The Zoo - Chapter 11

After they took Deb, Mortimer sat in his hut, alone and isolated, much like he had been before Deb ever appeared. He chose a corner of the room where he was certain the crowds above would never see him. The light never quite reached this corner, and it seemed to match his mood, the feeling as if all color had lost meaning. Now that she was gone, an old feeling had returned inside him, a feeling not unlike standing before an endless chasm with no bottom and no escape. He felt a premonition pressing against his ribs like the breath of a sleeping beast, stifling any hope that happiness would return.

For two cycles, determined from when the light turned from light to dark and then light again, Deb’s presence still lingered within the hut’s walls and shadows. He could smell her sweet fragrance, but each day it grew vaguer. Each time his meal arrived, Mortimer preserved each strand and cube of green, the leafy, bitter parts that she enjoyed the most. He arranged it all meticulously, like an offering, waiting for her return and that crooked little smile he remembered.

By the third cycle, her tray stopped arriving. There were only the reds and burnt oranges, and the greens were completely gone. Even those began to whither and decay, as if all evidence of her was slowly being stolen from him.

After the fourth cycle, Mortimer returned to his pacing. Most of the crowds had already found another place to be. His actions, however, caught the attention of the caretakers. The watcher began to come less and less, and he noticed a caretaker would occasionally appear, watching him for some time while scribbling something down on a board he held in front of him.

The world had become silent. Perhaps, it was too silent. In the past, he reveled in the silence that gave him peace, but now he could only feel fear. It had become evident that things were no longer okay. In his solitude, his mind began to panic. It became difficult to breathe. He stumbled and fell to the ground.

When had he last eaten? He was starving! Did they forget to feed him? Maybe, they had forgotten about him completely. His breathing became more erratic. His eyes became blurry. Was he dying? A small part of him welcomed that.

He didn’t remember falling asleep. Perhaps he hadn’t. Perhaps he had simply ceased functioning, like a puppet dropped behind the curtain. But when he opened his eyes, there were figures surrounding him—caretakers in their sealed suits, faces hidden behind darkened visors, their hands pressed with soft precision against his chest, his neck, the corners of his mouth. One of them barked something into a box on their wrist. Another examined his eyes with a flickering light. Their movements were brisk, clinical, and entirely devoid of recognition.

In his semi-conscious state, Mortimer came to a realization. Deb had been correct. The caretakers wanted you to act normal. When you didn’t act normally, they started to watch, and when you appeared in trouble, they intervened. They had taken Deb away. That meant, if he wanted to leave this enclosure, if he wanted to find deb, he’d need to be taken away too.

The caretakers poked him with a metal tool, and a coldness rushed into him. His heart slowed, and his body started to calm down. The edges of the room softened into grey wool and then vanished altogether.

When Mortimer awoke, he was still in his enclosure. It was the same outdoor environment. Another tray of food had appeared untouched by the gate. It was like nothing had happened. However, Mortimer had changed. There was a slight feeling of hope inside him.

He sat up slowly, pressing his hand to his head. The floor was damp. His skin was clammy. For a moment, he wondered if it had been a hallucination, but the faint ache in his veins told him otherwise. He managed to make the caretakers do something. They had used the metal stingers just like Deb described. They had seen him, and they had put him back.

His chest tightened with an electric shock. He really could get what he wanted from the caretakers. He just needed to know how to act. When he wasn’t normal, they would come again. His only choice now was to make sure that they were worried enough to bring him out there. This was the only way he could leave the enclosure. This was the only way he could return to Deb’s side.

The next cycle, he didn’t eat. Not even a nibble. He sat cross-legged in the center of the hut, staring at a corner of the wall, mouth slack, eyes unfocused. He rocked gently back and forth. Occasionally, he would tremble, letting his hands twitch involuntarily. When the watcher appeared above, he did not show any reaction.

Then he escalated. He muttered under his breath, strings of nonsense punctuated by frantic eye movements. At one point, he fell to the ground and lay still for several hours, holding his breath in intervals, twitching every so often like an insect clinging to life.

The watcher returned. This time, longer. Taking notes.

Mortimer smiled inwardly.

Two more cycles passed. He began coughing—loud, chesty, phlegmy coughs, invented but convincing. He scratched his arms until they bled, smeared the blood in erratic patterns on the wall. He urinated on his food. He yelled out strange words he had never spoken before. He did everything he could think of to make sure that the caretakers came.

It took seven cycles, but they came for him again. The caretakers entered swiftly, suits hissing, masks reflecting the dim light. One held a metal stinger. Another restrained him. The cold bite of the needle barely registered. He had done it. He had played sick well enough.

When Mortimer awoke, he was no longer in the enclosure. The room was smaller, cleaner. Sterile light hummed above. His wrists were bound with soft restraints, not cruel but persistent. Tubes were fed into his arms. Grey objects blinked and murmured beside him. Was this the place Deb had been taken?

He tried to move, but there was a caretaker there. As soon as he saw Mortimer’s eyes flickering open, he tampered with some of the tubes, and Mortimer fell unconscious again. He floated for some time between the world of sleep and consciousness. His thoughts were scattered like moths released from a glass jar. Sometimes, he could remember his purpose of finding Deb, but no matter how much he fought his sleepiness, he remained paralyzed in that bed.

That’s when he heard it. There were screams-raw and desperate. His body remained motionless, but his mind stirred trepidatiously. The scream echoed again, sharper now, less a sound than a claw digging into his skull. His breathing, still slow, became uneven. He tried to answer those screams, but only a moan came out. Instinctively, he seemed to know the source.

“Deb…” He barely managed to get out in a croak.

Mortimer tried to lift his arms. They wouldn’t obey. He blinked, though it took tremendous effort. Shadows swam above him, bending around sterile lights.

Then another sound—a higher-pitched wailing. Not just wailing, but a scream of pain. It was unmistakable in its urgency. It tore through him.

He jerked against the restraints. The buckles rattled.

Still, his mind would not fully surface. He was caught between layers, suspended in half-existence. Was this a death? Was he dying?

The scream came again.

Then her voice, clear and piercing, cut through all the fog.

“Mormer!”

The nickname that Deb had given him, unable to pronounce his full name. It was her name for him, and no one else would ever call him that.

His eyes shot open. The sedation crumbled like old paint. He felt his heart pounding in his chest. Real. Present. Painfully so.

He wasn’t sure if he had heard her screams or if it had all been in his mind, but he knew he couldn’t stay any longer. He fought against the restraints, forcing himself up. His movements were sluggish, but the restraint gave way more easily than he expected. He pushed off the bed and stumbled toward the open door.

He entered the hallway filled with light, and several caretakers who saw him began to back up before running the other way. He ignored them and walked in the direction he had heard the screams. When he heard a noise, he looked down to see a caretaker. They were cowering in a corner. When he looked at it, it began to shake. It was afraid… afraid of him?

They had captured him, fed him, controlled his life, and yet they feared him? Mortimer didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. However, he had another purpose, and so he kept stumbling forward, ignoring the other caretakers. He finally reached a closed door, and a feeling told him that this was where he needed to be. It opened with a single push.

It was a room similar to the one he had been in, except that there was a caretaker in white in the corner. He seemed shocked when Mortimer appeared, cradling something as he pushed himself into the corner. Mortimer’s eyes were on the table, though, where Deb lay. Her body twisted unnaturally, blood soaking the white sheets below her. Her mouth was open, frozen in a final breath. Her eyes were wide, unseeing. A metal box released a long, continuous, high-pitched tone.

Mortimer reached out and touched her forehead. It was already cold and clammy. He didn’t need anything else to realize that she had died. A sound brought his eyes up to the doctor. He had taken a step toward the door, but accidentally knocked over a tray. Mortimer began to feel a flood of rage, but the second he saw the doctor’s face, for perhaps the first time, he saw emotions.

The doctor looked at him not with fear, but with pity. It caused the anger inside him to dissipate like a deflated balloon. He gave a slight shake of his head and then held out something in his arms. It was small and wrapped in a white sheet, unmoving. Mortimer reached down and pulled back the sheet. That was when he finally put everything together.

Inside the sheet was a little creature. It looked a bit like him, and a bit like Deb. This was their baby. However, it wasn’t breathing. Its skull was misshapen, and it wasn’t breathing. Deb had become ill near the end of her pregnancy. She grew sick, and so they took her to take care of her while she gave labor.

In the end, whatever happened, whether it was because we were incompatible or the caretakers were too ignorant, she died in childbirth, and the baby died as well. Mortimer stood there for a bit in absolute silence, the caretaker in white standing in front of him nervously.

That’s when he heard a hiss of gas, and then the pain of a metal sting. He spun around to see a half dozen caretakers holding items that shot the metal stingers. Mortimer didn’t try to fight back. He didn’t try to stay awake. He merely dropped to his knees and then collapsed. The world went dark again, and he hoped it would be for the last time.