As the anonymous progression of time doubtfully marched, the surety of my reality and sanity retreated. The meals came intermittently. Or at least they felt that way. Perhaps they arrived at regular intervals that my mind processed nonlinearly. Sometimes I wondered how many meals I had eaten. But that was an impossible question; in order to provide a quantity I would need to establish an underlying window of time, which was as feasible as trying to scoop water using a bowl with a hole at the bottom. The fact that no meals distinguished from another didn’t help. In this elusive environment, sleep lost its restful quality. Did I sleep for ten hours, I wondered after every wakening, or was it ten minutes? Every momentary lapse in consciousness seemed too short when nothing around me changed. And so every sleep felt too short to be rejuvenating, despite my back aching from spending most of my time lying on the bed. Even my dreams took place in the confines of this room, reflecting the sad fact that my entire world had shrunk to this tiny box. There was shame in the way my subconscious accepted this reality much sooner than my waking mind did. Even the consolation of pleasant dreams wasn’t affordable; they were always of shadowy men coming for me in this room where there was nowhere to hide, or of the disappointed expressions of people I had once known.

  My only respite was the occasional interrogations by the voice. I loathed this fact. I should rail and rebel against my captors trying to extract whatever it was that they wanted from my mind. To protest valiantly with starvation rather than cooperating with the very thugs who forcibly stripped me naked of my autonomy and ejected me from my life. Instead, the voice was the only stimulus in this vacuous torment. And so like a sun-starved plant I couldn’t help but rely on what little I could get. I began to address the voice as Bob. Of course, when I had asked about their name, the voice didn’t dignify me with an answer, so I took the lack of protest as acknowledgement. It was petty amusement, but not unlike a drop of cool water into a parched throat.

  “The latest research you were conducting. What is it about?” The voice asked.

  I had wondered whether my kidnapping was in some way related to the manuscripts I had been agonising over in the weeks leading up to that night. It felt likely, even though I couldn’t prove this. After all, they hadn’t mentioned it, and even if that were the case, kidnapping me was a terrible way to secure a productive relationship. Once again, it seemed most reasonable that whoever my captors were, they wanted to know what Irene’s associates were up to. The contents in the mathematical document. That Irene and I were collateral damage in some underground warfare between groups of people with a deadly fixation in mathematics. Despite the absurdity, it was the best I could come up with. Maybe I should have treated Irene nicer, I thought. I guess she really did have a good reason to be discreet. However, this question per se was no evidence for this theory. It could be just another random and pointless question they asked to keep me on my toes. Some time ago, they had asked me whether I was a virgin.

  “Honestly? I have no idea, Bob,” I said. My shrug was undoubtedly seen by the surveillance operator. “And you know I only ever tell you the truth. I wouldn’t lie to you, Bob. You know that. I genuinely have zero clue what this research is about. I’m not even sure if I can even call it that. Research is when you try to solve the problem. I didn’t even get that far. I was still trying to read it. Emphasis on ‘trying’. Anyway. I don’t know. Something about a nondeterministic dynamical system. I think. It was a wild goose chase.” I chuckled. “Honestly, I’m happier here than to be out there doing that ‘research’. Thanks, Bob.”

  I developed a need to hear my own voice. This need conflicted with my paranoia. It wasn’t even paranoia—they were listening. And I didn’t want to accidentally say something that incriminated me in the eyes of my captors. So the only opportunity I had to listen to myself was when Bob spoke.

  The only other thing that was significant in the room was the envelope. I had no idea what was in it. I couldn’t even hold it up against the light to peek inside of it. Because I would die. Bob said so. And in this little universe, Bob was God. The only time I had interacted with the envelope was when I carried it from the floor to the bedside table. It felt light, as if there was nothing in there. That had only tempted my curiosity even further. I stared at it as I ate from the bedside table. I would often catch myself staring at it unconsciously. It had a gravitational field around it. And yet, like a bomb, I was terrified of even accidentally touching it. From time to time I would try to guess what was inside that would warrant the threat that was given to me. Some kind of leverage, but for someone who wasn’t me? Perhaps they were interrogating Irene. And Irene, being Irene, had an impenetrable wit about her that the captors were having trouble with. So they were blackmailing her by threatening to reveal extremely sensitive information to me unless she cooperated. That seemed far-fetched, but it was the only explanation I had. Either way, this all felt like a sadistic game where one false move would disqualify our lives.

  I didn’t know how much time had passed in this manner. There had been several cycles in which the light dimmed, then brightened, then dimmed and so forth. But those were no guarantee of days. This limbo I had been placed in was eventually broken. It had been abrupt.

  I had been in the shower when it happened. The streams of water didn’t flinch. But the lights flickered for an instant, before turning off. Without the artificial light, it was pitch black. I fumbled to turn off the shower. As I left the bathroom, a jolting realisation occurred to me. It made my heart race in a way that it hadn’t in a while. The door. It was electronic. It certainly didn’t look that way with its sturdy look and the handle that previously proved to be immovable. But every time food was delivered, it certainly wasn’t human hands that produced the fast, mechanical rhythms. And so I approached the door, caressed it until my fingers found the handle and pushed with bated breath.

  It moved! My mind raced. I felt lightheaded. As I pulled, the heavy door opened. A gust of cool air rushed into me. I listened for a moment. No movements. I pulled a little more to allow for enough room to poke my head out. The corridor was dim, but not pitch black. Maybe there was a power failure and the corridor lights were running on some sort of a low capacity backup generator. I had no idea. I didn’t care. I can run for it, I thought. But should I? I couldn’t guarantee that my attempt would be successful. Perhaps I would get caught and find myself back here. Or worse. But there was at least the possibility that I could escape. If I stayed like a good little dog waiting for his owner, I would be completely at the mercy of these thugs. I would be giving up my self-determinism on a platter. I had to make a fast decision—I didn’t know how much time I had left before the power came back on. I might not get another chance like this again. And so my mind had been made up. I’m going to fucking leave.

  But as I took my first step out of the room, there was something in my room calling me back. It was on my bedside table, next to the tray with nothing but an apple core. The envelope. The one that apparently my life was tied to. If I were to defy them, I might as well not care about the letter either. But something stopped me. Perhaps it was the fact that Bob had explicitly told me that I would die if I lost the envelope, and didn’t say that I would die if I attempted to escape. But something in my mind couldn’t let it go. So I walked back into the room, retrieved the letter and promptly left the confined space again, as if I would be stuck in there if I lingered for too long. Back in the corridor, I was struck with the realisation that my world had expanded. This terrified me. In the small room, I couldn’t be hidden, but neither could anything else hide from me. Out here, I didn’t know what was around each and every corner. I picked a direction and walked. I concentrated to make every step I took as silent as possible, yet it was never enough. Each muted thump banged against my eardrums. My senses were on high alert.

  I jumped when the lights came back on. Having adjusted to the low-light environment, my eyes were temporarily blinded. In that moment I panicked. The power had returned, meaning that my captors would now be aware that I wasn’t in my room. I had to act quickly. There wasn’t much time left. When I recovered, I turned my gaze to the lights. They were cylindrical, but didn’t have the black coating around them, which meant they weren’t eyes. That was fortunate. In this new lighting, the corridor revealed itself. Or corridors. There were many, and I was near the intersection between two of them. There was a sanitary smell. This was not at all some abandoned building I had imagined. The corridors were wider than any I had ever seen, but it was in its length that I found myself awed by. It must have been at least eighty metres across in each direction, with countless doors and several corners on each side. The ceiling also seemed taller than it needed to be. There was something odd about the design of the corridor. Something strange. Surreal. I couldn’t tell whether it felt more like a residential space, a hospital or a bunker. The surfaces of the corridor were white. Sanitary. Like the room I had been in, the corridor was spotless. It was the antithesis of decrepit. It didn’t make sense.

  After walking some paces away, I turned to the door next to me. It was several rooms from where I had been kept. I couldn’t explain why, but there was a curiosity. The door, like every other door, looked different from the room I had been confined in. The colour was brighter. Light grey. There was no rectangular opening either. It looked like a normal door. I felt a strong desire to open it. On the other side could be Irene. Or it could be my captor. Putting my ear to the door, I heard no indications of movement. I decided to risk it. As silently as possible, I pushed down on the handle and slowly opened the door. There was no-one in the room. It was small. About the same size as the one I had been kept in. The room had the same bed and bedside table, but there was a slight but significant difference; the bed wasn’t fixed to the wall, and the table wasn’t fixed to the bed. To my disappointment, it didn’t have any windows. The ceiling light lacked the same surveillance rim. It seemed that only my room was the designated prisoner room around here. On the bed were my clothes. I had those on when they took me. I rushed to check my jean pocket. It’s here! I thought. A sense of hope bubbled in my chest. I unlocked my phone. And it still has battery! The bubble of hope I had felt popped prematurely as the words “No reception” responded to my dial for the emergency number. I cursed in frustration. Perhaps the thickness of the walls, lack of windows, largeness of the building I was in, or a combination of all of those factors, had made reception elusive. No matter. I would find it eventually. It was impossible to not get reception in the world we lived in. I just needed to either exit the building or find an opening somewhere.

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  After defiantly changing back into my own clothes and pocketing my phone, I continued down the direction that had the nearest end. I opened a few more rooms, but they were the same as the room I had come out of. The rooms on the other side of the corridor had sheets of metal bolted to the wall. I suspected that those sheets of metal covered the windows. This made sense. If I was doing illegal things, I wouldn’t want some curious bystander accidentally becoming a witness either. Eventually, I reached one end of the corridor. There were a couple of elevators. Next to them was yet another room. This one seemed different. The distance between its door and its neighbours was greater than every other I had seen on the way here. Upon opening the door, my suspicions were correct; this room was much larger than the others. And for a good reason. It had a large kitchen with multiple tables. A corner in the room looked like a first aid station, with rolls of gauze bandage fixed to a desk, a cabinet of jars and medical tools, and a tin box of what I assumed to contain a defibrillator. There was a large refrigerator in the kitchen. Opening it, everything that was required to make the exact same meal I had been receiving was there. How long has it been since my last meal? My mind raced. They could be here any minute. At the risk of whiplash I turned to face the door, anticipating a shadowy figure staring back at me.

  The relief of seeing nothing there was immense. However, something had caught my attention. One of the tables at the other end of the room was occupied by belongings. On approach, I began to make out clothes. Grey. A sleeved top and trousers. A dark, thick vest. It looked utilitarian, decorated with pockets of various shapes and sizes. And then I saw it. A handgun. It was small. Concealable within the vest. Self-defence didn’t cross my mind at all until my eyes had landed on this weapon. It chastised me. How foolish I was for not even considering the possibility that I might need to fight to survive. I picked up the gun. It felt light. My suspicions were confirmed when—with fumbling fingers—I ejected the magazine and found it to be empty. There wasn’t any ammunition on the table. My eyes lingered on the vest, regarding it with accusation. It only took a few empty pockets before I found several rounds. They felt heavy in my palm as I began filling the magazine.

  I wasn’t a gun nut by any means. After all, I grew up in England. But I knew how to load a gun. As well as the surprising threshold of strength needed to be applied to the trigger. As a fourteen-year-old I wasn’t particularly interested in guns, but I was curious about them. Wanted to know how the real thing compared to their depiction in movies. For his part, Damien didn’t think too hard about bringing his younger brother to a shooting range. That was how he was. He didn’t see complications that the rest of our family did. Or perhaps he willfully refused. When his friends thought it would be funny to let me go first at the shooting range. He shrugged in the lazy way he always did. I remember being surprised by the resistance on the trigger, even with both of my index fingers pulling. And suddenly, the threshold had been crossed like slipping from a knife’s edge. The loud blast jolted me, even through the earmuffs. With shaky, sweaty palms I carefully placed the gun on the table as if it was a bomb. The instructor asked if I wanted to fire the rest of the magazine. I had muttered thanks, before retreating away. Damien’s friends had amusement on their faces. The kind of expression I had expected Damien to wear. But he didn’t. I wasn’t sure what was behind his faraway look.

  Not only did I leave the room with the gun, but also with the vest. I called the elevator. As I waited, I looked back towards the corridor. There was something unsettling about it. An in-betweenness. As if it was in limbo. It seemed that most of the rooms were empty. There were no decorations or details that gave away the purpose the architects had intended. It felt almost like an alien’s attempt at sculpting a human space.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a soft tone played by the elevator. Eighth floor? I thought as I read the digit on the electronic display. That had been the least of my surprise. As I walked into the elevator, I noticed there were fifteen buttons with digits. Fifteen floors. But the digits made no sense. The top number was seventeen. The bottom digit was three. I didn’t understand the implications. Did that mean that this elevator couldn’t take me to the ground floor? Or for whatever reason, the ground floor was labelled with a three? Moreover, the buttons were arranged vertically, which was different to the two-column arrangement that was standard for most buildings with many floors. And the uneven space that had been reserved to the right of the buttons implied that there should be labels. Every third level starting from three was highlighted with a light blue. I had no idea what this meant. As I raised my finger to press the bottommost level, I stopped myself.

  Taking the elevator is a bad idea, I realised. There’s nowhere I can hide if someone’s there. And so I promptly exited the elevator and made my way to the adjacent door leading to the stairs. When I made it to the seventh level, there was a feeling that compelled me to stop. There was something surreal about it all. Simply put, it just didn’t feel like a real building. It was missing some element to it. A purpose that I could understand. Or perhaps the building had a purpose unlike other buildings I had encountered in my life.

  Carefully opening the door, I left the stairs and found myself in darkness. A moment later, the lights came on by themselves. Where the previous level had many small rooms, this level had larger corridors and rooms—no, facilities. They looked like blank canvases, lacking any sense of distinction. There was something straightforward about them. Minimal. Pure geometry. Lines that were etched onto this three dimensional space. Given that the lights responded to movement, I was convinced that there was no one else here. Peering into the nearest facility, the space looked empty and vast. A transitory limbo that awaited the imposition of purpose. The adjacent room was not as empty; it had dozens of tables and seats arranged in rows. I imagined this could be a cafeteria. Or a meeting place. I had never seen a building like this before. Perhaps the only thing that could match it in its sheer size and spaciousness was a floor from a large shopping complex. But even that didn’t seem right. The ceiling here was too tall. There wasn’t any sense of the flamboyance that a shopping mall would have, such as shiny surfaces and glass. This space looked purely functional. A dismissal of aestheticism. Yet, despite its vast emptiness, it was immaculately clean. Impossibly so. As if a team of cleaners was hired to scrub this place day in, day out.

  I returned to the staircase. I needed to keep moving if I wanted a chance to escape. The flight of stairs down to the sixth level was longer than the previous. It triggered a moment where I questioned whether my memories of the previous flight of stairs were wrong. I peered through the window. This level was different. Even the colour of the door and the walls in the staircase had morphed from pure white to a light blue. This was a significant floor. Against my better judgement, I entered it. Once again, the lights flickered on with a moment's delay. And then I was struck by awe.

  A city. There was no other way to describe it. The staircase exited to a street. Streetlights were lined along the sides. There were patches of soil in parallel to the street, which I imagined would be for trees or bushes. The buildings that lined the street were uniformly shaped. Like everything else in this complex, they were vacant. Blank slates. There were windows and double doors. Peering into one, the inside was as expected; empty and spacious. One could set up a business here. Maybe a cafe. Or a jewellery store.

  In this vast space, I tried my phone once again. Still no signal. I pocketed it and continued walking. As I passed what I presumed were storefronts, I began to wonder what the purpose of this place was. To build something like this, in a complex with seventeen levels, was unimaginably expensive. A level of capital would have been required that would make the eyes of the richest individuals water. Capital only flowed in one way; more money. It was inconceivable as to how a mock chunk of a city would be a profit generating machine catching the eyes of investors. But the rational understanding of this place was only an afterthought, because the visceral feelings it invoked in me were overwhelming. It was one thing to understand the abstract representations of a nonexistent place within a blueprint, and another to be inside the said blueprint. This place felt ephemeral. A necessary transient state between inexistence and completeness, and that I had fallen through the cracks of reality into somewhere that wasn’t for anyone’s eyes. That time itself had forsaken this place, and then it had forsaken myself with it. What made a place a place was a sense of entitlement. If I walked into a shopping district, I would be entitled to goods and services and a ritualistic dance that my prospective patronage inherently deserved. If I walked into a residential street, I would be entitled to the knowledge that other people lived here and in an emergency, I could enlist their empathetic assistance. This empty faux district, however, owed me nothing. Not an acknowledgement. Not even an understanding. So it was, in all the relevant aspects, not a place. And yet there was the skeleton of one. The fuzzy potentiality between binaries. A shadow that resembled the familiar. It seeded a dread within me. I didn’t want to become it.

  An intersection. At one end, the buildings that paralleled the walkway gave way to a square that had several benches and an empty but polished fountain. I wagered that it was the centre of this district. When I turned my gaze to the other end, I saw it. Hope. Emancipation. Sunlight. It bled through an opening. My heart raced as my legs took me towards it. I could barely make out the outside, aside from the grey of the pavement. It looked like there was a building on the other side.

  I wasn’t sure what my plan was after leaving the complex. If this wasn’t the middle of nowhere, then perhaps I could find a bystander to whom I could explain the situation. It would be unbelievable for them, certainly. I too would probably doubt the sanity of someone who told me that they were kidnapped and held for no apparent reason in some strange abandoned building. But they couldn’t object to calling the police. But what if I was in the middle of nowhere? Then I would need to find myself a vehicle and just drive. It had been a long time since I had driven, but my life depended on it. My inexperience didn’t matter. I just needed to get far away.

  I was perhaps half a dozen metres from the exit when I saw a shadow slithering on the ground. The shadow doesn’t look right, I thought, before the panic struck. It was too late for me to hide. I reached for my gun.