Deep Locke

He never quite knew why he romanticized the ocean so much. To Aaron, it had always been the place of dreams. Maybe it was the soothing sound of moving water, crashing waves providing an odd sense of peace in the chaos he called life. Maybe it was the feeling of the water against his skin, washing away the pain that drove him, replacing it with what could only be described as fruitless ambition. Or maybe it was the thought of a world so different than his own, one bigger and full of life- one that hadn’t hurt him yet- just below the surface of his own. But the reason didn’t matter anymore. Dreams didn’t matter when reality broke them apart, piece by piece.

First, it was the face twisted in agony. Remorseful eyes, begging for forgiveness. Tears that would soon be just another drop in the ocean. A mouth, stretching as much as it could as it did the only thing it had the power left to- scream. And that was the second fracture in the dream. The silent screaming. The final cries of a man whose life had been discarded, echoing in the clear tomb that trapped him, silent to anybody on the other side. Silent to anybody among the living. No family or friends would ever hear his last words. Not even the strangers watching could hear him. Strangers who, at any moment, could face a similar fate, dragged into the merciless world below. And then there was the bizarre calmness of it all. No noise, no true violence. Beautiful blue waters surrounded the glass coffin as the man gently drifted into the shadows below. The implication was horrible, yet everything played out like they were watching a fish in an aquarium.

Aaron had been in Deep Locke Penitentiary for less than an hour when he witnessed the execution. Every inmate in the prison had been gathered in the glass courtyard, forced to watch as one of their own was dropped into the depths of the ocean with no way out. No explanation was given, almost as they had blindly chosen someone to die. Part of it felt like a demonstration, put on solely to introduce Aaron to his new reality.

“Honestly, seems kind of peaceful. Who else can say their last view was the bottom of the ocean?” Aaron turned to the older man next to him, visibly caught off guard by the comment. The grizzled man laughed, amused by Aaron’s obvious discomfort. “Kid, you have to one messed up sense of humor in the place or you’ll be dead long before your body hits the ground!”

He let out a boisterous laugh, aggressively puling Aaron closer to him in a sort of half hug. Aaron could tell right away this man had lost a few marbles along the way, but he seemed friendly enough. That was good, because he would be spending every night in a cell with him. Aaron had met Dip, the eccentric inmate he called his cell mate, just 20 minutes prior, but already he felt he had a sense of who he was. This wasn’t a malicious man, thriving off of misery. This was a broken man, fabricating a sense of comfort to maintain a semblance of sanity.

The crowd dispersed, guards herding the group of inmates back to their cells like they were nothing more than cattle. They were just meat to them. Obedient meat, that would spoil the second the guards deemed so. The guards. Another aspect of the prison intentionally designed to break the inmates’ perception of reality. They were indistinguishable from one another, each one wearing an old, rustic diving helmet, the glass so black that any sign of the person underneath was non-existent.

“Inmate 8776- move. Left.” A push as forceful as the command moved Aaron in an unfamiliar direction. He gave a glance to Dip, whose deer-in-headlights look did nothing to calm him. The older man was quickly shuttled in the opposite direction, but not before yelling back at the newest inmate.

“Sense of humor kid! I really hope I see you again!”

Before the comment could even register with him, Aaron was pushed through the most central corridor to his left. Entering the bowels of the prison, a feeling of awe washed over him. Clear cells stretched along the walkway, no end it sight. Small metal strips accented the clear prison, holding the glass palace together.

Glass wasn’t the right word for it, though. If it was glass, it wasn’t like any that Aaron had seen before. Walking across it felt like walking on solid ground. Even the courtyard, made entirely out of the same clear, glass like material, didn’t budge under the weight of the crowded inmates. An intricate, clear palace unlike anything above the surface. Anybody would be impressed at the sight of it, but seeing it meant you would never see another person on the outside. Disgust washed over Aaron. They had the ability to create something like this, yet they used it as a grave for those the deemed unfit for society.

“Move.” It was pointless to resist the guard’s command. Survival was reliant on obedience- at least, that’s what Aaron believed. So he obeyed.

“I really hope I see you again.” The solemn remark burned itself into the forefront of Aaron’s mind as he was escorted down the glass halls. Inmates inhabited the various cells along the walkway, every one of them diverting their attention. Almost as if they couldn’t bring themselves to watch. Shame, fear, desperation- every regretful emotion found itself a home inside the convicts, knowing the fate that awaited their newest brother. Pity was the worst of it. People had pitied Aaron his whole life. He couldn’t stand it- he never could. But here, down in the sea of the underworld, the pity pierced him like he was nothing more than bait on a hook. What the hell was happening?

“Stop. Turn.” The guard commanded with force that rivaled that of the ocean itself. Once again, Aaron obeyed. When that narrow, glass cell came into view, every hair on his skin stood up, screaming at him to run. To fight. To do anything but stand there and accept what was about to happen. But he did nothing, fear paralyzing him as he stared, the glass room a near mirror image of the one that silently dragged its victim to the depths just moments before. Unlike the cell he saw prior, the one before him was built with a metallic backing, obscuring the open view of the ocean from one end. In normal circumstances, Aaron would have been more weary of the obvious distinction. Not today. All he could focus on was the face staring back at him. Despite reflecting off the glass a few inches from him, Aaron knew he wasn’t staring at himself. It was a ghost. A twisted face, consumed by agony as the ocean calmly sealed his fate.

“What’s going on?” He asked weakly. Every attempt to calm himself failed, his heart firing off like the needles of a tattoo gun as they ripped through their canvas. The guard turned his rustic helmet, remaining silent. Despite a lack of visible expression, Aaron knew the guard was savoring this feeling.

“Solitary.” Aaron’s heart sank as his brain attempted to comprehend the situation. It made no sense. He had been there for less than an hour, half of it spent away from the general population. A mistake. It had to be a mistake.

“What?” Aaron stammered, his brain invaded by the horrors awaiting him. Every fiber of him wanted to protest, to fight back. Yet he did nothing.

“Why? I did nothing,” he said, finally mustering enough strength to speak.

“You deserve it, murderer. You deserve it.” The guard was right. Years of convincing himself he was decent, all lies. When it mattered the most, Aaron made the wrong choice. A selfish choice, one he tried to justify with his own pain. Still, innocent people were dead because of him. Pain and guilt blended together, resulting in acceptance. He had to accept the consequences.

Pushing every anxious thought down as deep as possible, Aaron stepped into the cage. Into the casket. Big enough for him to stand, but no room to sit or squat. Another body awaiting its burial, much deeper than six feet.

Settling into the daunting structure, it became apparent to Aaron that it wasn’t the same type of structure the prison used in their executions. He had noticed the the solid back wall of the cell, but didn’t think much of it. Not until he laid against the wall and discovered thin, transparent tubes hanging on each side of him. He quickly traced its path with his eyes. One end led behind him, retreating into the only solid wall of the cage. On the other end laid a small needle. Aaron realized what they were.

“Wait!” Aaron’s protest was cut short as the heavy hand of the guard pushed against his chest, pinning him against the back of the cell. The sheer power of the guard was unreal, forceful enough to stop any thought of resistance that crawled into Aaron’s head.

“Don’t move,” commanded the guard. Using his free hand, the guard grabbed the tube before slowly sliding the needle into Aaron’s skin. Small, black spots clouded Aaron’s vision as the cold metal settled inside his vein. For a moment, he felt himself slipping. It was as if his body was doing everything in its power to shut down, overwhelmed by the screaming of his brain, warning him of what was happening. Warning him of everything that could happen.

It was an IV, attached to whatever rested behind him. Panic flooded his thought, drowning any nerve left in him. Why did they need IVs? How long was he going to be down there?

He wanted to pass out, to escape back into his dreams. But that would have been mercy, something Deep Locke would never provide its inhabitants. Aaron’s vision slowly returned, his energy drained in its place. Had the guards hand not been keeping him up, he would have collapsed. He opened his mouth to speak. He wanted to beg. He wanted to scream, yet there was nothing.

The guard stepped back. A glass wall slid in front of Aaron, sealing him away in the confined box. The cell moved back, detaching itself from the main structure. Then it lowered.

It only took a minute for the slow, continuous descent to turn ominous, growing tense with every passing second. After five minutes, the blue waters began fading to black. The process dragged on, a constant reminder to Aaron that this was only the beginning of his imprisonment. After ten minutes, that calm feeling felt like a distant memory. He wanted desperately to hold onto it, but every positive thought was left in the world above him, just out of reach as he continued his descent. After twenty minutes, the black void surrounding him burrowed into his thoughts. Finally, he stopped.

“Current depth- 1,100 meters. Cell resistance at maximum.”

Aaron gasped, the unexpected sound of another voice forcing his brain into a state of alertness. He hadn’t noticed the speakers in the cell, but judging by the sound, they seemed to rest just directly above his head. A moment later, the lights in the cell shut off. Aaron stood there, completely blind, suspended in the depths of the ocean. He knew this was going to be hard. He had spent time in solitary once before, and he knew he would be fighting for his sanity. In any normal prison, that was already a losing fight, but here? Well, he had no idea. Still, he had to fight through it.

He would never admit it, but Aaron enjoyed those first moments of solitary. Most of his life had been spent alone. He had never been the best judge of character, and the few people in his life never seemed to steer him in the right direction. Truthfully, people scared him. They were unpredictable, selfish. Spending the majority of his life in prison, Aaron felt as though he had experienced the worst of humanity. For a moment, he enjoyed the loneliness. He enjoyed the silence, the dark. An unfamiliar, warm sensation overcame him, forming in the pit of his stomach before gracefully spreading through the rest of his body. For a moment, he felt peace.

Then the claustrophobia set in. What started as the snug feeling of the glass walls gently hugging Aaron’s shoulders, soon turned more constricting. Pressure built on every side of him, the glass cell becoming increasingly suffocating. He tried to stretch, but was swiftly stopped by the walls confining him. The feeling started in his shoulders, but quickly overwhelmed the rest of him. He tried to move his legs, but there was only enough room to move an inch or so on either side. He couldn’t move them forward at all. Aaron’s body screamed at him, growing antsier with every second, as if movement was nothing but an addiction, and the withdrawals were setting in.

“Stop. Calm down. Stop. Stop,” Aaron whispered to himself, desperately looking for a way to relieve the restlessness building inside him. His vision was gone, surrounded by silence, and the only thing he could smell was his breath bouncing off the glass in front of him. He was in no hurry to taste anything around him, leaving him with only one of five senses he could depend on.

“Slow down. Find a way to move,” he rationalized. Despite floating in the shadowy depths, Aaron closed his eyes. Somehow, it gave him a sense of control he lacked just a minute before. The tip of his left hand thumb slowly moved towards his palm, the subtle movement providing him a glimmer of hope. His thumb moved back the way it came, and soon the pointer finger of the same hand was mimicking the motion, touching his palm before extending once again. He continued this with each finger, focusing on the cathartic feeling that came from every small movement. Aaron repeated it, fingers moving quicker with every cycle until they formed a nearly seamless, wavelike pattern. With every movement, his heart began to slow, tension leaving his body. It wasn’t much, but he could move enough to keep himself sane. That was a win, something Aaron needed at the moment.

Without warning, the consuming shadows jolted from black to crimson in a matter of seconds. A shrill noise abruptly flooded the chamber. The deafening sound lasted for no more than 30 seconds- seconds that seemed to drag on for years- before disappearing, leaving the young captive bathing in the blood red light, high pitched ringing lingering in his ears.

“Cell resistance decreasing to 80 percent.”

Every hair on his body stood as the robotic warning blasted over Aaron’s head. He didn’t understand what it meant, but he had an idea. In the passing seconds, goosebumps rapidly covered every bit of his skin. Cold overwhelmed him, his body growing heavy. If the cage hadn’t kept him on his feet, he certainly would have collapsed. Breathing quickly became an act of survival, something he fought for, rather than an autonomous action.

“Cell resistance decreasing to 65 percent.”

They were killing him. Aaron couldn’t think of another explanation. No human was meant to live this deep. Disgustingly enough, the device of his torture was the only thing sparing him from the merciless pressure of the sea. Without it, it would be over in a second, his chest caving in. But that wasn’t his fate.

“Cell resistance decreasing to 50 percent.”

Instead, he stood there, helpless against the cold grasp of the ocean as it gradually tightened around him. Craaack. Pain seared through his abdomen, dread coursing through him as his ribs gave in to the pressure. Adrenaline had done everything it could to keep him conscious, but his body was losing the fight. Reality faded around him, his brain seeping into itself. As Aaron’s body shut down, his mind was invaded by a single, painful thought.

“You deserve this.”

Regaining consciousness was almost worse than losing it. It was violent. Uncontrollable spasms pulled life back into his body, but his mind struggled to comprehend what had happened. It was as if his body and brain were two pieces belonging to different puzzles, pushed together into one incoherent image. Soon, the spasms resided and the horrific experience burned itself back into Aaron’s memories.

He could breathe. In fact, he had to force himself to slow his breath down. He struggled, wanting to savor every bit of air he could. The more he calmed himself, the more aware he became. His mouth was overwhelmed by a sour, metallic taste. Blood dripped from his lips, undoubtedly the result of the torture he had just endured.

Torture. Was that the right word? Or was it an execution? Aaron was alive, standing in the same spot and breathing the same as he was moments before. He was alive, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that part of him didn’t wake up.

“You deserve this.”

No. He didn’t. Maybe he wasn’t a saint, but nobody deserved to be treated like this. Aaron was sure of that.

“Inmate 8776- Solitary confinement extended by one month.”

Aaron went numb. His mind had to be playing tricks on him. It had to. Did he actually hear that? No, he refused to believe it.

“Resistance decreasing to 80 percent.”

In seconds, he was plunged back into the depths of his nightmare. Energy was sapped from his body, the ocean exerting its force on him once more. A sharp tingle ran through his spine, a reminder of the impending horror. He waited, but nothing. Slowly, moments passed, but the pressure remained unchanged.

They were toying with him, whoever they were. Images of shadowy figures swam through his head. Faceless guards, acting as hangmen of the ocean. A shapeless warden, the architect of misery, delusional righteousness convincing him of his superiority. And a thoughtless father, condemning his unborn son with the weight of his sins. They were there, standing just beyond the glass. Sociopaths, cutting pieces from their victim.

“Go to hell,” Aaron growled with a tinge of defiance. They remained motionless, staring down their prey. Laughter penetrated Aaron’s ears, as if his audience was amused by the torment. Something crawled beneath the surface of Aaron’s skin, digging deeper with every passing second. He wanted to hurt them. Every moment he didn’t became increasingly unbearable. His teeth clenched, lips curled. The laughter grew louder. Aaron had to do something, so he did the only thing he had the power left to do- scream.

And he screamed. Pain dripped from the blood-curdling cry, fear and animosity becoming one as they pushed it from his core. He screamed, but he screamed at nothing. In an instant, they were gone. The defiant cry faded to a mere whimper as the sobering loneliness set in. There was nothing on the other side of the glass, nothing visible at least.

Oxygen filled Aaron’s deprived lungs, bringing a disturbing realization with it. The pressure was normal, but he had no memory of when this happened. Everything was starting to blur together.

“Have long have I been here?” He asked, speaking to nobody but himself. How long did he have left? Had it even been 24 hours? Blood drained from his face with every unanswered question. Tears swelled in his eyes, body trembling.

“Inmate 8776- Solitary confinement extended by one month. Resistance decreasing to 80 percent.”

It made no sense. Was this real? Hadn’t this just happened? Was he just reliving the trauma, or was this place more sadistic than he could have imagined? Was he losing it?

“You deserve this.”

Time became a meaningless concept Aaron had no control of. Reality bled into itself, progressively distorting into a serious of events nearly incomprehensible as they unfolded. Memories faded from his deteriorating mind, but the worst of it always stuck. The suffocation, the loneliness, the pain. They were always there.

Happiness graced him only at the end. It started as gentle rocking, soon giving way to an almost peaceful swinging. For a moment, he was a kid again, held in his mother’s arm as she laid him to rest. Laid to rest. That’s when it dawned on him.

He was falling, his cell no longer attached to the bottom of Deep Locke. His mind flashed back to his first day at the prison, the execution that had haunted him. Only, now, he understood it wasn’t a punishment. It was mercy, his only escape from the endless cruelty. Unable to control himself, Aaron laughed. He laughed until he cried, the notion of his inevitable demise bringing on a sense of bittersweet peace. Then he hit the bottom.

Something eerie made itself know. There was another light, directly across from his cell. One light turned to three, Aaron’s eyes struggling to focus. He saw it, another cell just a few feet from his own. Aaron’s stomach twisted, panic and nauseas overtaking him. There was somebody in the cell, but it wasn’t an inmate.

It was a young girl, no older than 16. She was beautiful, innocent looking. Her hair and makeup were immaculate, but the white prom dress she wore was stained red. Her lifeless eyes locked with Aaron’s. They were the same lifeless eyes he saw every time he closed his. Guilt burned through his chest, snuffing out the brief moment of peace.

She never made it to her prom, her and her friends struck by a drunk driver just down the street. Killed by Aaron, blacked out before 7PM. Four months of sobriety and a real chance at turning his life around, thrown away, and three dead because of it. Aaron wasn’t allowed to die in peace, his wicked transgressions following him even here.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his eyes never leaving hers. Slowly, her lips curled into a malevolent grin. She whispered back.

“You deserve this.”

He felt nothing when he awoke. No panic or fear, no happiness. An empty husk, that’s all he was now.

“Hey, son… Easy there.”

Dip’s voice drifted from the corner of the room, soft and cautious. For the first time, Aaron realized he wasn’t floating alone anymore. Another cruel trick from his brain, and any moment he would be buried deep once more. Dip moved slowly towards him, one hand extended to the damaged man.

“You’re back, just breathe.” There was something in Dip’s voice that hadn’t been there the last time they spoke, a mix of pain and pity, his cheery demeanor nowhere present. He sat next to Aaron, slowly taking the young man’s head, laying it in his lap. Aaron didn’t resist, the comfort a foreign, but welcome feeling. Dip was different, and it wasn’t just his voice. He looked older; he was old before, but had visibly aged.

“First time… First times the worst? Right?”

Dip closed his eyes. Distress made itself apparent on his face, the air suddenly growing tense. Dip opened his mouth, but said nothing Something was wrong. Why did he look so much older? What happened? Finally, he managed to choke out the words.

“You don’t… You don’t remember how long you’ve been here, do you? You forgot again?”

“Oh,” was all Aaron could muster. Part of him knew, but memories melted away the more he tried to make sense of them. The first time was the worst, and every time after felt just like the first, no matter how many years passed. Nobody spoke. Neither of the men knew what to say. Silence lingered, but the soft whisper stayed with Aaron.

“You deserve this.”