Where Am I?

When I wake, I see nothing. I put my hand out in front of me, touch my face. Shut my eyes. Open them. No difference.

Panic builds. Is it dark, or is there something wrong with my eyes?

Is it night, or day? Where am I? Am I underground?

"H-H-Hello?"

Silence.

How long have I been here?

...Am I dea-

I cut that thought off, shove it away and cast about for some life-buoy to fix on. Something verifiable. The surface under my bottom is hard and smooth. I can't imagine it brightly-coloured, but I'd like it to be grey or white. Anything but black.

I've awoken in a black, black world. My breath coming in snatches, threatening to sobs, I feel around for a wall, some way to orient myself. A shelter, a shield. Certainly not a surface to huddle against in despair.

At first: nothing. This gives me a sudden swooping sense of vertigo; perhaps I'm in an enormous room. Worse: I'll never again find the spot I just moved from, my only anchor of relative familiarity in an alien world of blank, empty pitch.

The wall feels exactly like the floor. Floor. Not ground. This tiny clue swells to significance in my mind. It whispers of made.

Someone made this room and more, they put me in it. This brings on twin emotions of fear and hope. Fear because, why have they put me here? and Hope because that means there is someone else in all this. Else I could be entirely alone in a bare, lightless universe. Already, Stockholm Syndrome is curling warm tendrils around me; good feelings towards my captor. They thrust me into this world of sightless dread, but perhaps they can fish me out.

I stand tentatively, reach up - nothing. The ceiling could be high above me. I could be at the bottom of a shaft, with no ceiling at all. I try a step - does it feel like walking in a cathedral?

No. It feels like nothing, except vulnerability.

Time sloped by, unticked, untocked.

Measured footsteps approach, hinting at lanyards and clipboards.

The rope is frayed, but it's all I have. I'm ready to seize it.

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Word count: 366 words

Submitted on: 5th January at 4.05 PM

(Vocal going down spooked me good and proper, and I've had a piece submitted to Beat for 18 hours, so that is going to be a thing now!)

* * * Author's Note * * *

As always, thank you for reading! I value your engagement. I do my best to reciprocate all reads, so please leave a comment to make that easier for me. (Please don't comment with a link unless you're taking part.)

The story behind the story: I'm writing a microfiction story every day in 2024. The prompt I used today was "A story where your main character can't see". This was meant to be yesterday's but it wasn't ready. It was trickier than I thought!

If you're joining me in the "story every day" lark: please do comment with a link to your story! If you have a go with this "can't see" idea, please link to that. I'd love to see what you come up with.

Here are my previous "story every day" stories so far:

1st January - A New Beginning

2nd January - The Other Guy

3rd January - One Day, I just Disappeared

4th January - The Wages of Sin

Please consider reading these pieces from Rachel and Hannah on the same theme: