Darkness

Hurt

Paige steps through the door after glancing questioningly at Oscar and instantly regrets it. She winces and scurries back into the white room. 

"Whit's wrong?" Coby asks. 

"Nothing, guys..." she lies.

"I-I can kind of see...th-there's a doorway, y-yeah?" Zach asks.

"Yeah, bud, get through it," Oscar says in a monotone, although his expression is guilty. Paige wonders why this is.

Zach grins and runs through the door. He freezes, all his muscles tensing up and lets out a cry. He sounds like he's in pain. 

"Whoa, mate, you awrite?!" Coby asks, looking ready to dart in after him.  Zach stumbles back, crying now, almost falling over.

"I-it hurts," he sniffs. 

"Does it?" Oscar asks, sounding uninterested. "Well. We have to go this way anyway, all right?"

"How do you know?"

"I just do. Come on." He walks through into the room and winces, but keeps going.

Paige pauses, standing for a moment, wondering why it hurts so much just to walk into a room. It's like the air is razor blades or something, she decides. Poor Zach'll go crazy.

She follows Oscar and gasps but forces herself to catch up with him. She walks beside him. He speeds up but she does too, determined to talk to him. He sighs.

"Argh, CHRIST!" Coby yells as he drags a sobbing Zach into the new room. He then drags the Welsh boy along glumly, whispering the odd, "It's awrite, mate," to him.

Meanwhile, "Tell me about yourself," Paige  asks Oscar, who just grunts in response. "Where are you from?" she prompts.

"You know that already..." he says uneasily. "Belfast..."

"Right," she says. "Any siblings?"

He shakes his head. "Only child."

"Boring?"

"Peaceful." He winces, which reminds her how much every step hurts.

"How old are you?"

"Why do you care?"

"Just because."

"I'll be sixteen as of the twelfth of October," he tells her, exasperated.

"Right. School life?"

"What is this, legal interrogation?!" 

"Just curious!" She holds up her hands, smiling slightly, but the expression hurts too much to keep up and soon her face is neutral again. 

"Fine. I go to a secondary school. Obviously."

"Do you like it?"

"About as much as a teenage boy usually does. Can we end it with the questions yet?"

"No. Any pets?"

"I have a dog, damn it, leave me alone!"

 Paige pauses for a minute before asking, "What's its name?"

He sighs but then whimpers- it hurts too much. "Spot. He's a dalmatian," he finally whispers. 

"Thank you."

Behind them, Zach is still crying. "It hurts......it hurts, God, Coby..."

"I-I ken mate...ahh...why don't we talk about something else to take your mind off it?" Coby suggests.

"Okay..."

"So...mate, where dae you think we are?"

Zach pauses and puts his head in his hands. "Oh, I'm sorry, I just can't concentrate...ARGH!" 

Coby sighs.