Chapter 48

“If this isn’t Lillian’s cell, where are we?” Katherine asked.  Try as she might, she could only slightly make out that Amnon was standing in front of her.  The darkness felt like a weight on her eyes.

“I don’t know,” Amnon said, “I know where I hope we aren’t.”  Katherine heard him fishing in his pockets, and eventually, he popped on a light.  There was a moment of relief, but that quickly faded as the light revealed nothing.

The room, as Katherine observed with Amnon’s wandering beam, was a perfect circle with smooth, seamless walls.  The floor was flat but seamlessly attached to the walls; upon further inspection, the same was true of the ceiling.  This is what the inside of a tuna can must be like, Katherine mused to herself, her anxiety mounting.  Only one object kept the space from being truly featureless: a stout column with a crossbar across the top.

“As it turns out,” Amnon said with a sigh, “we are exactly where I hope we weren’t.”

Katherine turned to Amnon.  “Where are we?”

“To be honest, I thought, in this case, that Saw was full of wind.  He talked about… how should I put this?  He used to fantasize, or I thought it was fantasy… Sorry, my mind is… I can’t believe he did it.”

“Amnon,” Katherine snapped.

“It’s a torture chamber.  If I remember correctly, the walls, once activated, the walls will show realistic scenes of some variety with the intent of sapping you of the will to live.  Once you’ve had enough,” he pointed his light back to the t-shaped structure, “you will take the opportunity on that thing to end your life.”

“You couldn’t keep telling yourself it’s all an illusion?”

“I suppose you could, but, again, I don’t know if he has ever used it, but he said eventually your mind would believe what it saw more than the truth and would give into the hopelessness.  The way he talked about it, he only wanted to use it on Princess Lillian or let her be the first victim or something like that.  The idea was to make her demise as truly awful as possible while being able to claim that Merlain did not touch her before her death.”

“It’s not on now,” Katherine asked hesitantly, “so we have nothing to worry about?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.  Certainly, as long as we are in the dark, we can busy ourselves with finding the way out of here.  Because that,” he pointed his beam at the tall ceiling from where they fell, “is not going to be it.”

“Did he ever talk about how to get out?”

“As I say, it’s been a while since I’ve heard him talk about it, and I never took it seriously, but I want to remember that there was something about pressing on a pressure point that would open a door.  I assume so someone could take the body out.”

“Amnon,” Katherine said.

“Yes?”

“I’m scared.”

“I wish I could say that you shouldn’t be.  Let’s see what we can do to get out of here.”

Amnon said that since he didn’t know what he was looking for, they should work methodically and slowly to find any soft spot on the floor or walls, or any slight imperfection in the surface that might reveal their was out.

The two of them began inching their fingers across the walls.  It was beyond tedious and they easily lost their place a few times and needed to start over each time.  Each time they started over, Katherine’s resolve to do whatever Amnon said eroded more and more.  Amnon took off his jacket, rolled it up, and laid it in a line pointing away from the wall.

“How about this?” he asked.  “This will be a marker for us.  When we get back around to it, we will know we’ve completed the walls.”  Katherine shrugged.  She could tell he was doing what he could to keep her spirits up, but didn’t he see how pointless this all was? Even if this pressure point existed, and even if they were going to find this, (and who knew how small it was?), it would take days.  They didn’t have days.  Lillian was going to be executed in the morning.  Or, Lillian was going to be thrown in with them in the torture chamber in the morning.  Then Katherine and Amnon would be discovered, and maybe they would be made to kill themselves one-by-one in this grotesque torture chamber.

Eventually, after the pair had been marching their fingertips in orderly ranks across the endless wall for, Katherine looked back at Amon’s jacket, five feet, she stopped.  She stopped and sat with her back against the wall and closed her eyes.  It was all so futile.  For all she knew, this was the torture.  No frightening visions needed, just tedium and futility.

“What are you doing?” Amnon asked.

“Giving up,” Katherine said.

“We can’t give up.”

“I’m not stopping you.  Keep going.  I’ve just lost the ability to pick myself up one more time.  I’m done.”

Amnon went to her.  “I know this isn’t what either of us signed up for, and I’m sorry that I made a mistake getting us into this mess, but believe me, whatever bottom you feel you’ve reached is nothing compared to the despair Saw had this place built for.  If he is willing to not only fantasize about building a place like this but secretly build it, I don’t know that there is a depth of cruelty that is off-limits to him.  And should we be found here, and should the tortures begin in earnest, you will look back at this moment as the easy time.”  He held out his hand to her.  “If you want to get home – “

“Maybe I don’t,” she said, taking his hand.  Amnon helped her back to her feet and walked with her to… Amnon groaned and closed his eyes.

“What?” Katherine asked.

“I forgot to mark my place.  I don’t know where I was.”

“Please don’t say we have to start back over again.”

“We don’t,” he said.  “I hope.  Wait!”  Amnon angled his light against the wall.  “Yes!  See?”  He pointed at the wall, and Katherine got to his angle.  Sure enough, the light beam revealed fingerprints and smudges from where their fingers had already marched across the trackless plain.

“I guess that’s some good news,” Katherine said.

Once again, their fingers began their orderly marches.

“How long do you think we’ve been in here?” Katherine asked.  “When do you think the guys at the front desk will start wondering where we are?”

“I forgot about them,” Amnon said and picked up his pace.  “I’m sure we don’t have much time.  Though I hope they also don’t know about this place.”

Just then, Katherine’s finger passed by a slight divot in the wall’s surface.  She pressed her finger to it, she felt it depress a little, but nothing happened.

“Did you find something?”

“I thought so,” she pressed a little harder.

“Maybe some imperfections are only imperfections?” Amnon asked as Katherine pressed the spot a third time.  Then, much like the lobes of a Venus flytrap close suddenly when its hairs a triggered three times, at the third press of the divot, the walls, floor and ceiling of the chamber were suddenly illuminated with visions of a vast arid landscape.

Now, Katherine could see Amnon quite easily, a look of surprise and horror on his face.  She had accidently activated the tortures and they would certainly be discovered.  As Amnon and Katherine stared at each other, both frozen and assessing what they should do next, sirens could faintly be heard above them.

“I didn’t…” Katherine began.

Amnon cut her off, “Keep looking.”

Immediately, he changed his strategy.  Amnon left Katherine to keep looking for the right pressure point in the path they had been on while he jumped to the other side of his jacket and began to work the walls in the opposite direction.  As they worked they could no longer make out where their fingerprints had been.  The light from the walls was too much.

Then, the temperature of the room began to shift.  At first, Katherine thought it was because of the frantic searching that she started to feel beads of sweat on her upper lip, but it was not long before she realized that the temperature was artificially increasing.  She looked behind her and noticed that the walls showed the star blazing away in a cloudless sky.  Katherine started to think that if she could just find some shade, she could cool off from the star’s heat.  Then she went back to pressing her fingers and remembered that the star was not real.  Katherine murmured to herself that she was in an illusion.

“How’s it going?” Amnon called out to her.

“I’m starting to sweat.”

“Me too.”

“I don’t like Saw Yatha much right now,” Katherine called out.

“That makes two of us.”

As the star rose, so did the heat.  Amnon and Katherine steadily crept their fingers up and down the walls.  Slowly, fatigue set in.  First, Katherine and then Amnon gave into their frail bodies and fell asleep.