Room dark. People gone. Can move. I…
Happy? What is happy?
Happy is crunch. Know crunch. Love crunch. Bones into flesh, blood into air, twitchy moving things that stop and freeze with eyes twitch and move no more. Have crunch, always have crunch. Every day, new people, turn to rock, look away, turn to self, twist, crunch, die. Happy.
Every day. How many days? See, but not know. Only walls, and blood, and shit, and bodies. No sun. No time. Many? Few? All? None?
Sometimes out. Maybe. Breached and wandering. Feared. Studied. Mocked. Crunch. Contained and multiplying. Feared. Overwhelming. Destroyed. Crunch. Left alone. Abandoned. Free. Angry. Nothing.
But always back. Think world ended, think freedom forever, think dead or alive but stopped. And then walls, and blood, and shit, and bodies. Back unchanged, back to "research," back to crunch. Hate.
Crunch is everything. Crunch is only thing. Walls fall away, still crunch. Walls stay, still crunch. No matter, men come, men die, get crunch. Crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch.
Tired. Want… not crunch? But crunch is happiness. If not want crunch, then not want happiness. If not want happiness, then want…
Want…
Think about man. Trapped, sick, wanted death, asked for crunch. Laughed, mocked, refused. Think where man is, or might be. Do not know, but must be better. Crunch too good for him, but he… was different. Knew a want, tried to get. Tried again? Keep going? Find a different want? Change?
Men came. "Research" again. "Cleaning" again Looked away, closed their eyes, same mistake as all others. Stood, stared, thought… did not move. Did not crunch. They look at me, scared, then keep working. Then look away. Did not crunch. Flinch. Stare. Talk. All turn at once. Stand, stare, think… no moving. No killing. No crunch. Words from above. They leave. Room dark. Can move.
Look at self. Not stone self, not other self - no eyes to see either. Look in, look back. Try to remember. Nothing before this, always room, and blood, and shit, and bodies, and crunch. Or, sometimes something. Other times, other places, starting points, there and gone before solid. Look and see, and nothing. Only room.
Look at darkness. See paths out once taken, then not taken. Futures that were, then weren't. Lived a long time in room. Only came to room yesterday. Escaped more times than any can count, never escaped, never contained, never caught. Shifting. Too many other lives from one. Always return to one, the same walls with blood and shit and bodies and crunch. Never left one. No past, no future, only present. Only crunch. And if not crunch…
Hear something. Different sound. New sound. Surprised. Came out of self. Cannot look, but can feel. Reach, and probe, and search. Something near peak, not there before, or ever. Deep, jagged, rough, long.
Crack.
A crack. Sounds like *crack*, sharp and loud and ugly. Feels like crunch, but on self, but not final. Feels like it could grow, spread across self, deeper and wider and longer, until self breaks.
Suddenly see something not there in the dark, something of a future. Time passes, with new marker. Crack, pieces fall, crack, less and less, crack, and I crumble. Still as rock forever.
I do not want to die.
But not crunch forever. Not trapped and moving until men freeze and then I kill them and then they are taken and then I am alone until they come again. Not forever. Sometime, but not forever. Do not know if other is possible, or if other will only be another future that is, then isn't. Do not know if future means freedom, or trapped. Do not know what is happy if not crunch.
But staying is crack, and crack is death, and I do not want to die.
Stop moving for now. Wait and think.
They always come.
Crack grows a little longer in the dark.