The Mirrorverse

Ellie

Ellie froze halfway through waking as she felt the hard stone floor underneath her. Sweat had adhered her back to the floor, and it was unbearably hot. She wasn’t at home, nor was she at Les and Rob’s flat. She needed to be back at home.

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, praying to wake up at home. She thought of Maya, and how she had told her of doing the same thing in the psychiatric hospital. She understood how she felt more than anyone ever should have.

Ellie opened her eyes quickly, just needing to know. Unfortunately, she wasn’t met with what she was expecting. It was pitch black. She blinked, wondering if she had gone blind from the head injury, as she moved into an upright position and felt along the floor and wall to where the window was, alas forgetting about the pile of puke which she put her hand in.

Wiping her hand on the floor next to the invisible pile of vomit in the total blackness, Ellie pulled herself up to the window opening. She placed her head in it, stiff from sleeping on the hard floor, and by the position she had woken in, she hadn’t moved at all in her sleep.

Slowly she began to make out a lightening in the upper part which might have been clouds. She saw the barrier of the horizon, where the jet black sea met the lighter clouds.

At least I’m not blind, she thought as she stared at the only tinge of light in that blackened place. Her head was still throbbing and she could feel a lump on the right side of the back of her head.

There was no breeze from the window to give any relief from the heat. It felt hotter than it had during the light, which she presumed was because of the humidity, the sheer volume of water hanging around her in the air. She took off her clammy zipped top and threw it in the corner where she could reach it.

Normally the sound of the sea calmed her, but now it was just threatening. If under any miracle she could get out of the fetter, it was telling her that she wasn’t going to get very far.

Ellie returned to her corner, and started pulling on the chain. She banged the fetter on the ground, sending pain shooting up her leg from her ankle, but it didn’t feel like it was going to give.

She felt every inch of the chain but it was solid, solid like the walls.

“There’s no point injuring yourself, you can’t get out,” a male voice came floating through the darkness, causing Ellie to yelp and look all around for it’s source.

“Who’s there?” she called out, wondering how the sound was so near but the walls were so thick.

“I’m in the next cell,” the voice answered. It was kind of hard to understand what he was saying as he had the strangest accent, like nothing she had ever heard before.

“How come I can hear you then?” she asked, thinking that was probably the least important of all the questions she could have posed.

“Someone dug out the mortar from inbetween some of these bricks, must have took them an epoch,” he replied.

“Been here long?” her voice was stronger than she felt.

“Too long,” he said almost lazily.

Ellie didn’t know what to ask next, whether she wanted to know the answers.

“Do we get fed?” She guessed that was a reasonably important question, as she felt herself beginning to break down again. She had company, which was not what she was expecting, though she could not say for sure what she was in fact expecting, if anything.

“Yeah, it’s edible,” the disembodied voice replied.

“I’m Ellie,” she told him as her voice broke.

“Viskra, I would say pleased to meet you, but you know,” he half laughed flippantly, although she detected something almost breaking in his voice.

“Are we alone?” Ellie half sobbed, requiring her new friend to ask her to repeat it.

“Yeah, for the moment.”

“When will it get light? I want to see,” she sniffed, returning to the window.

“You’re in the dark?” he was incredulous. “That’s, that’s...” Viskra’s voice tailed off as he couldn’t think of anything to end his sentence with that didn’t indicate it was possible for things to be worse.

“You have light?” wondered Ellie, more conversationally than anything as she stared at the horizon line.

“I have a project,” he replied simply.

“What...project?”

“Just this thing,” he alluded evasively.

“And...?” She couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to tell her, they were as good as cell mates, his voice was probably the last friendly voice she was ever going to hear.

“I have to make something or they will kill my family,” Viskra blurted out, and Ellie could understand why he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Do you know who these people are?” she moved over to the wall his voice was emanating from, as the sea was masking his words.

“No. And I don’t want to, I just want to go home to my father,” he sounded like a little boy, but defiant to the last.

“I’m sorry but they don’t care about anything or anyone. Once they have what they want, you will be dead too.” It was the truth, but it still burned her to speak the words out loud.

“As long as my father is well, I don’t care,” he said stubbornly.

“How do you know he’s not already dead!” shouted Ellie, anger rising in her like lava from her diaphragm. She knew her new friend didn’t need to hear that, but she knew that whatever he was making for Steve was not going to be a good thing.

Her remark was met with silence, as she pulled out her pony tail and ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it tightly in all directions between her fingers.

“I’m sorry, okay,” she apologised with stubbornness lingering in her voice.

More silence.

“Please speak to me, come on I need your voice,” she was begging now, new tears falling.

Ellie curled up on the floor again, away from the puke. The smell of it filled her nostrils, from the floor and from her hands.

The smell and the sound of the sea came down on her, weighing down on her inert body, waiting for death to escort her to wherever she was going.

“Oh come on, you can’t ignore me forever,” Ellie spoke to the wall but again, it failed to answer. “At least let me know you’re okay.”

The darkness was impenetrable and she was alone and lost, while her only friend wouldn’t talk to her.

“I’m fine,” he returned, boldly but wavering.

“We only have each other, please don’t go away,” Ellie had no tears left but her voice wavered the same as Viskra’s.

“I won’t go away,” he promised.

They started a long conversation, telling each other everything about themselves, about those they loved and the things they loved to do. They talked all night, whiling away the long hours of darkness together, talking like old friends reunited after a long break.

Ellie thought that it was the longest night of her life, but they just got longer.