Denial's Not Just a Feeling

Connect Invisibility

The mangled mass of silhouettes huddled in the corner shadows cowardly away from the impossibly seeming light coming into the room. The clanking and clanging noise made them shiver in fear. A menacing chuckle entered the air, echoing in the crowded cages. Usually in a pitch black room, the lights never turned on. It didn't make sense why it was bright and much less where the lights were coming from. There weren't any windows in the room. They knew of a door, but were never taken through it.

The clanking and clanging got louder and louder . . . then stopped.

The man stood in the center of the room, a machete in each hand, eyeing every cage closely. A dozen and a half cages stood high, with thirty across on three of the four walls. Each cage was ten feet in height and a dozen feet on all other sides. They had five inch thick metal bars surrounding the cages to keep everyone in from coming out. The fourth wall slid opened by a passcode, finger prints and locks having to be undone. The silhouettes in the cages knew the complexity of the wall, hating the fact they were kept like animals, but disobedience led to beatings and beatings led to death. It was common knowledge.

The man in the middle of the room holding honorably, two kukri machetes, both having a pointed tip for stabbing, a wide midsection for chopping and a narrow area near the handle for carving. He spun his hands precisely using his fingers to coordinate how fast they spun, the blades spinning away from his body. Knowing the silhouettes were watching him, he spun them faster, adding a slip up here and there, knowing they would be holding their breaths, cringing, shaking, gasping and hopefully crying. Silent sobbing echoed through the room.

He smirked knowingly. He walked over to the eighteenth column of cages on the west wall. He looked to the cage stacked four up. He stopped spinning the machetes, putting them in the sheath hanging over his right hip clasped around his waist. Bending his knees, he grabbed as far up as his long arms would reach of the thick bars on the first cage in the column. He held on ape-like, swinging himself up like he was climbing rope without slipping up once.

After reaching the metal top of the first cage collective with the second cage on top of it, he stepped on the base of the second cage, held onto the bars, clicked his tongue at the silhouettes trying to hide in the shadows and themselves, then took one hand off the bar, and leaned himself back before making a slicing motion at his neck directed towards the one figure in the cage only about five feet from him, staring interested. The figure blinked, attempted to take a step towards the man, but was pulled back roughly by one of the silhouettes.

He chuckled before moving onto the third cage, repeating the process, then ended up at the fourth cage. He stood, hands at his side as he started to his right, placing his flat soled, white sneakers between the spaces the spaced bars left carefully, but with speed. He stopped at the third bar from the edge of the cage. Rubbing his right thumb over the middle of the bar, a small piece of metal rejoiced into the bar, revealing a thumb scanner. He placed his thumb on the small panel, a black screen and a red light running over his thumb before a ding sounded and the black screen was replaced with a green one. The thumb scanner disappeared behind the small piece of metal disguising it. The bar quickly shot up to allow a large space for the man to pass through.

He nodded, walking through the space where the bar once was. Snapping twice as he continued to walk to the back of the cage where the silhouettes hung to the shadows, an obnoxious noise of sobbing made his ears ring, the cage lit up. He blinked his own eyes lazily to adjust to the present light while the half a dozen young boys to old men hissed, cringed and groaned. He watched a young, naked boy huddled behind an older naked gentleman who seemed to be trying to comfort the boy.