into the orb, feeling a cold liquid inside. It hurt at first, but I quickly grew accustomed to it. Spread out over the next few sleeps, I dove deeper into the purple orb inside me, a feeling of unmatched ecstasy filling me up every time.

I was shaken awake suddenly.

“Hey. I brought you this. You’ll need it in the future. It’s called a book. Learn how to read it, and I’ll bring you more of them.”

Over the next uncountable amount of time, I slowly grasped reading properly, the almost empty room slowly filling up with more and more books over time. It was a great method of passing time, even though I couldn’t do it in complete darkness.

The only person that visited me since then was Satoru, bringing with him more books for me to read every time, all of them about vague concepts of science. At a certain point, towers of books reached up to the surprisingly high ceiling.

Satoru had come by more sparsely by now, giving me some books about ancient mythology and legends. I hadn’t read them yet, because I was genuinely engulfed by the wonders of modern science I had found out about. One time, however, while I was growing increasingly bored, I opened one of them.

There was written a word so repulsive it made me throw up. I hadn’t seen or heard it ever since back then, “Love”. Was this his doing?