A young man awoke, startled, to the sound of angry hissing. He could feel at once that he was restrained by means unknown, tied to the unfeeling metal slab behind his back. Opening his eyes revealed nothing – all was darkness, and the sound of mechanical hissing. Had he known what steam was, he would have thought of it. But in his sleepy state, he knew almost nothing. A friendly voice intoned a few words that he did not understand, and then he was released from his bonds – again, by means unknown. This last event was so sudden that it caused him to fall forward, flat on his face onto an equally unforgiving metal floor. The young man passed out again.
With a groan, the young man awoke and opened his eyes. This had greater effect than before – the impact against the floor had unfurled the bandages that previously had covered his eyes and ears, and now he could see. Almost. A blurry, fluorescent white field of vision was all he could make out, with dark grey shades assuring him that he was only almost blind. He also felt pain – mostly stemming from his bleeding nose. He touched it, and yelled out in pain. The echo was metallic but dull. He sighed. It seemed unfair to him that he should fall over before he even knew that he was standing up. He unraveled the bandages from his head and used them to wipe most of the blood from his face. Then he got up, and started to blink rapidly in a feeble attempt to regain his vision. This worked quite well. He told himself quietly not to get startled if he saw a mirror – that would be embarrassing.
An hour or so later, the young man was walking empty corridors. He had found a mirror earlier on, and had screamed out in confused fear. Embarrassing. The face he'd seen was unfamiliar – pale and almost hairless, only semi-transparent white brows above greyish eyes and no beard. He didn't think he was particularly pretty – rather, he looked like a teenaged girl with a shaved head. The corridors were all empty, and filled with an annoying hum. They were also made out of metal, with piping and neon lights running their length, showing those with knowledge of the colour-coded pathways how to get from the kitchen to the bathrooms and so on. He had found both of those, and a name-tag on his olive jumpsuit. It was in characters he couldn't read, but he had a luring suspicion that there were characters out there that he could in fact interpret. Now and again he called out a nervious greeting to any particularly unsettling shadows, but remained unanswered. He was hungry, and bored. And afraid.
“Being bored and afraid has to be the worst combination of feelings” he said to himself, needing to hear a human voice so as not to go quietly insane. Quickly, he looked over his shoulder to assure himself that noone had heard. He didn't want the lurking shadows to think that he was insane for talking to himself. Then he thought about it – listening shadows? Ghosts in empty bunker corridors judging him for talking to himself? He laughed out loud, a nervous cackling that echoed of the walls, and said to the nearest shadow:
“You can't judge me, you're the guys who are ghosts!”
Upon hearing his own words he fell silent. Clearly, the suspicion of insanity had been well-founded.
“Insane and hungry. New record.” he sighed to himself as he took a new, previously undiscovered turn in the labyrinth.
