bamboo doesn't grow in dark spaces. [80K Words / Complete]

The night Case was rescued, two storms converged over Kansas City and Missouri. Thunderstorms and tornados danced together in a wild show of atmospheric intimacy and destruction. Weather reporters called it The Kissing Storm, and made jokes about social distancing which Case didn't yet understand. A lot had changed in the world since he'd been gone, so much it felt as if he truly had landed on a strange, new planet.

But first, before Case even knew things had changed, he was wheeled into an examination room. Fluorescent lights radiated off cool-dawn-colored walls, making Case squint so much he'd have crow's feet before he left the hospital. A nurse introduced herself. Commented on how scared and nervous he must feel. Confirmed he was eighteen, an adult not in need of parents or guardians.

"Can I talk to my mom?" he asked. The same question he'd been asking since the woman who'd found him hung up from calling the police.

Soon, the nurse promised. The answer he kept getting.

Instead of a phone call home, Case got a long explanation on sexual assault forensic exams. Rape kits. The nurse described to him how the examination was going to work, how she would be touching him, how she would insert things into his body. Gave him a reassuring smile, which he obediently mirrored. They smiled and nodded at each other like idiots, pleasant idiots, ignoring the ugliness of what was really happening in this ultra-bright room.

The nurse asked him to take off his clothes. Well-trained, expertly programmed, Case switched into autopilot-mode, his mind slipping away as he went through the motions. He handed over his dirt-streaked clothes, barely registering the blue plastic ruler the nurse held against his skin or the click and flash of the camera as she took photos. The nurse continued to excavate his body for traces of Sir. She scraped the dirt from under his nails, swabbed the bite marks on his neck, poured purple dye over his pale skin, collecting skin cells, spit and semen. Dutifully, like a child needling for praise, Case told her how he knew to scratch Sir, knew to trick his captor into defiling him with all this DNA. That was the only reason he'd let his body get so filthy, allow so many germs on him, in him. The nurse told him he was very smart, then casually changed the topic, asking him what kind of music do you like?

An analogue clock tick-tick-ticked in the background, measuring the strange jumps and pauses in time. Time, which felt both too slow and too immense. The nurse asked if he was doing alright, and he shakily asked if they could remove the clock. Apologized for being stupid, difficult—but the nurse told him not to worry, asked him if she should make sure there wasn't one in his room when they were done. We're almost done. You're doing so well, Case.

"I want my mom."

I know, the nurse crooned. Soon.

When Case shuffled into his small private ward, wearing a powder-blue gown that tied at the front to keep him fully covered, there wasn't a clock waiting for him. But there were two police officers, pens-and-paper ready to take his statement. Case may have spent the last eleven months desperate for human contact, but after the woman who found him, the paramedics who drove him in the ambulance, the sexual assault advocate who gave him a pamphlet on the long-term impact of trauma, and the nurse who'd just spent the last however many hours analyzing his naked body, he suddenly felt overwhelmed with people. Felt desperate for a moment alone, away from all the bustle and noise.

The female officer helped him into his bed, told him he's been through a huge ordeal but now it was really important he tried to remember. How stupid of her . . . the hardest part for him now was going to be forgetting. He may have escaped the basement, but Case feared he'd ever forget Sir.