Chapter Text
Her fingers trail along the glass. She hates looking at it, but the feel is soothing. Glossy, like she never threw a chair at it that one time. It never left a dent, but sometimes she imagines it did.
Meanwhile she’s got her head turned the other way so she’s not seeing the glass, only feeling it. From down here, she can make out a thin layer of dust on the floor, gathered right up against the brick-pattern-painted back wall and curling into the corner.
That means they’ll be moving her to the temporary enclosure for cleaning time pretty soon. She’ll give it two days. It’s a sure thing.
Past the glass, one of them clicks and rumbles. Based on the slurring, it’s either a child or an intoxicated adult.
“Why isn’t it doing anything?”
“This says it’s most active in the mornings and midday. Bad timing, sorry.”
Hermione sits up, curling in on herself. It’s bright in here and dark out there, so it’s mostly her own reflection that she’s seeing in the glass, but they’re out there. A big one and a little one, light casting them as mostly shadows against heavy, deep blue.
They’re staring. She stares right back. Maybe they’ll tap on the glass. Sometimes, if she’s lucky, they hold up odd objects she can only guess the use of. Those days are the highlights.
But these two don’t tap. They stare, and then they move along. If it wasn’t the end of the day, she’d play pretend for them, just to see if they’d do something interesting in return.
As it is, she waits there on the floor until her dinner clatters into the bowl on the counter.
She’s thirsty as all hell, but she starts with the food. During the daytime they like her to go to the trouble of scooping the food into her serving dish—what looks like a styrofoam container, except that thing is just about indestructible—and eat it at the table.
But for dinner, she just wolfs it down straight from the bowl. First food, then water, the little entry hole at the bottom of each bowl watching her do it.
The orange lights dim to red, then deep blue, then near-nothing. It takes an hour, but she spends that hour already in bed. The mattress sinks beneath her.
What she wouldn’t give for a blanket. Or a real pillow, not this mattress perfectly formed to how her head rests on the mattress.
Eat. Lay down. Listen to the burbling of the pellet feed in her stomach mixing into a soup with her water.
Sleep, eventually.
Wake up slowly, with the lights glowing a very faint orange, then blooming into a hot white so bright she’s never managed to sleep through it.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Always at the same, no matter what, except for when she caught that infection and they hooked her up to some sort of sponge thing that had her blood feeling all gelatinous in her body.
Every day, the audience at the glass. Tapping, or if they’re trying to impress someone, banging. The yammer she used to tune out, but now dutifully translates in her head. Keeps her awake and at least halfway safe from the pits of boredom.
Every day, the same thing.
Between meals, she’s fidgeting with the fake knobs on her fake stove in her fake kitchen. She doesn’t turn on the TV, which would play a looped tape of flashing colors and shapes at random. It fries her brain to watch for too long.
Every day, she’s listening for that glug-glug of water burbling into her bowl from the hose in the bottom, just for something to do besides stare at the shapes behind the glass.
Every day. The same temperature. The same tapping on the glass. The same complaints from guests that she doesn’t do anything.
What’s she to do?
Day.
Night.
Day.
Night.
Day. Hermione wakes up to a motor humming. She feels it before she hears it.
The lights don’t blare at full volume yet. They sit at a peachy orange, bright enough to reflect off the glass but not so bright that she isn’t sure this isn’t a dream.
The far wall, the one with the pretend piece of framed art painted directly onto the also-painted brick, pulls up into the ceiling, opening the room.
Hermione rushes for the opening, bare feet slapping. She skids around the table and falls to her knees, groping beneath the retreating wall—
—but there’s something there. Flexible, like a sheet of rubber, except softer.
She slides back a bit and waits until the wall has retreated all the way into the ceiling. A thick membrane covers the entire opening, the coloring a sort of mottled blue.
She trails her fingers along it. The softness makes her think of her own skin, except there’s an elastic quality hers doesn’t have.
Behind it, a shadow moves.
Hermione scrambles away, not stopping until she bumps into her table.
The shadow moves again, drifting across the surface of the membrane. It grows more defined, and it lengthens, until it forms into the shape of another person. A human.
Hermione opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.
Pressure points appear on the membrane as the person runs their fingers across it just like she’d done. A hand pushes against it, all five fingers there, all of them longer than her own, but just as delicate.
From the other side, a voice says, “What is this?” It’s deep. A man’s voice.
Hermione shakes her head and looks around like all the walls might disappear just the same.
It’s a trick. They’ve done this before—except back then, the shadows moved against the brick walls. When they spoke, the profiles of their mouths moved the right way, but none of it made any sense. Total verbal gibberish. Just a mirage made to entertain her, or measure her wellbeing.
This is more of the same. Not real. Something to keep her company, some new brand of entertainment for her.
The shadow cranes its neck to look up, then around. His palm rests still against the membrane. “I need a hint,” he says. “I don’t understand.”
Eyes on the hand, Hermione creeps back towards the wall. No—it’s not an illusion. Those five fingers definitely push towards her.
“Hello?” she whispers.
The head snaps forward, and the hand presses closer, stretching the membrane. Still, it doesn’t break.
“Hello,” he says. His hand finally drops.
She resists the urge to sprint the other way and wait for him to leave. “Can you see me too?”
“Only your shadow.”
He steps closer to the membrane, and now she can make out the trimmed shape of his hair. A long neck. There—an ear, tall and curved.
So many questions. She lands on, “How long have you been here?”
“Twenty-seven days. Before then, they kept me elsewhere. Similar setup, though not quite as spacious. I lived there for just over two years, by my best estimate.”
Past the glass, a red light flashes. She catches it out of the corner of her eye. Maybe they’re recording the two of them?
“Are you healthy?” the man asks.
She stares hard at his head, trying to imagine a face there. Wow, but he’s tall. “I think so,” she says. Slowly, she lifts her hand and brushes the membrane. “I’ve never gotten to meet anyone else. I thought I was the only one.”
“Nope. My guess is that we’re only a fraction of the captives.” The light outside flashes again, and his head tilts. “But that doesn’t strike me as a particularly comforting thing to say, so let’s pretend I didn’t.”
Hermione giggles.
She presses her hand harder to the membrane. His shadow deforms slightly at the shoulders. “Are you sure you’re…”
He waits a moment, then asks, “Sure I’m what? Sure I’m not a bundle of tentacles wrapped up into a human bodysuit?”
She giggles again. Has she ever laughed like this before? Probably, but she can’t remember when. Maybe before.
The man lifts his hand, and though she wants to flinch away, she doesn’t. He presses it against hers, his long fingers far dwarfing her own.
Warmth. His skin warms the membrane, and then her hand.
One more flicker of the red light, and then suddenly vibrations rumble through her feet. Hermione jumps back. Up near the ceiling, the wall begins to descend, its motor sending the whole room vibrating. As she watches, it speeds up, rolling downward far quicker than it had ascended.
“My name’s Hermione!” she calls through the gap. Already he’s shut away down to his waist.
His hand appears down near his feet, fingers wiggling. “I’m Tom.”
The wall falls into the notch in the floor and goes still. Hermione crouches and traces the seam there. All the walls have that seam. Can they all raise?
On the counter, her bowls begin to fill.
Time to start the day.