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probssomethingorother · 1 year

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Whumptober No.3

Ellie, FEDRA, The Hole, Hurt No Comfort

This wasn’t a place created with any sort of comfort in mind. It was made to drive people mad, to torment them in solitude. A shiver ran through her body, not entirely from the cold. The eerie quietness of the place pressed against her ears, suffocating in its own right. ----- Ellie's first time in the Hole.

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Once you hit twelve, you were eligible for Hole time.

FEDRA was brutal, but even for them, imprisoning anyone younger in a damp dark concrete box was cruel and unusual punishment.

Ellie was placed into the Hole just three days after her twelfth birthday for insubordination - a blanket offense FEDRA wielded whenever they deemed a child too bothersome.

And “placed” was putting it lightly.

Physically there wasn’t much of her to control, but still, two hulking FEDRA officers held each one of her arms roughly. Their hands easily wrapped around the entirety of her upper arms, fingers even overlapping and gouging with heavy pressure. Their tight grip was sure to leave ringed bruises in their wake. Dragging her with them, their long and fast stride made her small feet skid across the ground, barely touching. She wasn’t even fighting against them, but their pace was relentless -steadfast to get rid of her. They jerked her small body around ruffly as they turned down the corridors, hallways getting darker and more dingy the closer they got to Solitary.

The Hole was located in Building D. It was an old factory that housed the laundry center, cleaning expo, and some stray military vehicles. It was a shared space used both by the normal FEDRA units and the training division. The children of the training division spent much more time in there on the whole - manning the stations by washing clothes, cleaning equipment, stripping down cars, and of course, enduring time in the Hole.

It was located on the second basement level, just above the access tunnels to the factory steam pipes. Relegated to its bowels, its isolation was intentional, ensuring the world above was as far away as possible.

Ellie gulped down her worries as they led her down the last flight of stairs, onto the final basement level. It was noticeably quieter down here than the floor above, the echo of their rushed footsteps and the consistent rustling of the officer’s keys were the only things piercing the silence. A few fluorescent lights flickered and buzzed, but most were off, creating an eerie dim atmosphere.

It wasn't Ellie's first time in Building D, but it certainly was the first time on this level. The pit in her stomach grew heavier with every step she was dragged forward. It wasn’t anything kept a secret amongst the kids, she knew what to expect, but it was all still quite nerve-racking nonetheless. She always thought that she would be able to handle it, but then she saw some other kids her age spend their first nights there, people she thought would also be able to handle it - and well, they had come out... different.

Ellie didn’t want to come back different.

Whisking her deeper down the hall, they finally arrived at the end, a small desk stationed in the middle of the corridor dimly lit by a fading desktop lamp. Ellie was jolted to a stop as the FEDRA officers halted in front of it. The old officer manning it didn’t even look up from whatever he was reading, just passed one of the officers a clipboard with an attached pen.

The officer on her right took it, releasing their grip on Ellie’s arm to fill out the needed log. The absence had blood rushing to the spot, and it was only then did Ellie realized how hard she was being secured. Instinctively, her other arm reached out to touch and soothe it but still stuck in the grip of the other officer, her arm was yanked back and away with a glare.

“Don’t fucking move,” the restraining officer grumbled.

Ellie rolled her eyes.

“Williams. E. 53013117. 24 hours,” the other officer plainly voiced, pen audibly scratching across the crusty paper. He returned the clipboard with a clatter, the thick board dropping against the vinyl desk top. Still fixated on something else, the desk attendant didn’t raise to look at them, just monotonely replied, “Six is open. Back right,” while carelessly holding out a set of keys.

The moment the keys were grabbed, Ellie was being dragged again, shuffled behind the desk by the same two officers, and led back even further down the hall. Soon, ten doors came into view, four on either side, two on the back wall. Still holding tight, they directed her to the heavy steel door on the right, the number 6 worked into the door with bolt heads. A small window, high up, was the only way to peek inside, but at her height, Ellie could see nothing.

She gulped down, bracing herself.

Wasting no time, one of the officers turned the key into the lock with a loud echoing clang and the door creaked open, revealing the small, dark space inside.The grip on her arms was abandoned as they stood in the doorway, and when Ellie made no immediate moves to head further in, one of the officers pushed at her back, causing her to stumble forward.

“Twenty-four,” he grumbled, “tap is in the corner, toilet too, food once a day, talking or making sounds, you stay longer.” His words were cold and rehearsed, his face stoic.

“Just sit and don’t be a little shit.” The other officer added, clearly annoyed, like somehow this was an inconvenience.

Ellie bit her lip to keep from lashing out. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing her react. She wouldn't cry or beg not to go in. Not in front of them. She stepped further in, turning around just in time to see the door slam shut. The small upper slat screeched close not a second later, leaving her completely alone in oppressive inky black darkness.

Her eyes slowly started to adjust.

The Hole was exactly as she had imagined - small, maybe six by six, and so damp that she could feel the moisture on the walls and floor. It was cold for now, but she had heard that when the steam pipes got used below, sometimes the heat leaked through and made the rooms unbearably hot. There were rumors about an older kid dying once - suffocated under the oppressive moist heat. Currently, the air was thick and stale, but not suffocating like that.

Sucking in a deep breath, she slid down the left wall to sit on the floor, drawing her knees up to her chest. She squinted as she took in the room, eyes still struggling to get used to seeing without light.

As her eyes tried to adjust to the abysmal darkness, she realized there was no need. There was really nothing to see. There was no bed or blankets or anywhere to rest other than the floor. The tap wasn’t much more than a rusty spigot coming from the wall, no sink attached, or even a drain on the floor. The toilet was basically an open silver basin, and by the smell of things, it didn’t flush, just emptied straight down through a hole and pipe below.

This wasn’t a place created with any sort of comfort in mind. It was made to drive people mad, to torment them in solitude.

A shiver ran through her body, not entirely from the cold. The eerie quietness of the place pressed against her ears, suffocating in its own right. The lack of sounds irritated her so much that it made her physically restless, and after just twenty minutes of sitting, Ellie was up and pacing around - at least then the soft squelch of her shoes on the damp floor provided a noise other than the sound of her own breathing.

She made the circle over and over and over again, walking around and around until that too became just as irritating.

With a huff, she stopped and slid down the door this time, head listlessly banging back against it in annoyance. Her ponytail made the position uncomfortable, pushing into her scalp, but she couldn’t find herself to care all that much since the whole place was so uncomfortable anyway.

As she sat against the cool steal, she realized that from here she could now hear someone crying in another cell, voice just barely wafting through the tiny space between the ground and the bottom of the door.

It sounded like a young boy and the only person she knew her age who had received Hole time recently was “Mikey P.” But he got in trouble three days ago - watched him get dragged away herself. He had tried to sneak into a better mess group so all the good food wouldn’t be taken but was caught. Ellie didn’t think that was a three-day infraction so FEDRA must have upped his time while down here. She wondered if it was for the crying, or if the crying was because of the increased time.

She desperately wanted to call out, see if it was him, but she wasn’t about to test how strict the no-sound rule was. Ellie slowly leaned and lowered herself to the floor, laying on her side so her ear was closer to the ground and the door gap. She let Mikey’s crying fill her ears because even his sobs were better than silence. She dug at the ground with her nail as she stayed there, waiting and waiting for the time to pass, listening to him go on and on.

No FEDRA kids were ever given lullabies as children, but somehow twisted as it was, the cries were one for Ellie. Eventually, she fell asleep.

What she awoke to was not cries though, it was small squeaking, short and high pitched right in front of her face. Her eyes opened quickly, only to be met with a dark silhouette of a rat just a few inches from her face. It somehow sensed her awakening, and before Ellie even had a chance to react, it was scurrying away, brushing past her hand and onto somewhere else in the room.

Her heart thumped loudly in her chest as her body stayed still for a moment, petrified. Ellie hated rats. One summer there was a small infestation, and everyone in her dorm block was being nibbled on in their sleep. They did an extermination treatment after that, and barely any remained. There was one left that she affectionally called Fat Carl, which despite its name was actually quite small, but was plump, almost like a ball, and never moved beyond the downstairs kitchen - certainly never nibbled on human flesh, just human food.

This rat was not Carl.

It was a large dirty gross thing even if she couldn’t see it that well. She knew it, just did.

And the thought of it crawling over her or nibbling on her while she slept made Ellie’s skin crawl. Without a clock or even a glimmer of natural light, she had no way of discerning how long she had been asleep and maybe had let it happen. Her only judge of time was that Mikey's cries had ceased, or maybe he too had fallen asleep. Either way, she concluded that she had drifted off too long because it was certainly long enough for the dreaded rodent to get close to her.

It wouldn’t be happening again.

Steadying herself and casting aside the knowledge there was something in here with her, Ellie slowly rose from the ground, cautious. The ache of sleeping on a cold, hard floor permeated her muscles and joints, and her hand instinctively went to her neck to massage out the stiffness. Her mouth was dry and begrudgingly she made her way to the tap to get some water.

She crossed the small room with tiny steps, apprehensive to where the rat had scurried off to. The non-existent light made it impossible to spot, but she knew it was there, somewhere, prowling in the shadows, waiting to get a taste of her.

With a dejected sigh, she kneeled down underneath the spigot and opened her mouth. A weak stream of water poured out, almost a trickle despite Ellie twisting the nob all the way to the end. The water tasted quite metallic, and Ellie was sure it was probably the same grimy yellow stuff that poured from the hoses they used to wash down the vehicles on the upper level of the building.

She was glad she couldn’t see what color it was in the dark and verify her suspicion.

Again, she went over to the wall, left this time - might as well test them all - and slid down it. Her knees came up to her chest and she rested her forearms on them, letting her hands dangle in the air. She didn’t know what had set her off, but suddenly there was tears prickling at her waterline, nose getting runny. She sniffled it all back.

She didn’t want to cry. She wasn’t a crybaby, she wasn’t like Mikey. She could handle this. But maybe Mikey was crying because he was being eaten by rats. What if she was going to be eaten by rats? What if they kept her down here longer, like him?

She brought her nose to her arm, wiping away the snot that was eagerly trying to run out her nose and used one hand to wipe away her tears, blinking the budding ones away.

She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t.

As Ellie sat, the space slowly started to get colder and colder, and her arms moved from her legs to hug herself, brushing up and down to create some warmth. She was wearing a long sleeve and jeans, but the worn-out clothing was not doing much to stave off the chill, especially now that it was just slightly damp from lying down.

If it wasn’t so dark, she probably would be able to see her breath. Her jaw began to quiver with shivers. She desperately tried to ignore it, but the coldness started to seep into her bones, the kind of cold that was unforgiving, and cruel. Briefly, she wondered if having the steam pipes on would be better, but dying of heat seemed worse than dying of cold.

She didn’t actually think she would die, but her mind produced the idea nonetheless, just a brief intrusive thought of her own demise- a FEDRA officer coming back to find her frozen to death in the dark of this concrete box.

It was a fleeting image, her brain quickly jumping to another scene- her body frozen in the darkness of space, floating around lost in the void.

She always liked space and didn’t know why her brain was bringing it forward with this depressing scenario.

Space. Cold and Dark. Just like the Hole.

Ellie screwed her eyes shut, trying to get rid of the image in her head, but that only made small speckles appear on her inner eyelids, little dots that easily could be mistaken for stars. When she opened them, the little floaters remained in her vision painting the darkness of the room for a minute until they slowly dissipated away.

Space. Stars. Cold and Dark. Just like the Hole.

Just like the Hole.

Tightly squeezing her eyes shut again and opening them to produce a new set of stars, Ellie took a deep breath in before relaxing against the wall more.

She softly whispered to herself, "Ground control, this is astronaut Williams. Do you copy?”

She paused, waiting for a response from the non-existent command center. “Ground Control do you copy?” She whispered again.

She brought her hand up to her mouth as if she were holding a microphone, and dropped her tone as she softly replied, “Copy, loud and clear Williams.”

Moving her hand to her ear, she pretended she had a communicator there, and clicked it on, continuing, “Astronaut Williams is ready to commence mission training.” She quickly flipped back to her lower register, again bringing the imaginary mic up to her mouth. “Copy. Mission training is a go.”

Ellie took a moment, breathing in and out deeply, imagining herself inside a spacesuit. Every inhale was a gust of oxygen from her tank, every exhale was her body expelling the bad air, adjusting to the vacuum. The cold air stung as she inhaled, but she reminded herself that Astronauts faced conditions far harsher than this in space.

The cold. The dark. The solitude. If they could do it, so could she. If she wanted to be one of them, then she had to do this.

"Mission Objective: Survive 24 hours," she whispered into the communicator.

Faintly, she heard a quiet rustle and small squeak, her rat roommate still somewhere close. She took a shaky breathy in and pushed her eyes shut, producing another galaxy of stars in her vision. She opened them slowly and shakily breathed out.

"Accept," she responded to herself, though her voice wavered slightly as she plopped her head down on her knees. With a sigh, she sent a final message to command, “Heading out of range of coms,” she said even more quietly, words drifting off, losing her vibrato as her mind began filling with imagery of the world beyond this one.

Drawing her knees closer to her chest, she allowed herself to get lost in it. Mind pretending she was floating in the dark, walking on the moon, landing on a comet, anywhere but the bleak reality of the Hole.

Her shivering became less frequent as her mind transported her away. Hours seemed to pass, and soon, her vision blurred, sleep threatening to take over again. She tried to fight it, still so fricken scared of that rat, still lurking, but it was little use. Her eyes fluttered closed, but her mind was to kind to her - letting her retreat into space in her sleep too - Astronaut Ellie traveling the universe.

This time, she was pulled from her sleep by the sounds of metal hitting metal on the other side of the door. It was followed by the upper slot opening with a grating screech, dim light powering through.

Ellie didn’t think it had been twenty-four hours yet, but perhaps she was wrong. She scrambled off the ground quickly, and reaching the door went on her tippy toes, hands resting against the cool metal door in support. She was so small that it did nothing to help her see through the slot. Even raised up, the top of her head barely hit the bottom of the small opening.

Within a quick second of coming under the slot, food was being pushed through it without any warning. Unable to reach, or even ready to grab it, the small tray tumbled onto Ellie’s head, contents spilling all over her. The tray then hit the floor with a clatter and a plastic cup that accompanied it made hollow sounds as it bounced and then rolled away.

“Fuckers,” she whispered as she stood in disbelief, milk dripping from her head and some sort of globby mush slowly sliding down and doing the same.

She could pretend all she wanted, but this certainly wasn’t space. This was FEDRA. This was the Hole.