Chapter Text
A cholera outbreak in a Canadian town in 1981 should have at least been a news story. It wasn't.
Despite its 57% fatality rate, nobody cared. It began as a reduction in tap water pressure, and ended with a mass grave containing 240 bodies in the middle of what used to be a playground. The living minority then scattered, fleeing the filthy, poisoned water for anywhere safer.
An anonymous, and presumably very wealthy, land developer bought all of the houses in the town, as well as the public spaces and small businesses. Nobody had the time to consider why anybody would want this much land in an area that the world had seemingly forgotten, but then again, nobody cared. People outside didn't notice the town, the living were glad to go somewhere they could brush their teeth without getting sick, and the dead were dead.
All of the houses were abandoned in the space of three weeks and had fallen into disrepair within a year. The only development in the whole town in over 30 years was an 8 foot tall brick wall with an iron gate that could be closed and locked (but never was, as it was creepy enough while open to be a deterrent) around the forgotten boundary.
Owing to some poor directions and an incorrect postal code courtesy of her good friend Scott, Cosima found herself wandering alone inside of the brick wall, as she attempted to get any kind of phone signal to yell at him/get some decent directions to this "awesome" new lab he had been offered.
Unfortunately, a signal was very hard to come by. She hoped it existed, because if it didn't, her best bet would be to drive almost an hour back the way she came to the most recent area of civilisation to fix a navigational mistake that could've been made even five minutes ago. She wouldn't accept defeat that easily.
The town looked like something that could be found post-apocalypse, except wildlife was teeming in a way that it shouldn't. Ordinary grass was almost knee high in some places and trees had branched off into collapsing buildings and hung over what once were usable roads. Animal-wise, it could've been its own Galapagos Island: an untouched ecosystem thriving and unattached to the world beyond the wall. She marvelled over this.
In her wandering of a field, she slipped, hitting head on an obscured, scruffy rock. Upon closer inspection, it held the hand-carved words:
Here lie 240/421 of us. May your souls find peace.
Nothing in this world could have made the situation of being completely alone in an abandoned town without phone signal any less comfortable for Cosima, even the notion that she was stood on a mass grave. She kept walking.
One bar fluctuated between existing and not existing when she found and stood on top of a ditched truck. She tried to call Scott first, then pretty much anybody, but she couldn't hold the connection long enough to make any form of contact. It took another 20 minutes of stubbornness before she got too cold and bored of wandering before she headed back through the partially blocked roads of what was probably once a pretty nice area.
The gate to leave town, where her car was left just beyond the boundary, had become the fascination of the local wildlife in the short while she'd been gone. This didn't phase her until she looked at the animals somewhat closer up and recognised no less than four of them to be venomous, and another two with some rather impressive talons to rip her face from her skull.
Would a stick work? Making a ton of noise? Jumping into the trunk, which was slightly less of an attraction to them, and climbing through to turn on the engine? This was irritating and she was already late.
She would, however, be later still, which was one thing she didn't foresee occurring before the crowbar hit her clear on the back of the head, immediately knocking her unconscious and cancelling every plan she had ever made.
She woke up aching and alone, on the floor of an overly clean and perfect room. Well, clean except for the pile of vomit that she supposed she had produced while unconscious, given the fact that it was all over her face.
She barely recognised herself in the mirror on the dressing table when she managed to stand up - simply, she was feral. Her skin looked paler than usual and was covered in the dirt from her trek and bits of half digested breakfast. There were a few whole, almost perfect bald strips, scabbed over with blood, on her head, where it appeared individual dreads had been yanked out. The remaining majority were all over the place and practically untameable.
Everything in the room appeared to sparkle, from the bed to the rows of bookshelves lining an entire wall. It was modern and smelt faintly of disinfectant (and stale vomit, which she tried to ignore), but had no windows. There was a bathroom attached, with the largest bathtub Cosima had ever been faced with. A wash was both necessary and welcome at this point in time, she figured. Then, she would decide what this was. She was strangely unfazed, immediately suspecting DYAD and knowing that, if this was them, they'd put her back in a lab where she could be useful once they'd identified her. No harm done. The clones were getting used to what were being called "precautions". Their face was very recognisable and was almost always checked when seen.
Cosima knew after maybe five hours in the room that she was already losing her mind at being locked up. Both the bookshelves and wardrobe rearranged their contents regularly; this was invisible, of course, even to her delusional eye, but it happened. The books, at first, were organised by author. After she had finished flicking through the first book by an ALDREN, the second was on the other side of the room with LUBACH.
Most peculiar of the room, however, was the door: it was made of some sort of matte glass, and no matter how she tried to smash it, it remained flawless. The handle was on the other side, so anybody could come in, but Cosima was trapped. A similar flap in the wall was, she soon discovered, for the delivery of three meals a day by a hooded person, who, due to the oversized clothing, was barely recognisable as a fellow human being, let alone identifiable on a personal level. They arrived at 8am, 1pm, and 6pm exactly. They never spoke. Not once. Not even when Cosima grabbed at, scratched, and bit their hand as it passed in lunch.
The house was usually silent and showed no sign of any occupancy bar the person who brought food and a golden labrador, which occasionally would push its head sideways through the food flap for a pet. This was the best contact she was having with any living creature. Gradually, she felt less and less secure in her first idea that this was a Leda associate. First of all, why would they have a dog?
Days turned into weeks, and an escape from the windowless luxury cell was getting less and less realistic. She had filled the bathroom with steam by running all of the hot taps simultaneously countless times to make plans on the fogged mirror, but nothing she could think of ever worked in her favour. She could only count on three things right now: the dog wanted petting, the hooded creature/person/thing brought food, and this room was escape proof.
She was four days into a hunger strike, filled plates piled in clear view of the door, when, finally, she heard another human being speak.
"You must eat, Cosima." The hooded person was a woman, then, clearly, and foreign. She had mastered the art of dipping her head at just the right angle, so no features could be seen in the shadows. She was just a faceless, hooded woman.
All of the things she had considered saying, logical things to find out what this situation was, all flew out of the non-existent window. All she could mutter, desperately hungry, was "how do you know my name?"
"Your drivers license was in your car."
"You guys went in my car. That's nice."
"It was necessary to clear it off of the road. It looked suspicious, left just outside of the gate as it was."
"Suspicious," she echoed the woman out of complete disbelief, "what, like, suspicious like you knocked the shit out of the owner and locked them up for 16 days, suspicious? Yeah. That would look a bit suspicious. Good job there."
The woman dumped the evening food through the hatch and left without another word. Cosima waited for the dog. It always arrived just after the woman had left.
She avoided the door around the times where food was delivered for the next couple of days by hiding in the bathroom. She needed to gather herself and be logical. Day 16 was a mishap. She was overwhelmed by actual human contact. This would not happen again.
She attempted, soon after, to tie some clothes from the seemingly infinite wardrobe supply across the door in a way that would block the hatch. Really, all she was after was a moment for the door to open and a chance to escape. When the hooded figure arrived and saw the blockage, however, the door did not open.
"You're DYAD, right? Why are you keeping me here?" She said. This was probably an amateur move, but it was worth a try while the woman tried to find a way to feed her.
Something unlikely then happened. She looked up slightly, enough for Cosima to make out a face in the shadows. This was the first time in eighteen days she had seen a face that wasn't her own. As much as she had persuaded herself that whoever this was, she was evil, this wasn't correlating. She would've seemed nice without the glass screen. "I am not keeping you here. I am keeping you alive," she whispered, as if something in this empty house was listening and the idea of not letting a prisoner die was unforgivable. "I would reconsider this," she motioned to the clothes and spoke at normal volume again, "if I were you."
She left the food outside of the room, and when the dog arrived, it ate it. This was only her 21st skipped meal, after all. It can't have done any more damage than the previous 20. She vowed to have breakfast tomorrow, though. Her ribs were a little too visible for her liking, and it was getting uncomfortable in the mirror. This method was also proving very ineffective at getting out of here.
On day 19, she began eating again. Seeing this, instead of just dropping off food and taking old trays when Cosima offered them up, the woman began waiting outside of the door as she ate, usually with the dog on her lap. The pair of them might've looked absurd: for a total of maybe half an hour in a day, they were on opposite sides of a pane of glass, one absentmindedly stroking a dog, the other eating. Sometimes they talked, but more often than not they just watched each other. The woman was still unnamed to Cosima, despite that being the one thing she asked almost every mealtime. She also still wore the cloak with the hood, but didn't dip her head to shadow her face, and usually rolled the loose sleeves up too. She wouldn't suggest a reason for wearing it when it wasn't hiding anything anymore. Still, Cosima saw her becoming more and more human through that glass door every time they sat across it, and these tiny, human connections became everything.
"Is there anyone else here?" Cosima asked one morning.
"Just me, the dog, and the furniture," she answered, smirking at Cosima's confused expression, "we take care of the owner. He doesn't leave his room a lot though. I see him a few times a week. He bought the town when everyone left."
"Any idea why someone would do that?"
"I suppose he just likes his space. Everyone does, to some degree."
Out of the blue, something changed on day 24.
As the woman pushed the 1pm tray through the flap, their fingertips touched. A ghost of a smile appeared on her. It was then Cosima wondered: if this house truly was just her and the mysterious owner (and, of course, the dog and "the furniture" - also known as evidence that being alone isn't good for a person in terms of mental stimulation), how lonely she could be. They lingered like this while they spoke, holding the tray of food as an excuse to continue this precious human contact.
"I've spoken to the owner. We're having dinner together tonight, and he's asked for you to come. Try to look presentable."
"I don't particularly want to eat with someone who locked me up for three and a half weeks, thanks."
"This is what freedom looks like at first, Cosima. It's gradual."
"Why am I even being kept here?"
The woman reached in and took Cosima's wrist. The grip was firm, not painful, but trusting, and very serious. "That isn't your place to know. Nobody knows before they know everything, and he wouldn't let someone know everything until he trusted them not to leave."
"Nobody knows?" Cosima echoed, "nobody, as in, you're not the only person here?"
She let go of Cosima's arm and the tray, and pulled the flap closed. "I wish that were true." They must've hit a touchy subject, because for the first time in what felt like an eternity, Cosima ate with just the dog poking through the flap for company.
She brooded over what the woman had meant while she consumed the rather bland chunk of bread that she had been given. It had certainly sounded like she was implying there were others in the house, others who were unseen, unheard. Then again, this can't have meant a lot in this house, as Cosima hadn't seen or heard the owner yet either. The loudest inhabitant was most definitely the dog.
She took her second bath of the day (there really wasn't a lot to do in that room, so she did spend a lot of time washing) and did as the woman had told her: found something nice to wear. At this point, she was trying not to think about how the most suitable contents of the wardrobe for whatever occasion - sleeping, lazing around the bedroom, or now formal meals - were always right at the front. It made things easier, anyway.
When the woman came to collect Cosima, she was in the bathroom, attempting to pin down and hide the fluffy new hairs that had grown back after the old dreads had gone missing in her transport to this room. She was trying to look nice, after all. She wore a long, red dress to cover some leggings underneath and a blazer-type jacket. She ignored the heels that were resting in the front of the wardrobe and reached further into the back, where some brogues were found. She was about to leave her room. If she could get out of the house and run for her freedom, she didn't want to freeze to death or break her ankles in the process. It wasn't really her style anyway.
The glass door opened silently. The first Cosima knew about it was the woman standing behind her in the mirror. She had taken the hood down, revealing a mass of blonde curls that were tied back into a loose bun.
They smiled to each other in the reflection. "Are you ready?"
"Yeah, sure, dinner. I'm good. Let's go."
As they walked, she attempted to memorise all that she could about the house, but it was excessively dark and the route seemed designed to confuse her.
They stopped outside of some huge, antique looking double doors. The glow of a fire was visible below them. It was the most homely, reassuring feature Cosima could've possibly seen at this moment. It calmed her.
The woman whispered again, "Whatever you see or think you see, don't freak out about it."
"Why shouldn't I? I'm a prisoner." Cosima didn't try to hide her smouldering discomfort at this idea, now worsened by being told to pretend there is nothing wrong with it.
"Because it's important. If you can do tonight, you'll be trusted. Believe me, Cosima, please. If he doesn't explain everything you want to know, I will. Then the food flap will be gone and you'll have a handle on both sides of your bedroom door, I promise."
Everything about this - the sudden meeting for "dinner" after three and a half weeks, the allusiveness of the woman, the notion that everything will be different after one magical evening - seemed very, very wrong to Cosima.
"I can't trust someone just because they feed me."
There was a few seconds of contemplative silence, then the woman muttered, "Delphine."
"What?" This was unexpected. Finally, an answer to a question that seemed so, so simple, but had still been withheld for the full week Cosima had been asking, was out. It was a strange place for both of them.
"You just have to trust me. I know this place inside out." Without another moment left to respond, the double doors opened themselves into paradise.