Dawn Chorus (Proxies x Reader)

I mark the days in bird songs. The cry of another night passed, and a gentle song of a day done. I try to pick out individual species, but besides chickadees and cardinals, I had never bothered to remember any birdcalls.

My body parts experience time differently. My numb toes, the length of my tied and tired arms, the hollow of my stomach which has given up on hunger blur day into day into before I had been tied up down here. They tell me no time has passed at all really. But the stiffness in my back, the swollen ankle that can only forget for several breaths at a time, and the numbing pins in my hips flare and soften in waves, each new crest reminding me of all that came before it. This is eternity moving at a snail's pace. So, I count by bird calls.

None of the men from upstairs have come down since that first day. I'm too heavy and tired to much care. I don't know when little naps turn to drifting in and out of consciousness. The creature across the room has stopped talking to me, or, if it has, I've always been unconscious when it tried.

Unconscious moments are worse than waking ones. Every second is filled with nightmares and memories. Sadie swallowed by the flames, nothing but a faceless, gnarled char, the size of a child when all burnt up. Camilla sinking in the pond, leaving only a trail of bubbles to mark her departure in the murky, green water. Mason trying to speak from his hanging, crooked jaw. Mason's voice just weak, pained moans. When I am warm, I am certain it is his blood on me, soaking through my clothes even through my skin to stain my bones. In a way it's my fault. I agreed to their game and Mason paid the highest price. Mason trying to scream. Mason only able to groan. Mason's blood all over me. Warm, but barely. Warm and cooling rapidly as he sinks away, away, away.

"H-hey, are you th-there?" A voice chimes against the shadows.

A soft pat on my cheek.

"Hellooo."

My eyelids crack. Inside is grainy with dust. Blinking hurts. Water wells to clear the debris and fight the dryness, but my body doesn't have much moisture to spare. All this makes the person stooped over me a blur of blue and brown. He must notice I'm awake because he shuffles back, dirt and grit griding and scraping under his feet.

"You d-do-don't loo-look so guh-good," he says.

I try to push myself up, but I feel like a bag of sand. The young man slowly comes into focus in the dim light. He isn't wearing his mask or goggles, and the smile on his face is almost friendly even with the teeth exposed on one side. He seems puppy like, crouched down, head tilted, bouncing on his toes a little. It's disarming. I jerk up into a sitting position finally. I have to draw my knees in close not to touch him. He stares for a moment at my legs before backing up even further.

"We didn't forget you. We've just be-been bu-bu-busy." The man sticks his hand out to me, wrapped in fresh white bandages. "I'm T-toby. What's your name?"

Why is he introducing himself? I glance past him to the opposite wall. It's so quiet past Toby, that I almost expect to see the chains hanging empty across the way. But the creature is there, straining against the limit of its chains, teeth bared and hollow eye sockets facing the young man in front of me. It tilts its head my way, then back to the young man. Toby leans into my line of sight.

"A-anyone there?" He waves a hand uncomfortably close in front of my face.

I jolt back and knock my head against the cinderblock wall. Pain blooms from the contact. I wince and that only serves to hurt my throat and my dry lips as they peel apart. I can taste blood from them cracking.

"Hey! Easy, easy," Toby says, gently shuffling forward again with his arms out as if to stop me from accidentally hurting myself again.

The niceness is odd, an unnatural degree of contrast to the man who was hacking up several bodies when I first ran into him. Giggling about mutilating the dead. I dare to make eye contact, try to read something in his expression. Concern definitely, but beneath that the same childlike glee. Its like he isn't grasping the situation I'm in, the situation he has caused. He is waiting expectantly, and I don't know how long the calm will last.