Adrian didn’t know how long he waited. He’d fallen asleep several times and his course beard had softened somewhat. At least, he thought it had. It had been months since he’d last shaved and it was starting to get a bit unkempt. There was a pattern, he noticed. Every so often, the lights in the room would go out, rendering it completely dark. He assumed his captors wanted him to sleep during this time, so he did just that. Hunger gnawed at his stomach, an ever-present companion to his loneliness and boredom.
The bread remained where he’d left it what he assumed was days ago by now. With no way to properly keep track of time, it was hard to judge how long he’d been idle for. The bread hadn’t changed colour nor texture. It hadn’t become stale nor grown mould of any kind that he could see. It remained the same foul-smelling object he’d first laid eyes on. He wondered if it was even edible.
Adrian got up and went over to the water tube. He took a long drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand when he was done. The water staved off his hunger but was a poor substitute for real food. Sooner or later, he was going to have to eat something. His stomach growled loudly as he eyed the bread. It was beginning to look good. His mouth salivated at the thought of food filling his empty stomach.
He was going to have to eat it eventually, but not today.
***
Adrian couldn’t take it anymore. He was hungry. Oh, so hungry. He’d lost weight and his ribs were sticking out more than before. He felt weaker. With each passing day, he lost more strength. He knew he couldn’t keep this up longer.
He was desperate.
A long, angry protest came from his stomach at its neglect. Adrian finally gave in and reached towards the loaf. It remained unchanged, even after all this time. The purple bread didn’t inspire confidence, but he didn’t much care anymore. Lifting it towards his mouth, he blocked his nose to rid himself of the stench and bit into it.
An explosion of flavours entered his mouth, making him gag on the first bite. Adrian commended the chefs. The mockery of food somehow managed to taste exactly as it smelled. The bread was dense and moist. It was surprisingly supple given how long it had been left out in the open.
His insides churned as the food entered his stomach. It didn’t sit well, but he doubted anything that could taste so bad would. Finishing the loaf was a difficult affair, but he managed. Barely. The discomfort grew and he curled up on the ground, clutching his abdomen at the mounting pain. He felt nauseous but refused to be sick, knowing he needed the energy. Black spots started to form around the edges of his vision as he became increasingly dizzy. The next thing he knew he was waking up on the floor.
His insides were a wreck and it felt like his intestines were being put through a shredder. Too weak to cry out, his voice came out in a feeble whimper. He continued to lay on the ground, unable to move for hours until the feeling disappeared. Sitting up once his ordeal had passed, he felt marginally fuller than before. Disappointment filled him. He’d suffered for nothing. He looked back to where the bread had been.
And saw another loaf.
Adrian scrambled backwards, away from the offending item as quickly as he could. Echoes of pain still lingered, fresh in his mind. He wanted nothing to do with the food anymore. It could rot in hell for all he cared.
It wasn’t long before Adrian felt the familiar sensation of hunger return. A headache began to form from the lack of food, his body protesting his decision to fast. He was only delaying the inevitable. It was only a matter of time before he would be forced to eat the bread again, but he couldn’t bring himself to go near it.
When the hunger became too much to bear, Adrian worked up the courage to approach the food once more. He held it with trembling hands and tore off a small chunk. It looked, smelled and felt exactly like the previous loaf. He tentatively bit down into it, trying his best to ignore the taste. With great difficulty, he forced himself to swallow the disgusting mouthful and took another.
The familiar sensation of his stomach churning and being ripped to shreds returned. Still, he forced himself to finish the bread before it was too late. He barely managed to pop the last bite into his mouth and swallow before the pain intensified and he was forced to curl up on the floor in order to cope.
It wasn’t as bad this time around, he noticed. Almost as if his system was adapting to whatever was in the food. The experience was still horrendous, but he was glad for the improvement. Sooner than he expected, he was able to move again. He got up and turned around.
And saw another loaf.
It felt like whenever he looked over to that spot, all he saw was the same purple loaf waiting for him. His captors clearly wanted him to eat as much of it as he could, but Adrian knew not why. He gave up trying to figure out their motives, wondering how they thought any human could subsist on what he was being fed.
***
As great as it was that he was finally eating food again, the bread did little to stave off his hunger. He was now able to stomach the bread twice per sleep cycle and while it didn’t cause him as much pain anymore, it was still an awful experience.
Adrian sat in a corner and pondered his newest situation. The bread was gone. In its place now sat six, two-inch cubes that smelled faintly of meat. He hadn’t known how much he’d missed that smell until it wafted towards him.
Long ago, when he’d first been taken captive, he’d been fed a horrendous grey sludge. The cuisine had been questionable then and seemed to only be getting worse with each new food item.
He eyed the meat cubes with distrust. He was tired of being hungry and the cubes looked more filling than the bread. He was going to have to eat them; it was inevitable. Why not at least feel full?
He reached over and picked up the first cube. It was dry and slightly rough, and its solidity took him by surprise. He brought the food to his lips and bit in. Immediately, the substance liquefied where his saliva touched. Adrian choked slightly at the sudden change in the food’s state.
He pulled the food away from his mouth and swallowed, grimacing. It tasted like paint smelled. He eyed the piece of food that he held in his hand. In some ways it was worse than the bread, the taste lingering.
He decided to get it over with and this time, he popped the rest of the bizarre cube in his mouth, then finished the remaining cubes before he went to sit down in the corner, feeling surprisingly full.
A dull ache formed between his shoulder blades. Oh great, these hurt too, he thought. The pain slowly spread throughout his body as it began to throb, while his muscles felt like they were being eaten from the inside by termites. They tore and knitted themselves back together, over and over again. He dropped to the ground and cried out until his voice went raw, and the pain finally dwindled back down to a small throb.
Adrian lay on the floor, paralyzed. His limbs refused to listen to him as his fingers twitched pathetically, despite his best efforts to move them. He remained in the fetal position until he regained control over his limbs, at which point he crawled several metres and collapsed on the floor.
A phantom pain remained, lingering long after. The memory of his experience was still fresh and haunted him as he lay sprawled out, panting. As it slowly disappeared, Adrian sat up and stumbled his way to the nearest corner. He fell back to the floor and passed out as he landed, the lights not bothering him in the slightest.
He didn’t know how long he slept, with no recollection of how he got to where he was. Mercifully, his sleep had been dreamless. He looked around the room and froze at the sight of six more cubes, waiting to be eaten.
“No,” Adrian said with a trembling voice. “No, no, no, no, no,” he repeated as he retreated further into his corner, not believing what he saw. He shook violently. They wanted him to live through that hell again. The alternative was to starve to death. He didn’t know which he preferred. He curled up in the corner and remained motionless as he decided what his fate would be.
It was a long time before he moved again. A long growl came from his stomach as he chugged water, hoping it would fill him up some and defer his need to eat. He was reaching his limit and knew he would need to eat again soon. He feared that if he starved himself further, he might not survive the next round. Eating the cubes the first time had been extremely taxing on his body.
With shaking hands, he approached the cubes where they sat in their little slot in the wall. It was inevitable, he told himself. He refused to give in. He refused to die at the hands of these sick, twisted bastards.
He took one and brought it to his mouth, fighting the instinct to pull away. Taking a deep breath and steeling himself, he ate the cube in one bite. Forcing himself to swallow, he quickly picked up the second cube. He needed to eat all the food that he could before the pain hit.
The first echoes of pain appeared as Adrian finished the last cube. This time it started in his chest. He quickly finished the cube and went to a corner and lay down, curled up.
Pain blossomed throughout his body. It was intense, but slightly less than before. He took solace in this, hoping the pain might continue to reduce with each meal.
Adrian didn’t remember what happened next. He woke up on the ground in the same spot some time later. He looked around the room and once again saw that there were six cubes waiting for him.
It was a disheartening sight. Whatever experiment this was showed no sign of ending anytime soon. He would have no choice but to hope the pain lessened each time. For now, he granted himself a break and remained seated, eyeing the cubes.
Eventually he sighed and got up. There was no point in delaying any further. He ate the cubes in quick succession. His theory proved to be correct, the pain was indeed far more manageable, relatively speaking.
***
Sleep cycles came and went, the experiment repeating. Each time he ate the cubes, the pain lessened. When he woke up, there would be fresh food waiting for him. He waited until he was hungry before eating them again.
By now, the pain was nothing more than a dull throb that lasted for several hours. He no longer passed out and had no qualms eating the food anymore. Now that the pain was practically gone, Adrian felt much better. He finally felt like he was gaining weight rather than losing it, and his ribs were sticking out less. At least they were generous with their portions, giving him as much as he could eat, if nothing else.
He wondered why he hadn’t seen his captors again since being brought to his cell. It had been many sleep cycles since he’d arrived, and he’d lost track of time entirely. He’d counted the cycles in the beginning, but stopped after the fortieth or so, unable to remember what day it was.
Adrian didn’t understand what the point of all of this was. All they were doing was feeding him, treating him like a captive animal in a zoo. Surely his captors had something else planned for him.
As it turned out, they did. That suctioning, melting, bubbling sound echoed throughout the room once more. For the first time since he had arrived, a door to the cell opened.
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