‘Another box,’ she whispers. ‘But locked.’
‘Why … Why would they do that? Why did I get two things and you only got one?’
She shrugs. She looks exhausted. Her face is pale, her cheeks sunken, mouth downturned.
She shakes the box from side to side but there is no sound. No movement. So it’s something heavy, something that isn’t shifting inside. It’s secure.
‘Could you force the lock?’
She scoffs, holding it out towards him, lifting the thick metal of the padlock. ‘Could you?’ she asks, her eyebrows raised. She clutches the box to her chest and then shuffles backwards, retreating to the wall by her chain.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
She meets his eye, a strange expression on her face. And Ryan knows what she’s thinking. What kind of question is that at a time like this? In a place like this?
But what else is there to say?
‘Am I okay …’ she mutters. ‘I … I just … I can’t stop thinking about my parents. I can’t stop thinking about what they’ll be doing right now, what thoughts will be running through their minds. They already lost my sister, and now –’
She stops speaking suddenly, taking a deep breath as her voice breaks. She wants to cry, he can tell, but she squeezes her eyes shut, exhaling slowly through her nose.
‘The truth is that nothing we do is going to make a difference. Nothing that’s in these boxes is here to help us. It’s here to taunt us. That photo of Sophie, the photo of your ex, and your letter – they put them here for one reason: to torture us. But we both know that when the time comes, they’re going to make us confess. They want us to confess to what we posted on the forum. And then they’ll choose. You did post on the Confession Room – right?’
Ryan nods then lifts his knees up to his chest again and rests his chin. ‘What do they want you to confess?’
Emilia blinks slowly at him but doesn’t speak. Maybe she won’t tell him. If their confessions are going to be set against each other, she might not want him to know anything about it ahead of time. If they’re going to choose between them, they can’t be friends. They can’t become attached. But that’s what trauma does. Pain and suffering stitches souls together. It bonds people, in a way that nothing else will.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers. ‘I know you might not want to tell me –’
‘When my sister was killed,’ she says in a rush, the words spilling out of her, ‘I was on shift. I used to be a police officer. She called me. And I saw it but I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer, you know, because I was at work. But then something came over the radio …’ She sniffs, her voice breaking again. ‘And I knew … even before I heard the address I knew it was her. And I was so close. We raced the whole way, blue lights on. But … it was too late. He was gone, and she … she was gone too.’ She lifts her fingers to cover her face, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. ‘If I’d just fucking answered the phone, I would have been there. I would have made it in time. I would have scared him off and she’d still be here. And I … I …’
She stops speaking, her chest heaving up and down with the effort to control her emotion. What is she choosing not to say? He sighs. She’d loved her sister so much. And he had loved his girlfriend.
That’s how they’ve got to this very moment.
Love led them here.
‘So yes. That’s the confession I posted,’ she says, lowering her hands from her eyes, and blinking tearily over at Ryan. ‘That’s why they chose me …’
She rests her chin on top of her knees and sighs heavily, exhausted, as though recounting that story has taken everything from her.
‘Why are you here?’ she whispers, breaking the silence.
Ryan stares at her, his chin trembling as emotion floods through him, the current growing stronger and stronger.
‘So basically, I … I had a girlfriend and it … it ended. And I wasn’t kind. I did hurtful things. I just hated myself because she couldn’t love me.’
She frowns, nodding, as though she is waiting for him to continue. But he says nothing. He simply stares into the empty space before him, lost in a memory.
‘But … how does that end up with you being here?’ she asks, her tone incredulous. ‘I read some terrible stuff on that forum. You don’t deserve to be here. Why choose you over anyone else?’
He sighs, his shoulders lifting. ‘I honestly don’t know. But the same could be said for you. It wasn’t your fault that you didn’t answer your sister’s calls. It wasn’t your fault.’
‘What was your girlfriend’s name?’ Emilia whispers, quickly wiping the tears away.
Ryan glances down at the photograph which is discarded face-down next to him. He retrieves it, taking in her beautiful face, then clutches it to his chest.
‘Fi-Fiona. I … I really loved her.’
She offers him a small, sad smile. ‘Well, if it’s any comfort, if it’s my confession against yours, I think mine wins. Or loses, I guess. Depending on how you look at it.’ Her smile disappears as quickly as it arrived, replaced by a melancholy frown.
They descend once again into silence, a silence which is already oddly comfortable. Even with the palpable fear in the atmosphere, they are not strangers any more.
Ryan glances back at her. She has drawn her ankle up and is tugging at the chain. She grits her teeth, he can hear them grinding against each other from across the room, and snarls as she tries to force the chain over the heel of her foot.
‘I’ve tried that,’ he calls out. ‘You can’t get it off.’
She throws a glance at him before she is able to lose the anger in her eyes.
‘I’m sorry, but it’s true,’ he continues. ‘And even if you managed to get that chain off – what do you expect to happen? The door is locked. It’s bolted from the outside, I heard it when they dragged you in here. We have no idea where we are, so even if you got through the door, your chances of escaping are next to zero. We know they have weapons. And … we’re being watched.’ He gestures up to the camera. ‘You get that chain off, all that’s going to happen is they’re going to come barrelling straight into this room and stop you.’
She lets go of the chain, her furious fingers falling still, her hands dropping down to her sides, her knuckles knocking against the floor. She hangs her head, her hair falling forward and shrouding her face.
‘I … I can’t die in here,’ she whispers. ‘I can’t –’
‘I know. I’m scared too.’
She lifts her chin to look at him, her face crumpled with emotion. ‘I wasn’t thinking about me being scared. I was thinking about … about my parents.’
‘Oh.’
She rubs at the tip of her nose which has turned red. ‘They won’t survive this. I know they won’t. Not another daughter. Not like this.’ She breathes in, a jagged, rasping inhale.
‘I’m sorry, Emilia. I …’
He falls quiet. He doesn’t know what to say.
He shuffles sideways, his chain clanking on the floor as he drags it beside him. He reaches the centre of the wall, as far as his chain will allow him to go, and stretches his hand out to where hers is resting on the floor, and covers her fingers with his own. She flinches but doesn’t move away.
‘I’m sorry for everything,’ he whispers. Breathe. ‘I’m sorry for what happened to your sister. I’m sorry this is happening to you.’
He waits for a response. A nod, a word. Anything.
She clasps his hand in hers, their fingers interlacing.
There it is – shared trauma. The unequivocal bond.
‘I’m sorry for you too.’
All he can do is nod. There’s nothing else he can say.
‘How about you?’ she asks. ‘Are you close with your parents?’
Ryan clears his throat. ‘Um, it’s just me and my mum. My dad, uh, left when I was little. And I’ve been living at home for a while and it hasn’t been easy. Living with your mum as a grown man, it’s … it’s tough.’
‘That’s hard, I get it.’
‘To be honest, I …’ He pauses, surprised at his urge to be open. But what if she’s the last person he ever speaks to? What if this is one of the last conversations he has? ‘To be honest, I’ve been an absolute arsehole. To her.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, I just … it’s fucking difficult because she wants to treat me as if I’m still a child, still her little boy, but I’m not. You grow up, you grow away from your parents, and they will only ever really know the person that you were before you left them. Right?’ He turns his head to look at her, and she is nodding but her face is blank. ‘Just me?’
She shrugs. ‘Just you, sorry. My parents know me. At least, they did until Sophie died. But I think a lot of people must feel that way. And I’m sure your mum would understand. You could talk to her.’
He sighs. ‘If I get out of here maybe I will.’
They both freeze, their eyes locked together, their hands still holding on, as reality hits once again. Will they both be killed? Or will one of them survive?
A loud, long tone blares out and the speaker crackles into life.
‘Welcome to the Confession Room,’ a distorted voice says.
Emilia gasps, and her fingers fly up to her face.
‘You both made confessions on the forum. Confessions that you intended to always keep anonymous. But you don’t deserve to keep your secrets.’
‘Please!’ Emilia cries, standing to her feet. ‘We don’t deserve this!’
‘It is time,’ the voice continues. ‘The countdown on the screen above you is how long you have. You will each have your chance. And you must speak. If you attempt to remain silent, you will die.’
‘Ryan Kirkland.’
He freezes. The sound of that voice speaking his name turns his stomach. He can’t move, he can’t stand like Emilia – it’s as though he’s sinking, their words pushing him down, down, down.
‘You are first.’
‘You have sixty seconds.’
‘Please!’ he cries out desperately.
There is a pause, the only sound in the room the crackling of the speaker and their fast, helpless breaths. Then that loud, long tone sounds again and they both gasp in horror as the numbers, which until now have been ominously frozen, begin to fall.
‘Make your confession.’