Chapter Ten

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The cage was not much bigger than the nook I had shared with Aggie. Mercifully there were no other similarities; thinking of Aggie, of the clade, led only to despair. The floor was dirt and droppings; the rats had fled at my arrival and not returned. There was a scurrying still, something smaller - a mouse perhaps - but it didn’t let itself be seen. The ceiling was too low to allow me to stand, so I sat with my legs crossed at rest and alert, or more often somewhere in between. For a few hours each day, pale squares of sunlight trespassed beyond the bars, stretching then receding as they crept across the floor.

Most of the time I was alone, but for the timid scurrying creature; some days there were visitors. The one called Zachary was first. I tried to block out the sound of its voice, to deny the existence of that fat, pink tongue flapping around in its mouth, fearing I would go mad, or that I already had. But sound is not like thought; words made this way are visceral, impossible to ignore, even those I could not understand.

‘You can hear me, can’t you? You might have lost the power of speech, but you’re not like the others, the ones you control. I can see it. Even now when you’re trying to hide it from me. When they come in their swarms… we used to think they were driven by hunger or madness, but there are always devils like you… not far away… watching.’

Minutes passed before it made words again, but it never took its eyes off me. I could feel its gaze, though my own eyes were lowered. ‘Do you even remember what you were? Who you were? Before you became… this. Your poor mother knew you at once. But Seo didn’t. He only saw what you have become. It’s your eyes though Michael. Elsewhere you are changed almost beyond recognition - your skin, that mouth -  but your eyes… When I look at them I can still see that happy boy we all thought dead. Only I see now that we were right after all. You are dead, aren’t you? You just don’t realise it. A dead and ruined thing that is somehow still moving. We shouldn’t have brought you here. Perhaps I should let Seo destroy you after all. If he still can, now he knows who you are… who you were.’