Who: Wolverine Where: Cell block heading towards gym When: Tuesday 9th December, 1.00 in the afteroon.
They’d turned off the lights at some point, whether or not they believed this was some kind of punishment or not, Logan didn’t know, but neither did he truly care. One week it be lights out for a couple of days, another it be no food all week long, or the water cut off. None of it truly mattered, it seemed to matter to ‘them’ whoever ‘them’ were, but to him? He didn’t need the light to see, didn’t need food nor water to live, not for a real long time, and he didn’t want to live anyway. So go figure, maybe they thought they’d get some kind of reaction out of him. They hadn’t in the huge long time he’d been there and they weren’t suddenly going to get themselves one either. He didn’t tend to move a whole lot, didn’t pace the cell, or work out, didn’t sit at the desk and chair provided, didn’t write in the journal or on the walls with the writing materials provided either. He either stood in the middle of the cell, staring out blankly, or lay on the bed and still seemed to stare blankly up at the ceiling, eyes never blinking and due to the fact he could put himself into an extremely deep form of mediation, where their hidden monitors in the walls could not tell if he were alive or dead. Normally it had them running, had them shoving on the air conditioning, sending pheromones in the cell where he dwelled. Hope to hell they’d used the right ones and then got to attempting to enter the cell. Sometimes a few of them got killed, sometimes all of them got killed and sometimes none of them were injured at all. Only thing that was ever guaranteed was he stayed put, didn’t actually make any attempt to escape.
He had not spoken for the last five years or so, there was an on going pot in the security office as to what date he spoke again, and what word, would be the first. It had been going on now for the last four and a half years, no one had won, but everything the money got itself trawled up too high, so they’d donate so much off to one charity or another. No reason to be greedy and of course those sat in the security rooms, monitoring mutants, betting on them in one way or another, didn’t see themselves as the bad guys. Oh no they were doing their public duty, keeping these creatures away from the general population, keeping the world safe and a good place to live in. Not that locking these ‘mutants’ up had stopped any little pathetic money grabbing wars from breaking out, nor had it stopped any other such crimes against humanity from happening. Yet still, they all firmly believed they were doing the ‘right thing’. Hence, every time the money they’d bet on anything happening or not happening got to a certain amount it was halved and they voted on whatever lucky charity was going to gain from their own inhumane behaviour.
Logan had not consciously however, decided one day not to speak. He just didn’t see much point in doing so, why bother? They shoved people in the damn cell they kept him in from time to time, expected something to happen, which never did, or if it did, it was due to them filling the room with one substance or another and then whatever did happen was completely blanked out from his memory. Sometimes afterwards he’d come around smelling blood, because even if they did do a real good clean up the smell lingered, it really lingered. If they came with the adamantium restraints, nine out of ten times, he didn’t put up any kind of resistance, knew it meant he was being taken somewhere for a fight, and each time, wondered if it was going to be the last. Hadn’t been thus far, obviously, but hope was something that sat there like a bleak but ever shining beacon. It didn’t mean that survival instincts were ever going to be dampened down, that he was just going to lie there and let whoever take him down, but still some part of him, wanted to be as dead as his family. Some part wanted to believe they were somewhere, be it the afterlife or floating around as particles of energy, just waiting for him to find them once more and be with them. So he didn’t fight them when they came, didn’t attempt to stop them when they clamped the restraints around both his wrists and ankles, but he did remember the scents and faces of those that used the cattle prod on him. So mistakes happened, and the next time they came for him, the ones that used it, if around, got a taste of adamantium before he allowed himself to be restrained.
So today, as with most days, he just stood there, waiting, was never sure what he was waiting for, or even sure if he cared. Staring out from the darkness that they had decided he needed to linger in for the past few hours, breathing slowly but steadily, motionless, completely cut off from everything, living in memories, that for the most part were no longer anything like the reality, yet the fed and kept him well, reminded him that you sew what you reap. That this, was purgatory or some form of such, and one day, no matter how long it took, he’d be moving on. Didn’t much think too long or too hard about where the moving on too was, just filled that in with ‘death’. Inside clock told him it was about time they’d let the clear panel up front slide open. Normally having the rest of the corridor blocked off, having just the lights along the walk way lit, expecting him to trail out and make his way into the gym.
Not that he went all that often, normally just stood there. He didn’t need to work out, to stay in condition and most of the time he was aware that they were watching him, watching him all the time, due to the sounds emanating from the walls.
Five, four, three, two, one .. on the nail, doors slid open. To go on out there and walk the walk, do what they seemed to think he should be doing, or just carry on standing there, waiting for something different to happen? He could look back in his mind, begin reciting the complete unabridged version of the Faerie Queene, or he could go on out there and forget about the fact that his brain functioned perfectly well, without any true desire or need to kill anything. Brain death won out, so he left the cell and walked the line, another door at the other end opened and right into the gym he went. Like a prisoner on death row, no expression as every day was the one you were expecting to be the last, no need to fight it, no need to care about it, you did the crime, you did the time.