Chapter 1: Rage Reigns Down

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“The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food.”

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-Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

 

 

Rage… Rage… All I feel is rage.

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“Alert! Alert! This is not a drill! Michael, report to the control center, alert!!!”

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My heart is a fire. A fire full of rage.

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“Alert! Alert! This is not a drill! Michael, report to the control center, alert!!!”

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Sirens were blaring. Red and white lights were dancing like wildfire. All of this while Apsis Intelligenx’s voice was bleating over and over via the intercom with its clockwork precision,

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“Alert! Alert! This is not a drill! Michael, report to the control center, alert!!!”

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Michael stirred slightly trying to open his eyes.

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Pain… Pain… All I feel is pain.

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“Alert! Alert! This is not a drill! Michael, report to the control center, alert!!!”

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My heart is a prison. My heart is bound in chains.

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“Alert! Alert! This is not a drill! Michael, report to the control center, alert!!!”

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“What is it?” Michael mumbled.

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Michael had been in a deep, deep slumber when the alarm finally woke him. He was having that strange dream again. It was a very, very, strange dream he had been having for years.  Each time he woke he could almost remember what the dream was about but not quite. Piecing together these memory fragments was akin to grasping onto shards of glass that cut his fingers deeply every time he tried to grab too tightly. He had no choice but to let go. 

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“Alert! Alert! This is not a drill! Michael, report to the control center, alert!!!”

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“The woman in the box!” Michael suddenly shouted out loud.

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“Alert! Alert! This is not a drill! Michael, report to the control center, alert!!!”

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Michael could always remember the woman in the box. He knew he knew her from somewhere, from some place, perhaps even from some time. But who was she? He could never remember who she was. Why did he know her? Where did he know her from? And where was she now?

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“Alert! Alert! This is not a drill! Michael, report to the control center, alert!!!”

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“She’s at the bottom of the ocean I think,” Michael stammered.

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But was she really at the bottom of the ocean? How could that be so? There was no way she could be and yet Michael could clearly remember the cyclic nature of the ocean’s undertow.

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“I remember!” he shouted.

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This woman was in a metal box; in a cold, dreary metal prison box at the bottom of the ocean. She must be a metaphor for something. But for what?

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“Alert! Alert! This is not a drill! Michael, report to the control center, alert!!!”

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Michael remembered watching her while she waited inside her prison, curled up inside herself. She was waiting for an end that would ever come. He also remembered watching her as she would bite down hard on her fingers to make them bleed. Then she would rub her bloody fingers along the wall of her cold dark cells to make tally marks. She made one tally mark for each day of her confinement. She had made so many tally marks on the walls of her prison that Michael couldn’t count them all.

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“I’ve lost count of how many marks I’ve made down here Michael. I am in hell. I’ve been down here so long this hell is all I know. This cold chaos consumes me and all I want to do is scream.”

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And her hell, her torment, was the very embodiment of endlessness. She was in a box at the bottom of the ocean surrounded by ice cold walls painted with marks of her own blood.

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“MICHAEL GET THE FUCK OUT OF BED!!!” Apsis Intelligenx finally screamed.

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“Oh shit, the alert,” Michael said distantly.

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“Oh, you heard the alert?” Apsis snarled, “and all this time I thought I was the only one who heard the sirens blaring.”

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Fearing the wrath of Dai Lu, Michael leapt out of his bed so fast that he smacked his forehead against the bunk bed above him.

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“Again? Fuck that hurt,” he spat as he rubbed his head, “talk about feeling nothing but pain!”

    

Mumbling and cursing his misfortune, Michael ran his hand along his nightstand until he found his glasses. He nearly jabbed his eye out as he haphazardly put them on. Then he sat up and waited for his head to stop spinning and his eye to settle.

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Michael was well built in a rough and tumble sort of way. He believed himself to be in his late thirties, perhaps early forties, but he had conveniently forgotten exactly how old he was. He had dark brown hair, deep blue eyes, and was altogether too wrapped up inside his own head for his own good. He was generally too consumed with trying to work through a twenty-year malaise to be bothered by obstacles such as the upper bunk of his bed, walls that seemed to appear from out of nowhere, or doors with minds of their own.

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Michael was often salty and perpetually bruised as a result.

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“Alert! Alert! This is not a drill! Michael, report to the control center, alert!!!”

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***

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Hours earlier…

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“Captain,” Nick said excitedly, “we found something!”

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Nick was a seasoned deck hand in charge of operating the sea crane on the bottom trawling vessel, The Vanguard.

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