2,400 Months

“Mr. Mercer…”

He felt like his body was stuck in slow-motion, much like it had been in the nightmares of his distant childhood. His mind was reacting quickly, but his body was moving like he was drunk.

After a moment, his eyes finally found their way to the judge, sitting far above where he was standing.

“Mr. Mercer, I hope you know I am not pleased to have to do this, but you are certainly no stranger to the courts…”

Although he wouldn’t allow it to form into a complete thought yet, somehow he already knew what was unfolding as he stood there wondering why his body and mind were so disconnected.

He suddenly realized how dry his mouth was. It felt like if he didn’t open it and drink something right that moment, it might get stuck to itself and he wouldn’t be able to breathe.

For a moment, the thought of suffocating actually made him feel strangely comforted, like falling backwards into a soft bed covered in pillows.

But the judge’s words kept pulling him back out of thoughts like these, even if he was only picking them out intermittently.

“Repeat offender…”

“I take no joy in handing down your sentence today…”

He tried to focus his eyes onto the judge’s lips as they moved to form the words that would deliver his fate. He fixated on them as if he were tripped out on some strong psychedelics.

Suddenly, his body felt a wave of panic wash over it. The effect was jarring, and he stiffened from head to toe. Fight or flight.

“You are therefore sentenced to the super max federal prison…for two thousand four hundred months.”

The brief, decisive sound his gavel made echoed in Zane’s ears. A second ago, he felt like he was choking to death on his own thirst — but now; he felt like he was choking on the brutal finality of what had just been spoken aloud.

Slipping back towards catatonic, he stood there trying to fully process what had just taken place, as he watched the bailiff move in his direction with those gleaming metal handcuffs open and waiting for his wrists.

Even now, he cannot remember any of the journey from the courtroom to the medical ward, where he was escorted immediately.

This next part was going to be truly horrible; the death penalty had been banned across the country decades ago.

He had a much more cruel punishment to dread as they strapped him down to the gurney. A loud, nervous laugh almost escaped him as he realized how similar this must have looked to the old execution rooms they had once used for lethal injections.

As barbaric as the practice had been, it looked like a mercy to him now.

“Can they really do this to people?” he wondered silently to himself as he watched in horror as a nurse prepared the shot that would keep him alive for his entire sentence.

They would make sure that he lived every day of the 2,400 months he had been given as punishment for his crimes.

It was time, and he had nowhere to escape to. All he could manage was a slight wiggling back and forth, they had strapped him across the forehead, the shoulders, the lower arms, the waist, his thighs, and finally his ankles.

It felt claustrophobic, as if he was stuck in the narrow passage of some dark cave that no one would ever find him in. The panic was setting in and he was suffocating.

He scanned the nurse’s eyes and face for any signs of compassion or humanity. He thought he may have caught a glimmer, but he couldn’t be sure if it had actually happened.

He probably just wanted it to so badly that he had imagined it.

If she had looked on him with any pity, she had shaken it from her expression quickly and was now about to stick the needle in his immobilized arm.

He squeezed both of his eyes closed as tightly as he could and let out a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a whimper. As his breathing became more erratic, the murmuring sound he was letting out in between punctuated it in perfect rhythm with his heartbeat.

He wanted to rock himself back and forth, but since he couldn’t, he laid there tensing up all of his muscles and then relaxing them over and over while he was mildly hyperventilating.

“Please…” he begged.

Each breath he took sounded sharper and faster than his last.

“Please, don’t…please, stop.”

Finally he opened his eyes for the first time in several moments. He’d been squeezing them shut so tightly that it took a full minute or more for his vision to slowly come back as he lay there trying to determine if he was alone.

Slowly, the nurse’s back came into focus. She was disposing of the syringe and cleaning up her work station. She wouldn’t look at him.

Before he could try to think of any words to say to her, the door swung open loudly, and a guard barged in. Zane couldn’t really hear what he and the nurse were talking and laughing about. He might as well have been on a different planet.

After what seemed like an eternity, the guard sighed and reluctantly walked over to Zane. He said nothing as he unfastened all the straps that had been holding him down.

Zane did not know what he was supposed to do now. He just lay there in terror of what would come next. They had made it perfectly clear ⸺ he was alone here.

The next moment Zane was aware of, he was waking up in an empty room. He squinted at the bright lights shining directly down on him. He was curled in the corner, trying to stay warm, but the chill had already pierced the thin layer of clothing they’d given him.

He looked around the cell, but there was almost nothing in here. Certainly no blanket or pillow, not even a bed. Just four walls, a camera perched in the corner where the wall and the ceiling met, a hole in the ground for waste, and of course the door with the slot for his food tray, which was sealed shut — as tight as his eyes had been moments ago.

How was he supposed to survive in this? How would he keep from freezing to death? What if they never brought him food and the slot in his door had rusted shut long ago. Maybe that was the joke. The guards laughing somewhere while he starved and screamed in a room no one entered.

He shuddered thinking of what it would be like to die in this place while everyone else in the building ignored you and pretended you never existed.

He needed to stop this train of thought fast before it derailed and caused a full-blown panic attack.

How could he possibly keep himself amused or entertained alone all day long, every day…for an eternity?

This was not a place with cell mates. He was not allowed visitors. They barely tolerated his limited contact with the lawyer he was assigned.

He wondered who he would try to call, if he could try. It’s not like he had a long list of close friends or family that he’d kept in touch with regularly.

His mom, maybe?!

Would she even want to speak to him? Knowing her, it might be more drama than comfort for him in his current predicament.

He sighed and slowly stood up, resting against the bleak walls for a moment. He decided that the only way to keep himself from starting to shiver was to move around, so that’s what he did.

The room was long and rectangular, which he was glad for. It was just enough room to lightly sort of jog mostly in place. He had to get his blood pumping and warm himself up somehow.

He wondered when they would bring him something to eat, even though he couldn’t imagine eating anything right now. Probably not soon, the way he was feeling.

The silence was a weight, pressing down until it felt like it might crush his skull.

It felt like his brain had been hibernating all day long as these people around him foretold him of his future of suffering as if it were some somber prophecy. It was just now occurring to him he should have asked his attorney about when his first appeal would be scheduled.

He cursed himself for failing to think of that.

Frustrated, he purposely threw his head back with moderate force, intending for it to contact the wall behind him. To his surprise, it had hurt nowhere close to how he had expected.

He turned around to inspect the wall he’d just attempted to smack his own head against, wondering if perhaps he’d already lost his increasingly fragile mind.

He balled his hand up into a fist and lightly punched at the wall. It didn’t hurt at all…in fact; the wall felt a bit…soft, if he wasn’t going crazy already.

Puzzled, he stood there frowning for a moment before he hit it with his fist again, a little harder than the last time.

It had some give to it. It was certainly not solid, he could tell that much.

“What the…” he trailed off, hitting it even a little harder still.

“Well, they aren’t padded, but…they aren’t hard either.”

Who was he even talking to?

Great. That meant he couldn’t even bang his head on the wall hard enough to hurt himself. He would not pretend the idea hadn’t crossed his mind for down the road, just as an excuse to visit the nurse again.

But it looks like these monsters had thought of everything.

Feeling defeated, he slid down the wall and sat on the hard floor, drawing his knees up so that they were right against his chest. He reached his arms all the way around the front of them and helped his own hands together.

He let out a big, long breath that felt like he’d been holding onto all day.

He laid his head down on his knees and hoped that sleep would take him back to oblivion soon.