It was dark, and everything hurt. There was a pain in the back of his head; it snaked down his spine, and he could almost hear the flesh and sinew tearing as it did. His eyes throbbed as though something wormed in there, eating at what light he might have seen. A dull ache in his chest sent spasms up his neck and face.
He lay naked on something cold, hard, and unkind — severe in feel and geometry. So severe that his limbs bruised, strung from its sides — lifeless but for his writhing fingers and toes. He had hoped to touch the earth, perhaps its grass, but hadn't. His body slumped as he settled for breathing it in, tasting the dirt on his tongue as the cool air filled his lungs and tightened his nethers.
It wasn't the air; he realised. There was a lingering taste, like wet earth before a storm, in his mouth. Something caked his lips — nay, his body whole — pulling at the strings beneath his skin. It was brittle, like baked clay; the smell was soporific. In his mind's eye, he saw a dried river basin running down his spine, pale flesh desiccated with mud cracks.
The estuary from which the soup of his brain leaked had dried, and with the drought came clarity.
He saw nothing but darkness, yet felt certain that he was in a large, humid hollow. Something in the silence begged him to fill it, and the emptiness betrayed a violation of his being there. Its weight crushed him.
The smell of earth — dry leaves taking to rot, worms and snails, beetles and springtails rife in the loam — assured him he was outdoors. But something was amiss. It was quiet — so quiet he heard ringing in his ears. And he was slow to recognise the stench he'd long since grown tolerant of in the air: something nostalgic, something vulnerable.
Suddenly, he was that lonely little boy on rainy nights, when the leaky, yellowing attic ceiling yawned its foul breath, and his loud, messy roommates screeched in camaraderie whenever thunder bellowed, and he clutched his duvet tighter. They were up there with him — hanging upside down in the dark. He was not alone. There was nothing to be afraid of.
Bat guano, he thought. That's what the stench was.
Was he in a cavern? That explained the missing stars and moon, and the oppressive dark. Was it even nighttime? He had to know. But first — what did he know? His limbs were lead, and he lay at an incline on an elevated construct. Baroque. Medieval. A kind of altar, he supposed — made of stone, old and dusty. Metal, too.
There were harsh, perhaps runic, characters chiselled in the stone at his feet; what they read, he couldn't say from brushing toes past.
Undeterred, he slid his fingers into the nooks beneath the altar in a frenzy, fiddling inside grooves where bolts might have been screwed, turning gears this way and that; the belly of the beast was a labyrinthine mechanism he glimpsed only as far as his digits poked.
Pistons here. Levers there.
Sweat stung his eyes and dripped from the tip of his nose as he strained at a lever, prying at it with a trembling ring finger. That was a mistake. He heard cogs chip and shatter as rusty gears bared their gnarled teeth — old lovers desperate for a kiss — and the altar shuddered alive.
[Arcane mechanism groans]
Blue light. Something had flashed in the dark; he blinked, and it was gone. But he hadn't long to mull it over — he'd heard something. A sickening shrill, like a viper's hiss; tingles in his ears told him it was a reeling spool.
Fast. Loud.
[Twine reeler winds]
He gasped, shivering as gooseflesh prickled and the hair on his skin stood at full mast. There it was again — that light! It was text, he realised: harsh, nauseating characters in flares of blue miasma. He looked away, only for the blood to drain from his face as those words stalked his eyeballs.
[Winding continues — faster]
He smelled smoke in the air. Was the line burning? What was the catch? And what did those characters say? He had only glimpsed the blue — it flashed far too quickly for him to read — but he was certain that was no language he knew.
Yet he could almost make sense of it — almost — but for the splitting headache and the nausea when he tried. Spit welled in his mouth at the blue. He shut both eyes, and for a moment, darkness. Solace. The text was gone — then back again, as something clinked and clacked, and the altar fell quiet as the dead.
[Twine tugs on spindle — winding fades]
He went cold as a string he hadn't known was in the back of his neck loosened — his head slumped, suddenly far too heavy — only for three other threads to compensate, digging into his flesh like worms at a fête. They reeled his head back with such might that he shuddered and cried out through clenched teeth.
[Head thuds — sickening crack]
[Shrieks]
He held his breath as blood dripped down his spine, but he paid it no mind — could not pay it any. For there, in the dark above him, he saw those haunting words flash one after another, lurking long enough for him to construe — barely — and he winced.
That was all it took.
His eyes flared with ache — the script was suddenly blinding in the dark; it told of an insidious watchtower whose spotlight loved him not.
In a heartbeat, he shut both eyes so tight that white light flashed in the back of his skull. Wary — indeed, afraid — of so much as a peek, he let the pain pass and the now-familiar darkness prowl, tasting iron on his tongue. When he opened his eyes next, after a lengthy and restless slumber, the eerie blue text had disappeared
Had he lost his mind? Fancied all that? No — he couldn't have, not in sans-bloody-serif.
His eyes played tricks on him after waking from a deep sleep or staring at a monitor too long; he'd learned to blink the floaters away. But that had looked material. So crisp.
And, crucially, both his eyes had throbbed at the blue light — a physiological response as haptic as the throb in the back of his head and the warmth of blood dripping down his spine. The blue couldn't have been his mind playing tricks on him, surely.
Was there a screen up there?
[Riley, parched — in English]
"Hello?" he said.
The tremors in his voice were like shards on sandpaper. But that was the last thing on Riley's mind — let alone that the captions had interpreted his greeting and translated it into that arcane Writing-on-the-Wall he could, someways, Christ, read between the headaches and nausea — or that whatever was behind the mad scrawls knew his name and the dryness of his throat, apparently.
No — the UK Government probably knew as much; it was the subtle assault on his very identity that appalled Riley.
Hello, he thought, clinging desperately to the vocalisation in his head.
Riley had spoken that word countless times before, yet it was heavy on his tongue when he'd said it in the dark — unwieldy. It didn't sound right; had he not known his own voice, it wouldn't have surprised Riley to learn that wasn't him speaking. His throat was dry, yes, but dryness didn't explain the drawl.
Riley's English had a mild Eastern European twang to it.
That was worrying.
[Riley, panicked — continues]
"Am I having a stroke?"
The blue loomed. And it had that right; he'd heard the panic in his phonation — felt it echo in his bones. Riley's skin prickled with gooseflesh; he fought the urge to shut his eyes again, certain he'd seen the text before he spoke. It was as if someone — something — with clairvoyance captioned Riley's response in real time.
No — quicker than that. For an audience. It certainly wasn't for his sake.
[Breathes sharply]
"Hello? I'm bleeding and bound," said Riley. "I can't feel my arms and legs, nor see a bloody thing but that horrid blue light and those dreadful words. Is that you, mate? You seem to know who I am — you seem to know a lot, actually. Can I have your name? Where is this? Hello? Is anyone there? Please respond — what's going on?!"
[Heartbeat thumps]
"You hear that? I don't talk like this — I'm British! I think I'm having a stroke. That's a medical emergency! Hello? Please, I need help!"
[Swallows audibly — voice chokes]
"What kind of sick joke is this?!" said Riley, spittle landing on his bare chest. "If I gave my consent for this, I would revoke it. Stop! Please — let me out!"
The silence loomed. And the captions narrated every word, emotion, and physical response he betrayed moments before he did. Bright blue text hovered in the dark, glued to his eyeballs.
There wasn't a screen up there, he realised; someone had tethered it to his line of sight — wherever he glanced.
Riley saw the captions even with his eyes shut.
[Rapid deep breaths — hyperventilates]
Okay, calm down, Rye. You've had worse hang-ups — nothing as strange, but worse, thought Riley, breathing in through his nose and out his mouth. Audrey Chen, yeah? Leeds. First year, 1998. She did a number on you, mate. Knife through your heart, that. You'll live through this, too.
A smile tugged at Riley's lips as he clenched his fists till his bones ached — and then clenched harder. The pain was his; it sedated his angst. Betrayed that he was in control — perhaps falsely, but that didn't matter. He needn't know the devil in those details, if the fiend's dark lair was anything to go by.
Riley's smile deepened.
What's the story here? He thought. Ritual sacrifice?
Riley deemed movement unwise, so he wet his lips and made a loud popping sound — then another — before his mouth let loose a fury of patented percussions his subconscious recalled from infancy.
[Smacks lips audibly]
[Makes wet, buzzing sound with lips]
[Unintelligible gibberish crescendos — fades]
[Mimics baby talk]
"Goo-goo-gah-gah," said Riley.
[Laughs, incredulous]
No — these subtitles are too elaborate for Jedediah McCultleader, he thought. Detached. Clinical. Aware. I imagine a narcissistic psychopath wouldn't humour his victim's baby impressions — unless as torture.
Riley furrowed his brow. What was going on? Perhaps he was in control. The strings had dug into his flesh only when he rummaged through the altar. The captions flashed only when he made a sound or heard one. And, crucially, his thoughts were his alone — Riley hadn't missed that the subtitles didn't (couldn't?) caption his thoughts.
There was a limit to their pervasiveness — voyeurism, really. It was the little things, wasn't it? Knowing that gave Riley a tailwind; emboldened him and riled his curiosity in places where, before, only rational terror dwelt.
Was there a political angle to the subtitles? All speech was free until it wasn't. Would the captions censor him?
[Enunciates caricature of elderly female voice]
"Jedediah, if you're a prophet, yes," said Riley, as loud as he dared, "then I am Elizabeth II, Queen of England — you will wipe my royal bum when I demand it, and say thank you!"
Riley scrunched his face both in chagrin and anticipation of something — anything. But nothing happened in the blue's wake.
[In Scottish accent]
"Ah, fer heaven's sake, say something back already, ye fascists!"
Verbatim, the captions had shadowed his every word — crisp, unfiltered. A smile that was a bit too smug crept across his lips.
Doesn't look like the subs will censor me. At least not blatantly, thought Riley, with one eye shut and the other open. Near-prescient timing, perfect eye-tracking and overlay — they scream high tech.
Had he signed up for a kind of psychological study? It wasn't unheard of — his tax money had paid for stranger research, surely. But Riley wasn't convinced. The altar's medieval, gothic structure, and the dank, dreary atmosphere punctuated by bat guano didn't quite suggest a lab setting — unless he was in a meth lab run by emo psychologists.
[Chortles]
Riley humoured the thought that he could've been beta-testing a top-secret product for some conglomerate's R&D team — perhaps a company at the intersection of surveillance tech and morbid entertainment, one with a production studio that sold immersive experiences to adrenaline junkies — like his ex-girlfriend, who frequented escape rooms and haunted houses.
A stretch? Perhaps. But it wasn't inconceivable.
They definitely had you sign an NDA, thought Riley. But what for? To see how fast I can pull a Houdini with subtitles for a guide?
That didn't seem likely either. Riley was fairly certain that the subtitles weren't there for his sake. Their mechanics were too impersonal. It almost appeared a fortunate coincidence that he saw the subtitles at all. In films, characters didn't know they were being captioned. This felt like that — only he was conscious of the fact.
Was that a kind of loophole?
Audrey had taught him that the best escape rooms were almost impregnable — but for the subtle clues built in. If his clues were so blatantly obvious — insidious, even — would escape be that much harder?
[Scoffs]
"Fine, I'll play along. Let's pull a Houdini, shall we?" said Riley, grinning. "The show will go on. But know that I'm not here to entertain."
And then, as if on cue, he heard them.
[Audience applauds]
A whistle here, giggles there, jeers all around — uproar! Whispers and hushes in the dark. Small talk. Then the other kind — scandalous. Warm breath at his neck; a woman's contralto, a man's tenor. A baby cried somewhere in the mix.
Riley's body lurched involuntarily at what he heard — chest heaving, limbs flailing — before he tensed, and finally stilled, choking on his own breath. The altar was pulling at those strings beneath his skin again — he couldn't even scream. His fingers squirmed in the beast's belly, madly scratching, pulling, and prying, even as his nails peeled off.
Until…
A bloody finger flicked something hard, and it snapped into place.
[Switch flips on]
Light, oh, angels above — glorious light. Then came a most harrowing sight: Riley paled as droves of bats, tall as men, plummeted headfirst from a jagged, rocky ceiling chandelier'd with stalactites. The creatures spread their wings, baring fangs at him. They were humanoid, scantily clad, and hovered high in the surrounding air.
[Insomniac Batfolk screech]
The hair on Riley's skin stood on end, though not wholly out of fear. There was something in the air. Charged. Volatile. Like static. He gasped as a similar spark inside him came alive. Riley felt it build, roil in his torso like a flame fanned with each beat of those toned, veiny wings.
[Air rumbles with mana]
And the blind shall see, thought Riley. Lord, is this hell?
[Opening theme song plays]
A beautifully tragic lullaby: the hum of a weary mother waking her bedridden child after a long day's work in the rice fields. She feeds him her rations — cold porridge stowed away earlier. She'll go to bed hungry, but she's full of love. He can't see her in the dark, but he hears her smile between those delightful notes. In another life, she might have sung for kings, and he would have been her little prince. Her hums — otherworldly — teeter on sobs; she knows he's not long for this world. It is far too cruel for him.
The altar loosened its grip, as if to mock him, and Riley screamed in horror at the melody.