Rhinoceros 19
In the strange realisation of being awake somewhere new, Alan blinked and scrabbled in his mind to connect his gloomy surroundings with his memories. At first there was nothing, an empty space, like a clearing made by recently demolished buildings, but gradually his perspective changed and a flood of frightening images came back, disordered, tumbling over each other.
He saw Ryon averting his eyes, weighing the knife in his hand. He saw the sadistic look in Mr Mitchelson’s little eyes, and he heard the shout, “DO HIM.” His hair bristled at these reminders, as though he’d touched a live wire. And then the pain which, as a memory, turned slowly to reality, as his whole body ached in accord. Alan began to realise that the world had shifted yet again, and required his sense of bewildered self preservation to catch up. Yet again.
He looked up at a cracked and stained ceiling, a shadeless light bulb. The walls, woodchipped, in indistinct shades of buff and ochre, were free from reference points. But he couldn’t move to see more of the room. His arms, chest, shoulders, neck all throbbed with a distant but insistent pain, locking him into a twisted horizontal. He moved some of his fingers. He seemed to be lying on an uncovered piece of foam, with a rough sheet draped over him. He was partly on his back, partly on his side, like he’d been flung there unceremoniously.
Alan could smell urine. He thought at first this was an unflushed toilet nearby. Then he shivered in the realisation that it was him, that his jeans were cold and wet and stuck to his legs and thighs with a flood of rank piss.
Alan groaned, and the sound of his voice echoed slightly around the room. But nothing stirred. Alan closed his eyes and waited.
