The sounds are many, but they are none of them sounds one wishes to hear. The relentless crashing of the icy gray sea against the equally icy gray rocks. The screams of the insane, the dying, and perhaps even the dead. The wind whistling through the cracks in the cell walls, whispering alongside the voices in your head until you think you might explode from it, and then whispering a bit more. Your own flesh scraping against the walls as you make an attempt at escaping, even while knowing it is futile. And yet you grate your skin raw for it.
The sights are many, but they are none of them sights one wishes to see. The shadows that move and bob in an eerie and ethereal dance, always outside your line of vision and yet so close you might reach out and touch them. The sky that never lifts its mourner's veil but remains bleak and hopeless, mirroring your own self. The blood, both fresh and dry, that cakes your hands and clothes and the floor beneath you, continually replaced by new blood, because there is always more. The corridors outside your hovel, always empty, because the others here with you dare not try and catch a glimpse of you. For who would ever want that reminder?
The scents are many, but they are none of them scents one wishes to smell. The bitter salty brine of the ocean, snaking up the outer walls so far from your own prison, and wrapping itself in your senses, reappearing each time you think you've found respite. Your own sweat and blood, which are a part of you and something else entirely, something you have never been able to evade, and never will be. And something without a name, that slinks along corridors unseen, and yet you are able to name it perfectly. It is despair.
The thoughts are many, but they are none of them thoughts one wishes to think. The acceptance that you are, in fact, here for the rest of your life, and no one will ever know how long that may be - whether it be ten days, or ten years. The dreams of freedom, which offer something far grander than your pitiful existence, your living death. Your brief escapes into slumber always must come to an end, as such ventures are wont to do. The knowledge that the person you can hear screaming could be you tomorrow, and in fact probably will be, for everyone must succumb here eventually.
Time is not an encumbrance here - you are permitted, even welcome, to take in these sights, these sounds, these scents, these thoughts. For what else is there to do, and what else is as demanding of your time? And so you sit. You listen to the waves, and half-glimpse the shadows playing in the corners of your mind, and smell despair that presses like a hand to your nose, your mouth, your eyes. And so you wait.
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