Warehouse

I woke to the sound of birds. The cooing echoed, bouncing off into the darkness above my head and swooping down to shelter in my aching ears. My eyes felt sticky and stretched, like cling film pulled taut, and it was a great effort to push them open, breaking the seal that glued them to my cheeks. My vision swam, coasting along tin walls and odd, protruding boxes. I slowly became aware of a throbbing pain in my side, snaking through my veins and winding up over my chest and through my neck.

A small sound escaped my lips, barely audible even in the stifling silence. Momma, I was trying to say, come help me, I can’t move, but there was no one there to answer the strangled cry that never made it past my tongue. I could taste metal in the air, coppery and silvery and nauseating. My stomach rebelled against the stench of decay that hung as phantoms with white suits in the air around me, but I forced myself not to throw up.

Heavily, painfully, I sat up, ignoring the jabbing in my hip, to better see where I was. I was inside a huge hall with vaulted ceilings and great metal lights that tugged on their wires like curious mutts, but it was old, older than anything I’d ever seen. Rust spread like an infection over the dull grey metal, clinging to beams and overtaking corners where it hung like giant spiders. A stream coated the ground beside me and disappeared in the dark. Another trickle of water spilled from my cheek as I sobbed desperately. Questions barraged the sides of my prison but one thing was abundantly clear: I was alone.