DARKNESS. The black that surrounded him was so thick and heavy that he had nearly forgotten the light. He could barely recall the sensation of the sun’s warmth on his skin. He could feel his memory slipping. And his memories were all that he had left.
In this place, there was no light. There was no comfort. No companionship. No mercy. No hope.
Marcus didn’t even try to do a workout every day now. In the early days, he had done push-ups and presses upside down against the wall and had run in place. Now he couldn’t find the energy to do even that much. He figured every other day or even a couple of times a week would be enough to keep his muscles from atrophying.
Although he had no concept of time. He didn’t know what a day was. Or a week. He didn’t even know how long he had been in this hole. It felt like an eternity, but time had little meaning in the darkness.
His father fed him the bare minimum to keep him alive and spoke to him through a speaker in the ceiling. The old man wouldn’t respond to questions. Marcus wasn’t even sure if it was a live broadcast or if his father had just recorded his insane ramblings and played them back for his son. They did repeat. Or at least, he thought they did. He couldn’t be sure of much anymore. Beyond his father’s occasional words, there was no stimulation. He couldn’t hear anything from the world beyond. Which also meant that no one out there could hear him scream, either. The only sounds came from what he presumed to be other cells, but even those were soundproofed enough so that he wouldn’t be able to speak to anyone who was trapped with him. If there was anyone else. It could simply have been his imagination.
His mind had begun to question his existence. Marcus couldn’t shake the feeling that he had died, and this was hell. He sometimes wondered if he had ever been alive at all. But then his father would initiate an electrical shock, and the agony would make him realize that if he could suffer, then he had to exist. But that still didn’t rule out the possibility of hell.
He had tried to escape many times, but there was no way out. After he’d learned that, he had tried to kill himself. But he couldn’t find a way out like that, either.
He had banged his head against the stone walls, but he had only succeeded in knocking himself out. He had tried to stop eating, but his father had just knocked him out and fed him intravenously for a few days. He had tried to bite into his own wrists, but his father had rushed in, treated his wounds, and punished him severely for the attempt. He had no clothes or bed sheets or blankets or anything to hang himself with. His only piece of clothing was the shock collar around his neck. The ceiling was about six feet high, but it was a large sheet of metal with holes drilled in it as points of access for his father’s speaker and whatever else was on the actual ceiling—he presumed an overhead light and probably a night-vision camera documenting his descent into madness. His entire world was a stone floor, his father’s monologues, and his memories.
Marcus was thinking about Maggie, trying to keep a perfect picture of her in his mind, when a voice cut through the darkness.
“Fear is truth. Fear is the only real emotion. Love, hatred, jealousy, loyalty, happiness. These are not real. They are merely the shadows of fear. Think of any emotion. At its core, you will find fear. Happiness. It is merely the absence of pain. Emotional pain is caused by fear. A person may be afraid that their spouse is cheating on them. Afraid that they’ll lose their job. If these things are confirmed, they are afraid of how these changes will affect their lives. We hate what we fear. We love things that take away our fear. We may be afraid of being alone, so we seek companionship. We love the one who assuages that fear. There is no good or evil in the world. There is only fear. Fear of failure. Fear of consequences. Fear of your fellow man.”
Marcus hated himself for the comfort he found in his father’s talks. He hated it even more when he caught himself thinking that maybe his father was right.
“Think of the ultimate figure of evil in the world. The Devil. Satan. As the fairy tale goes, why did Lucifer rebel against God? Out of fear. He was jealous of God’s other creations for fear of being replaced, of being forgotten. He was afraid that he wasn’t loved anymore. This is why he tortures souls who turn from God. Because he fears them.”
Marcus curled into the fetal position and tried to cover his ears, but the blaring sound of his father’s voice couldn’t be shut out.
“Fear is the only true emotion, but it is also what keeps us shackled to mediocrity and keeps us from realizing our potential. This is what I want for you, my son. To live without fear. This life is all that we have. The only chance we have to make a mark on the world. Don’t be afraid to act upon your carnal desires and live out your deepest fantasies. That’s what I do. Your desires may be different from mine, but the concept is the same. This is the secret of existence. A life without fear. A life without boundaries.”