Time to start The Unnaturals! I'm excited to write this one, but nervous as well. I'm going to try things I haven't ever done much before so I hope I can do it well! Enjoy!

Afraid of the Dark

I'm afraid of the dark.

It's dark and dank. There are no lights. There are no windows. There is only darkness.

I shiver in the small dark room. I can cross it in just ten steps. I don't move though. I just sit on the floor, shivering in the cold—why is it so cold?—leaning my head against the stone wall. I hear screaming from somewhere in the building, but I don't jump. I have long ago stopped that nonsense. There is always screaming here.

Always; it never ceases. There is an unending lament for what we cannot have. Our old lives, our families, our friends.

I have no friends now. They're all dead.

Am I dead?

I hear footsteps outside the door and look up, though it is too dark to see anything. I turn my head in the general direction of the door—I have seen it once, when I was first brought here. That was—I pause to think—three weeks ago.

Why are there footsteps outside my door? I sit up straighter and strain to see something, anything, but it is too dark. Suddenly the door opens and light spills onto the floor.

I scramble to my feet, not caring or even thinking of anything other than the light. I rush toward it, but I feel something not unlike an electric shock jolt through my body. I cry out, my voice breaking from disuse and crumble to the floor, the light just out of my reach.

I stretch my hand for it.

The door slams shut.

I dissolve into silent weeping.

"Hey,"

My weeping stops abruptly, as if someone has flipped a switch inside me. I sit up quickly, the motion making my head spin. It's an odd sensation to have in a room so dark you can't even remember what the clothes you're wearing look like.

There's someone in my cell.

"Are you okay?" It's a man.

Oh my God, they've sent him.

I scramble back on my butt, slamming hard into the wall. It is closer than I had anticipated. I squeeze my eyes closed, awaiting death. It doesn't occur to me that he has asked a question, or that the question was in regards to my welfare.

I hear shuffling and swallow hard. He's moving. OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod.

My fingers flex, I curl them into fists and then open my hands again and again and again. OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod.

"What is this place?" the man asks, his voice much too loud in the small room.

I can feel myself relaxing. I'm still alive. He has not touched me. I'm still alive. My trust begins to blossom.

"Prison," my voice is hoarse and scratchy. It is the first word I have spoken in two weeks. At first, during my first week here, that was all I could do. I would talk to myself, trying to fill in the silence, and then trying to drown out the screams. I long to speak more, to use my vocal cords that have been so neglected.

I know the man starts at my voice. "You're a g—"

"A girl?" I ask, laughing harshly. I've forgotten how to laugh without bitterness or anger. I've forgotten how to joke and smile and live.

I have to get out of here before it's too late.

"This is a prison?" the man asks, clearly deciding that it's best to leave my gender alone.

"Yes," I answer bluntly, pushing myself to my feet. "This is where they keep the inmates."

"I don't understand. What's my crime?" the man asks.

I shake my head. "I said this was a prison, not that you have a crime."

"I don't understand." He admits. He sounds perturbed by this fact.

"What's your name?" I ask, thinking it best to postpone explaining the Hole.

"Parker," he grunts.

"Alice,"

"Alright, Alice, so what exactly is this place and why are we here?" Parker demands.

A brief smile flits across my face and it feels foreign. "You get right to the point don't you Parker?" I ask.

"Stop avoiding the question Alice," Parker says. I can hear the smile in his voice. He has yet to be broken. I like him.

He makes me feel less alone in the dark. He makes me think it's possible to escape. I know I will escape. I've been planning it since the first time I was let out to shower. I have been thinking about it ever since, plotting, planning, memorizing corridors and exits.

I am going to get out of here.

"I call this place the Hole," I say, moving slowly toward his presence. I cannot see him, but I can feel him, I can feel the warmth he is emanating. "I don't know what it's really called, but Hole seems appropriate, don't you think?" I ask, though I do, in fact, know what this place is really called. The Unnatural Detention Center—the Hole seems more fitting.

It's odd speaking to someone else. Those who bring me food never speak to me and I find that I want to talk more and more. I have missed this. I have missed the communication, the banter, the affection of another person.

I know that it is too soon to feel affection, but I can't help but hope for it. I am starved of life. I have been living in the Hole for three weeks. It is a nightmare that doesn't end when I open my eyes.

"People who are…different are brought here." I continue, before Parker has a chance to speak. "I'm different, and because you're here, you must be too."

"Different how?" Parker asks. I can tell that he's nervous and I imagine it has something to do with being different. People all claim to want to be unique, but the second they get their wish, they long to be just like everyone else.

"They call me a witch," I say. "I know things I shouldn't." It's a ridiculous term, but it's what makes the Officials comfortable. They have to label everything and I am no different.

"And that makes you a witch?" Parker asks.

I almost laugh at his naiveté, but I'm not sure I know how. "It's not the fact that I know things I shouldn't that makes me a witch. It's the way I learn that information." I say.

"Do you steal it?" Parker questions.

"Something like that," I mutter. "It's complicated. So why are you here?" I want to know more about my mysterious cellmate. All I know so far is his name—at least, that's all he's told me.

"I have no idea." Parker sighs. "I really don't. One minute I'm in my own home and then next these people are bursting in and…well, I don't really remember what happened after that." He's lying.

I frown. "They knocked you out," I blurt. There was once a time when my cheeks would have turned red from embarrassment, but I'm not sure I remember how to blush anymore.

"What?" Parker asks.

"I told you that I know things I shouldn't," I mutter, glad for the darkness that hides me from his view. "Have you done anything recently that would draw attention to yourself?" I ask, diverting attention from me once more.

"I don't know." He says flatly.

Liar. He's lying. LiarLiarLiarLiarLiar.

"Parker, I know you're lying," I say instead.

I hear him shifting from foot to foot. "Alright, fine." Parker mutters, sounding like he's irritated with me. "I've always been able to see things."

I roll my eyes in the dark. "Everyone can see things Parker, unless they're blind." I point out. Or locked in a little cell that can be crossed in ten steps with no windows and only one door that is always locked until the Official's decide it's time for showers.

"No, I can see things just like you know things." He snaps at me.

I go slack jawed. "That's…incredible," I breathe. And it's likely something I can use to escape the Hole.

"Yeah, it's great. Being able to see shit is what got me in here in the first place. Obviously someone knows about people like us."

"Unnaturals," I blurt out, cursing my mouth silently. I just can't seem to keep quiet around him. "They call us Unnaturals," Maybe it's the fact that I haven't interacted with people in three weeks. I'm starved for this attention.

"Alice," Parker says suddenly, his voice taking on a hard edge.

A chill runs up my spine. "What Parker?"

"I know how I got here, so how did you get here?" he wonders.

I shake my head, though I know he cannot see me. "It's a long story," I say, though it's really not that long. I suppose I just don't want to tell him the truth. I don't want to tell him that I trusted the wrong person and that I actually walked through these doors of my own free will. I don't want him to know that I had been foolish enough to ignore my instincts simply because I had put my faith in a liar.

"I've got time," Parker says.

A number flashes in my head and I cringe. "Not as much as you might think," I whisper into the darkness.

I'm afraid of the dark. I don't like the things that I know about it. It's cold and scary and I don't want to be alone anymore.