Excerpt: Æther.

The overhead industrial light was always flickering. The walls had ceased to be white long, long ago and were now grey, covered in the grime of years of dirty hands touching them. There were no windows, and just a rectangular crack in the wall to signify a door. There was no door frame, just the concrete around it so when it opened – rarely, too rarely – the stone slid against it, knocking off small chips with a hideous scraping sound. It was a resonance that came too loudly for their unused ears. When it was open, one could see the small indents in the stone; small fingers clutching for anything to keep from being taken, desperate, wrenching their nails out with the effort. The blood had never been cleaned from the wall and door, and a small pile of severed nails lay on the stone floor – more then they cared acknowledge. The two of them huddled together at all times, often whispering rather than speaking, because the sound seemed to be too loud after spending so many years in silence. Sometimes, they seemed to forget how to speak at all – until the men came again and they screamed as loud as they possibly could.

They had been there for more years than they cared to remember. They remembered nothing of any world besides this one. All they knew was each other and the solitude, the silence… and the pain. Both had various crude stitches on the back of their shaved heads, untouched dried blood caking their backs. The hair seemed desperate to grow back, to cover the evidence of their pain – one with a soft layer of pitch black and the other with a stark, shocking white. If one looked, they would see strange features to the two. The one with black hair also had eyes the hue of midnight – at least, he had when he was born. Now only one eye held such a color, for the other was a sharply contrasting gold. The other child had a small patch of black amidst the white layer of hair.

The white haired child was listless again. That meant it was either late into the third or early in the fourth day of their cycle. The men would come again soon, take a scalpel to the tender skin between the sections of his arm. Bleed him out. A necessary pain. The older of the two stood in front of the other who sat leaning against the concrete wall, his bloodied knuckles stretching over his clenched fists. He was absolutely determined this time. They had known so much pain their entire lives, but the last time had been different. The last time, they inserted something cold and scratching into the softness inside his skull, and he was aware of it now that the headache had subsided somewhat. He could feel it there – it did not belong there.

The pain had settled into a numbed ache, however. His pain always did, and had grown increasingly tolerable over their endless years. But the younger child, his pain was more constant, the raw skin always a reminder of a deed needing to be done, skin that had never actually been able to scar. He just remained scabbed, always in the process of healing but never getting far with it. The older child had to protect him this time – had been trying to all these years. This time, he felt energized with his rage, his desperation, and his determination. This time, they would get out.

They would finally get out.