Chapter Text
First, there's the almighty awareness of not waking up in your own room. It's nauseating and cold, like waking up in a muddy puddle.
Nicky has a vague memory in his bones of ever having felt as bad as this.
It must have been one of those bad flus that used to be so fatal to children. There had been no real sharp pain, just a sensation of physical discomfort that cuts the thread of thought and renders everything amorphous.
Except that's where the big difference lies. This time, Nicky can still think. He has to think.
His first logical move is to try and space out the jerks of his breathing. With his index and middle fingers pressed together against the back of his neck, he counts his heartbeats. He wastes no time: as soon as his skin stops pulsing furiously against his fingers, he starts looking around.
The room is plunged into almost total darkness. His only source of light is a small, shy yellow line of light, which Nicky notes is on high; no doubt the bottom of a door hoisted up a flight of stairs. He focuses on the line, boring his eyes into it as if he had the ability to enlarge it, to turn it into a powerful light bulb capable of illuminating the room he's in.
Nicky more or less knows where he is, provided he hasn't been moved in his sleep, which means he's still in the Petersons' basement.
Maybe Mr. Peterson's just flipped out-a dead wife, a missing daughter, enough to drive anyone a little crazy. Or maybe it was just to scare him, to punish him for snooping around, for even having doubts about his innocence.
For seeing what he should never have seen.
For seeing him;
Aaron.
If Nicky was to believe his instincts and the throbbing in his throat, he'd been locked in a damp basement all night. A whole night in a dark basement to teach a kid a lesson is a bit much, even for someone going through a bad phase
...
The idea that he could be kept there doesn't quite cross his mind, it just clings to the walls of his skull, waiting for the perfect little detail to tip it back into reality.
In the meantime, Nicky stares at the luminous line. As a child, he'd never had a nightlight, nor had he ever asked his parents to leave the light on in the hallway at night.
He experienced it almost as a regression.
The door opened. Nicky awoke with a start that stung him at the waist. He hadn't even realized he'd fallen asleep.
The light, stronger but still yellowish, floods the room like a cold wave.
Nicky doesn't have time to examine the room revealed to him, even though a few things jump out at him: the ambient dirtiness, the bars that keep him cloistered in an even smaller space in the basement. He doesn't have time, however, because his attention immediately turns to Mr Peterson.
The man descends the stairs to the basement. His expression is vacant. Nicky nibbles the inside of his cheeks, the mere presence of some sort of paper plate in the man's hand already depriving him of freedom. He intends to keep it. At least for a while, probably until the cops find him.
“-The bucket.” Mr. Peterson's voice is a drawl. There's the promise of a bite in that apprehensive slowness. Nicky has heard it raised upstairs before. He knows what that slow, low voice might sound like two volumes up; he has no desire to have it directed at him.
“-What?” The word comes out of Nicky's mouth like a muffled nibble, the squeak of a mouse being squashed.
Mr. Peterson holds out his arm, Nicky lowers his head. He discovers an old red plastic bucket with cloudy water on the bottom. Hesitantly, he takes it by the handle and places it right in front of the bars.
-Does it need to be changed?
Nicky understands exactly what his neighbor's question implies. Just thinking about it makes him nauseous. He shakes his head. Mr Peterson slides the plate under the bars rather than bothering to open them. Nicky doesn't even know exactly what he's looking at, and he's not too keen on the idea of offending the guy who kidnapped him. He picks it up, returns to his corner and sits down.
Mr. Peterson watches him for a moment, his eyebrows furrowed enough to meet the line of his eyes. He turns on his heel and disappears upstairs. Thank goodness he leaves the light on.
Nicky digs his fork into one of the scattered pieces that slide across his plate like thick, brownish slugs. He takes a bite, small and careful.
He's done the right thing. It tastes like it's been expressly microwaved, the meat dubious, the expiration date dangerous... Despite his disgust, Nicky quickly dismisses the hypothesis that his neighbor tried to poison him.
It's probably just that Mr. Peterson cooks like a fish.
The boy is just hungry enough to finish his plate, at least half of it. Nicky is lucid about his situation. Pragmatic. He has no idea when his next meal will arrive, only if.
Once his nearly empty plate has been set aside, Nicky finds himself thrown back into the abyssal nothingness of his new daily life as a prisoner.
There are no games, no books, no puzzles...
For a child as active as he is, the environment is a sensory hell. He has the impression that Mr. Peterson did it on purpose, that he had to study him at length to decide on the perfect punishment.
Then logic - because at this point, he's still got a whole reserve of it - whispers to him that it must be chance.
Cruel chance, but chance all the same.
Since the boy has nothing to do, he closes his eyes.
Nicky knows that if he wants to stay sane and find a way out, he's going to have to do a lot of mental gymnastics.
He's seen it all before, in the Wednesday afternoon shows his mother watches on TV, yoga specialists yammering on and on about the infinite potential of the human brain, that it's only through the mind that man can truly escape.
Nicky had never wondered if it was true. Right now, he hoped it was.
As a first exercise, the boy tries to reconstruct the image of Aaron as he had seen him the day before. He figures it might be a good motivator to get him and his friend out of there.
Soon enough, his inexperienced mental imagery conjures up the other child's tired, blurred features. He could almost clearly see the brown eyes that had widened at the sight of him. Nicky understood that his friend's words had caught in his throat in a stupor, that he must have wanted to say something. But what? Save me?“ ”We don't have time to talk, we've got to run"? No, it was probably
...
“Behind you...”