Chapter 1: Feeding Prisoner 519F
Officer Alvin Breaker, who had been assigned to the Oubliette two weeks prior, didn’t know what to think of all the looks he got as he drew the short straw at the morning meeting.
“Look newbie,” his commander had said, “There’s just two things you need to know about the Oubliette. Stay far away from prisoner 519F when you hook up his feeding bag. Don’t look at him, don’t talk to him. And second, never go into the cell with the red door.”
“What’s inside the cell with the red door?” he’d asked.
“Death.”
At the time, Officer Breaker had laughed, assuming it to be some sort of joke. A prank that long-timers play on new guys. He did notice that his commander hadn’t also laughed, but… Well, laughing would ruin the joke, wouldn’t it?
Feeding prisoner 519F happened only once a week. For some reason, the guy wasn’t on the same diet as most of the other prisoners on the Oubliette. But, since you ended up with prisoners from different planets, it only made sense that you’d get a few who had special nutritional needs. Officer Breaker, himself, was completely allergic to neeker nuts. They made him break out in hives, so he didn’t fault the guy for what he couldn’t control.
“Hey, day after tomorrow we’ll be at Calvyn Station for refueling. You ever been?”
Alvin had completely spaced out while Officer Petrovski chipperly spoke to him. He’d never seen such a large woman with such a bubbly personality. She had to be nearly seven feet tall, but she acted so girly and cute sometimes that Alvin constantly thought of her as tiny and bouncy until she stood up. She towered over him, as she clasped her hands together, tilting from side to side in her glee.
“No. It’s got that famous casino, doesn’t it?”
“Yes! And they give you free drinks for hours. With cherries. Real cherries from Korma 9. Come with us. Everyone is going. Everyone!” She smiled widely, doing her best to entice the newcomer to join.
“Yeah, sure. Oh hey, I gotta go feed prisoner 519F. You ever done it before? Everyone is really weird about it.”
The bubbly personality came to a halt. Alvin had never seen the vivacity drain from anyone quite so quickly. Immediately, the upcoming trip was forgotten, and Officer Petrovski’s lip trembled slightly. “Y-yeah. I’ve done it. You just gotta… Do it real quick and then run out. He’s all chained up, and he can’t hurt you…physically. But…”
“But?”
“But, seriously, don’t engage. Don’t look, don’t listen. Nothing.” Officer Petrovski put a hand on Alvin’s shoulder. “Seriously.”
“Right. Alright.” The look on her face terrified him. He’d seen that face when he worked in Xabreus City as a cop on children with abusive parents. Trauma. Trauma and fear.
About an hour later, Alvin found the briefcase containing the feed bag for 519F in the cafeteria locker he’d been told about. The latches clonked open once he’d input the security code, and the case opened to reveal a plastic medical bag containing a pinkish slurry. A warning tag had been printed on the bag. “Caution: Contents may constitute a biomedical hazard for some lifeforms. Do not ingest without proper medical authorization.”
“Riiiiiiiiiiight,” Alvin found himself saying aloud. “Yeah, I wasn’t planning on it.”
He shook his head and then signed the clipboard on the locker door before snapping the briefcase closed and heading off to level five.
They kept all the worst prisoners on level five. None of them could be allowed to leave their cells. Those who could be kept in stasis were, but only within locked cells, just in case of some sort of mishap with the stasis system. Of course, some lifeforms were resistant to all forms of stasis measures, like 519F and, Alvin assumed, the prisoner behind the red door.
He’d heard a rumor that they fed the prisoner behind the red door by dropping live animals into the room from a height of fifty feet and that beyond a single hole for waste, the prisoner lived in a completely featureless cell with slick metal walls. But, again, he assumed that a lot of ‘teasing the newbie’ featured in stories like those.
The code for entering 519F contained 24 digits and letters, worked only once per entry and had to be memorized before leaving the cafeteria. Alvin input them into the pad slowly, not wanting to make a mistake and then have to request a new code. Upon completion, the door clicked six times as various locking mechanisms released, and then whooshed open, revealing a large, darkened cell containing only three things. The prisoner in a chair, chained to the back wall. A viewscreen in front of the prisoner, showing a series of rapid images, colors, and text too quick for Alvin to really catch any of what was being shown. And a metal stand with thin tubing running from it to the prisoner’s arm from which hung an empty bag not unlike the full one he now carried in the metal briefcase.
“Lunchtime, is it?” the prisoner asked, as the door whooshed closed behind Alvin. “Who have they sent now?”
Alvin did his best not to look at the prisoner, but out of the corner of his eye, he could tell the man had long white hair and was otherwise completely nude. Despite not looking directly at him, something about the man’s voice drove a spike of chill into the Officer’s gut. The sultry cadence, deep in tone, felt like the first time a prostitute grabbed him on the street against his will. It invaded his ears, a violation of a sound, pouring into his brain like an addictive poison.
He immediately commanded, “Be silent, 519F. Or else!”
“Or else? Will you…punish me? I’d like a punishment. Pain would be lovely. Could you come slap me? Maybe you could…cut me? Just a little?”
“What?! No! I’m not getting near you.” Fuck. He wasn’t supposed to speak to his guy. No engagement. Alvin clenched his jaw and immediately moved toward the stand to get to work.
“You’re precious. I can hear it from here, how upset you are. Upset and a little excited. Will you tell them? All about your encounter with the famous prisoner 519F…? Perhaps that will make you more accepted by your peers. It’s always hard for the new guy.”
Alvin grunted. He would not reply. Absolutely not.
Prisoner 519F continued. “But, I fear, you’re not going to make it out of this room.”
Despite his self-admonition to not speak to the prisoner, he blurted, “You can’t scare me, freak.”
Alvin removed the old plastic bag and put it in the case. Then he began to try to hook up the new one with the slurry. As he did, he could feel himself tremble, a strange shudder that began at his feet and traveled upwards. “What the…?”
“A magnetic asteroid field. I’ve felt the tiny disturbances for days. But you and yours aren’t as sensitive to vibrations. You know what’s dangerous about magnetic asteroid fields?”
Alvin’s hands squeezed at the plastic bag so tightly, it almost burst. Quickly, he tried to insert the line. He needed to get out of there before… Before…
“The dangerous thing about magnetic asteroid fields is that once you can feel the rocks hitting your ship, it’s likely too late to take precautions. It takes fifteen minutes to spin up the jumpdrive. During that time, the ship will be pelted ruthlessly by magnetic rocks. You’ve got about a fifty-fifty chance of survival.”
The trembling became such violent shaking that Alvin worried about falling over. Everything else in the room was bolted down, but… He could definitely fall, and… Immediately, he left the bag of pink slurry hanging on the hook and turned, intending on dashing to the door and using the passcode to leave. Unfortunately, at that exact moment, a sizable asteroid collided with the Oubliette. Alvin slipped, and he collided with the grate floor hard despite putting out his hands to catch his fall. One of the huge metal rivets tore open a gash in his wrist just as the gravity engine for the Oubliette failed.
Little round, wobbling bubbles of blood began to drift through the air, as did Alvin himself. He grabbed for the edge of the nearby viewscreen, trying to find something to keep himself tethered as the turbulence continued. However, despite managing to stop from floating toward prisoner 519F, the spheres of blood didn’t exhibit any such preservation. Wide-eyed, Alvin watched as they zipped through the air, moved only by inertia.
Now, now he finally got a view of prisoner 519F. The man must have been as tall as Officer Petrovski. His wild white hair had grown long enough that what had laid in pools on the ground around the chair now floated like wild tentacles around him, revealing a pale individual with keen rose-gold eyes and a leonine countenance. The man, despite his lack of clothes, gave off a regal aura, and gave Alvin the same look he’d seen dictators give to captured enemies about to be tortured: Amusement that the enemy ever thought they stood a chance.
Prisoner 519F opened his mouth, and Alvin watched as an inhumanly long tongue, one as long as his hand, slithered out. A few hairs stuck to it, and to the man’s face, but he seemed not to mind as he struggled against his chains, leaning forward to arch his entire body towards the closest blood droplet.
The moment that snakelike tongue captured the drop of blood and pulled it into prisoner 519F’s mouth, Alvin felt the atmosphere in the room change. His fear of the prisoner evaporated, and instead, he now regarded the creature with nothing but worshipful awe. In an instant, he no longer wished to flee the room. No. Now his entire existence hinged on getting close to prisoner 519F.
“Come to me,” he heard that poisonous voice say. It echoed in his head, forming an opera unlike any ever composed, a whole symphony of emotion in three words. Alvin immediately shoved himself away from the viewscreen, letting inertia send him hurtling through the room toward 519F. Home? Yes. No, something even better than home, that’s what 519F promised. Soon he caught the chair 519F was chained to, and he looked the man in the eyes, awaiting the next command.
A flurry of whispers soothed every wound in Alvin’s soul. Yes. YES! He would do whatever 519F required. He wanted only to serve, to be of use. Without thinking, without a moment’s hesitation or resistance, he tilted his head, presenting 519F with access to his throat.
Although the fangs that tore into his flesh caused Alvin excruciating agony, causing him to scream from the pain, no terror flooded him. Complete peace and bliss consumed him, and as prisoner 519F reveled in the voluminous blood pouring down his gullet, Officer Alvin Breaker closed his eyes, and drifted through ecstasy toward his death.
