Cat in the Box

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. I wasn’t sure about an echo, though, and I stared at the box on the floor, confounded by what was happening.

Moments ago, Casey kicked the box. Out of frustration, rage, or fear, it didn’t matter. He walked over to the only object in our cell and kicked it with all his strength. The density of the box was so much that it broke his foot, the crack loud in the absolute silence of the room.

The cube retaliated. The moment Casey touched the box, a gong-like alarm resounded throughout our cage. The sound was a deafening explosion in our heads, forcing all four of us to the floor, clutching desperately at our ears. Vibrations shook the 40’ square, causing disharmonious echoes that only amplified the cacophony.

Casey rocked on the metal floor beside me, screaming as he tried to both cover his ears and clutch at his broken foot. His weren’t the only screams, the noise was painful. The carillon tones died with agonizingly slowness, and as they faded, something else caught my attention. There were screams, faint and reverberating, almost on the edge of hearing. Not the screams of my cellmates around me, no. No, these were coming from the box.

Five days since we woke inside this metal cube. Five days with nothing but a sink, a toilet, six luminescent, sides, and this stupid, black metal box in the middle of the floor. We all wore the uniform of the Angelique, with my rank being the highest. But the Intergalactic cruiser was a very big ship and I recognized none of the other three. All of us were in our ground fatigues though, prepped for the first landing to the planet’s surface.

None of us could remember where, when, or how we ended up here.

The protein bars, a standard emergency supply found in our fatigues, only lasted the first two days. I was certain Mellie still had a bite left, and my mouth watered at the thought of it. I wasn’t about to go after her for it, though, not when she had the strength of will to make it last this long. I wasn’t that far gone…not yet, anyway.

As the noise drained like water from a tub, we plunged back into the silence of the cube. It wasn’t natural. There were no sounds of machinery, no electrical hum or moving parts. When I rested my hand on the floor or walls of the cube there wasn't any engine vibration, it was just cold, still nothingness. We were not on a ship. We weren't really anywhere.

But this was new. This was the first time the box on the floor gave us something.

I rose and moved to squat beside it. The box was quiet now, and I stared at it intently, trying to see something I might’ve missed before.

The day we woke here, Jessa picked it up. About two feet square, she’d casually scooped it up, as though it were an empty cardboard box. I’d half expected her to flip it into the air.

The cube responded instantly around us. Jerking awkwardly, it knocked all four of us heavily to the floor, before launching us back into the air like eggs flipped in a frying pan. The box dropped to the floor with a solid thud that belied its earlier lightweight. No one touched it since.

Not until Casey kicked it.

“Why’d you do that?” Mellie grunted, crouching beside Casey to examine his foot. Of course she would, she was a nurse from Angelique's Medical Bay. She patched us all up after the egg-flip, after Jessa sprained her wrist in the fall.

“I don’t know,” he groaned, leaning back, “I thought it might be some sort of control box or something.”

I ignored him. The kid worked in engineering, he should’ve known better. Just another sign of how this imprisonment was affecting them. I sighed and examined the box. Near the top of the side where Casey kicked it, the dull black metal looked dented. “Jessa,” I called out, not looking away from the dent. “Can you bring me some water?”

“With what?” I didn’t have to look up to see the defiant expression accompanying the irritation in her voice. Security officers were rarely inclined to calm demeanors, they tended to prefer action.

“Use your imagination,” I replied with forced calm.

There was a pause, then a sullen, “yes, Commander.”

Casey wasn’t the only one whose anxiety was starting to show, and it wouldn’t take much of a spark to set the room off. We all felt it.

Jessa walked over to the sink, stared at it a moment, then pulled off her gloves. Once full, she brought them too me, dripping across the smooth floor. I took the first from her and, holding my breath, poured it slowly over the dented corner of the box. I wasn’t sure what to expect, maybe electrical sparks, or some sort of new reprisal from the cube, but nothing really happened.

“No way,” Casey breathed.

I looked at him quickly, then followed his gaze to the ceiling. In the upper corner of the cube water poured in from a dark crack along the horizontal seam. Where it flowed down the wall we could see the indent, as though the cube had been struck from the other side.

I quickly grabbed the second glove from Jessa as she moved towards the waterfall. I emptied the glove over the same corner of the box, staring in fascination as a fresh wave of water streamed into our cell.

“That’s not possi—”

“What’s happen—”

I raised my hand curtly to cut them off, my eyes not leaving the box in front of me. My mind was racing. “Mellie, give me that last bite of protein bar you have tucked away.”

Silence. Nobody moved. I finally had to look up. Everyone was staring at Mellie, and she looked at me, wide-eyed, as though betrayed. I knew what I had done, but at the moment, I didn’t really care.

“I don’t ha—“

I managed an even tone. “I know what I am asking, you’ll have to trust me. Give it here, please.”

She looked at me a moment longer, then shifted her gaze to the water, now just dampness on the glowing wall. She swallowed, then pulled the crumpled wrapper from her bosom. I took it gently from her and opened it. It would be generous to call the few crumbs a bite. My hands trembled as I gathered the last of the protein bar on my fingertip. Feeling the weight of everyone’s gaze on me, I slowly reached out to the box and mashed it into the dented seam.

As one, we all turned, looking desperately at the ceiling. Darkness oozed in, thick and glistening. Then a large clump fell to the floor, landing in the puddle with a small splash. Jessa hurried over and snatched it up with her good hand. It was the size of a watermelon. She looked at us questioningly, then, with a shrug, took a large bite.

Her reaction was infectious, the pleasure on her face, the sigh of her shoulders. Mellie hurried to her side and Jessa ripped off pieces to share. I turned back to the box, trying to jam as many of the crumbs as I could through the miniscule crack. I could hear the pieces falling behind me and had to fight down irrational tears.

Then I froze. Staring at the box. My manhandling of the corner had peeled a tiny flake back, no more than a fingernail tip along the edge. I reached out, touching it gently. It was there, a plating, like layers.

I was telling myself to stop even as I reached out, digging a nail between the layers and ignoring the blood that dripped down. The metal was just an outer coating, covering what appeared to be an inner glass box. A luminescent box. I heard someone, Jessa maybe, cry out in shock and horror. Then Mellie was sobbing.

I couldn’t stop, even after the horror of what was happening seeped into my consciousness. I finally threw myself back and rose, staggering, to my feet. I couldn’t look away. Before me was a glass cube. Inside, a motionless figure stood staring at a glass cube before him, where a motionless figure stared at a glass cube before him. Three others stood around each motionless man, staring in terror at the nightmare giants above them.

Mellie started screaming, and the sound echoed out from the box a thousand times over.