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The door had closed as soon as it had opened. Darkness swallowed light without a fight, or the change for one’s eyes to come to terms with their surroundings.
“Lawrence?” He rasped again. His voice crumbled away as an excruciating jolt of pain shot through his spine and tangled limbs. Each brain cell felt sluggish and empty within his skull; slowed by a throbbing in his back and persistent queasiness churning through his stomach.
A hand jerked to the puckered line of flesh hidden somewhere beneath his grimy shirt.
Prodding. Rubbing. Testing.
Only when his hand returned clean and bloodless did he allow himself to relax marginally; stretching his numb muscles outwards against the filthy, frozen floor. The curdling stench of rotting vomit and faeces soured his lungs. He reached blindly for the wall; clawing himself to his feet in an obstinate burst of iron will. With the other, less battered set of fingers, the man scrambled for a package of matches still left in his trouser pocket. The guard had not seen fit to confiscate these, though any chance of a cigarette was long gone. The first splinter of wood snapped the moment he ran it along the wall; however, the second match caught without a fuss. Light tore through the darkness and shoved the tar-black fog aside. In the war, he had awoken in a similar position; trembling in the belly of a lurching ship. There had been blood then. His blood. For a horrible instant, he thought himself there again; however, his shoulder did not burn with surgical thread, nor did the smell convey medical antiseptics.
The stench of bile and bacteria; however, was very much the same.
He lurched forward and dropped the match, upon which a series of reactions immediately began. His heel rapidly pounded out the flame, the black once more swallowed him, and a hollow moan arose from the opposite wall. Keane’s arms jerked out instinctively, as a blind man when entering an uncharted territory. His feet varied between hurried shuffles and sickening pauses; the first a thread of determination, and the second his bleary mind spoiling any sense of balance. He had fallen somewhere between blind and drunk. Or perhaps blindingly drunk. The stale taste of whiskey still coated his tongue, as did a layer of dirt, dust, and a foreign, bitter residue. Dry, cold, and fading into obscurity, he collapsed to the floor. Crawling then. Dragging himself across the floor on all four feverish limbs.
“Lawrence?” He struggles closer. “Lawrence? Say something. Anything. Jo?” The response was indistinct; empty whispers trailing away as past echoes. There remained a considerable pounding within his skull where the guard had kicked him upon opening the cell door. His mind was infinitely muddled and arguably useless.
Except...
He could almost see the tattered leather pressed against the slim back; limp and sagging as perishing flesh. Keane reluctantly fumbled for his matches once again, struck the sliver of wood against the ground, and held the light over the motionless face.
At once, he tumbled backward with his hands crammed into the gaunt shadows of his eye sockets.
It wasn’t her.
It wasn’t even a woman. Unless, that is, a female had gone through the considerable effort of growing a two-inch beard.
No, it was definitely a man.
Keane ran a set of fingers wildly through his silver sparks of hair before once more throwing his hands against the stranger’s shoulders. A sharp gasp caused his own lungs to collapse.
“Good to see you are still alive.” Keane mutters, assisting the man to a semi-upright position and flicking the match out mere milliseconds before it singed his fingers. Blindly he broke the next victim from the paper packet; encouraging another brief moment of light.
“You should save those. We don’t need to see each other to talk.” The younger man muttered as he flung an arm over his abused eyes. There was a slight lilt to his voice—a subtle bounce—that made the stranger’s request almost practical.
Almost.
“I prefer to see my attacker’s face.”
“I did nothing to harm—”
“Perhaps not, but ‘friend’ and ‘foe’ start with the same letter.” Keane snuffed the match beneath his shoe and reached for another.
Six left.
“Now, if we wish to avoid sitting permanently in the dark, I suggest you introduce yourself.”
“Matteo.”
“Surname?” The young man shifted so his scruffy head lulled naturally against the wall.
“Your turn first.”
“Brendan Keane.”
“Professor Brendan Keane? From Devon?”
“You know me?”
“Never. Not in person.”
“My work then?” A strangled chuckle whispered against the guttering light.
“Intimately, I’m afraid.”