The Darkest Place
Mia Weinman-Koksvik | Brentwood Secondary College |
7/8 English | Term 2 2025
Everyone turns on the light because everyone fears the dark. You can lie all you want but, in that moment when the darkness creeps up on you and fear stabs at your heart, you will turn on the light. Being in the dark means you don’t know what you’re up against.
I wake, blinded by the white lights and a piercing headache. Sitting up, I pull myself off the hard, white bed to find white walls, a solid metal door, and silence. I bang on the door, shattering the silence and earning myself a lot of unwanted attention. Men in black storm in, (finally, something to contrast the blinding white) but my relief is short lived. They wordlessly push me against the wall, cuff my hands and blindfold my eyes.
Next thing I know, I’m in a room with 19 other men, all wearing white, none looking at me. I am shoved down onto a bed, and left there to wonder what the heck is going on. My confusion must be blatant, written all over my face, but the act of showing this emotion feels unnatural. A vulnerability. A fleeting memory of hiding behind a blank stare teases at my mind. As soon as the men leave, another man wearing white sits down next to me, a grin breaking the mask on his face. I read the number on his jumpsuit – 246 – and look down to see one on my own: 249.
“New here, huh?” His voice is unnervingly cheerful, and young. I realise he can’t be any older than me, barely 21. “I’m Max, but don’t, like, say it in front of the guards, ‘kay?”
Guards. So that’s what those men in black were. There’s something familiar about this man though, something trusting. I still barely know what’s going on, so I’m not about to stay in the dark. “Where are we?” I rasp out, voice croaky from misuse.
Max grins, again. “In the Containment Sector of the Republic, where they put everyone they call ‘crazy’,” Max makes air quotes and continues, “but, really, it’s anyone who opposed the Republic. Not that there are a lot of us. Listen, you can’t-” He stops abruptly as guards flood the room, his face suddenly expressionless. Without thinking, I mimic him. I copy him all the way to the Food Hall, noticing everyone’s facial expressions. Or lack thereof.
After a day of doing useless work, lugging bricks from one end of a warehouse to another, we are finally led back to the sleeping quarters. Max grabs me, eyes wide as he whispers in my ear, “Don’t take the pills,” pushing me away as guards enter. One approaches me, and I take the small cup of water he shoves at me, and the other with three pills. He watches me intently, so I put them in my mouth, take a sip and swallow. The second the guards leave, I spit out the pill hidden under my tongue, and notice Max’s wink at me from across the room as I throw the pill under the bed. Not the best solution, but what the heck else am I supposed to do? This place is making me feel crazy, but I know I’m not.
I know, don’t I?
The next day, during our monotonous brick-moving task, a guard passes by. For a brief moment, our eyes meet, and something flickers in his gaze—recognition? He quickly looks away, but the feeling lingers.
__________
It’s hard to say how long I’ve been here now. Days bleed together. Time isn’t measured in hours anymore (not that there are any clocks). It’s measured in the pills I don’t take, the meals I don’t taste, the bricks I mindlessly haul. Every morning, the lights snap on and every night they dim. In between: silence, routine, the hum of compliance. The deafening silence.
Max hasn’t talked in a while, and I start to wonder if I imagined it. Sometimes, I feel him watching me, no talking, just watching. Waiting.
For what?
Do you know that humans are some of the most adaptable creatures on Earth, that we normalise pain, suffering, torture? Do you know that we are also some of the best at hurting each other, and that you don’t have to hurt someone physically to really harm them? Your mind can be the darkest place. But, in here, the monotony takes over, and it’s actually not that bad. Once you find the rhythm, it becomes normal, and normal is not so bad. I don’t know much anymore but what I do know is that I won’t give up.
At some point, I start to lose myself in the mindless pattern: wake, walk, eat, work, sleep. The empty stares, the slow steps, the weight of silence pressing against these constricting walls. Really, I have no problems. I don’t need to think. I get food, sleep, no demanding relationships or the endless fear of being caught by the Republic. Not sure for what, though. My memory doesn’t extend beyond these white walls. I could be okay with this life. I’m used to it. I’ve come to rely on the consistency and it helps me stay away from the darkness of my mind.
Everything was fine until they came and everything I relied on crumbled. The dreams.
The first time, I was in an elevator, and there were men. They wore red instead of black, and their guns were held defensively, protectively, as if I was someone important, no longer a prisoner to be controlled. I looked down at my hands, at myself, clad in a sharp, black suit. I could see a cuff, but not the one that sits as a snug sentinel on my ankle now; rather, one of status, gold, with one large circle locked around a smaller one. The elevator dings, a robotic voice announcing Now arriving at the Council Chambers. Max steps forward to greet me, younger, brighter, yet his eyes are steely, and his shoulders hold the weight of the world. “If this goes wrong, it’s all on you,” he whispers to me, his eyes grave. “Everything.”
Then, for a while, there is nothing. Nothing special, nothing new. A few weeks go by until another dream happens. It comes with rain, cold, white lights in the darkness, and the unnaturally subdued hum of a controlled city. Running. The splash of boots against puddles, my terrified reflection on the glass I pass. Max’s accusatory voice, screaming out from behind me, “You said you’d come alone!” I turn a corner and nearly bang into the city guards, but they only salute. Then Max, next to me, voice quavering, “You’re lying, you’re lying to everybody. You can’t do this – you can’t be on both sides and expect to win.”
And then, another dream, but this time in the light of day. I’m in front of a crowd that extends far and wide. I am at the center, I am the conductor, and I sing out words I don’t believe in. “Compliance,” my cold voice speaks, commanding attention, “issues order. Ensures peace. I expect that everyone here knows that, and needs no reminders.” The guards, said reminders, stand armed and unfeeling around the people, cornering them in. My voice, it sounds so wrong. Scanning the crowd, I see Max, at the back. His face is stoic, but the anguish in his eyes, the betrayal, is all too clear. Why? He knows what I’m trying to do, he supports my cause, he’s a rebel as well! Why doesn’t he believe in me? Trust me? Panic rises in my throat as I continue addressing the crowd, “The best way to keep a man from escaping his prison…” I trail off, looking down at the paper in my hand with the speech. …is to never let him know he is a prisoner, the paper finishes what I can’t say aloud. Max’s handwriting is scrawled at the bottom. Don’t forget which side you’re on.
I scan the white room, back in my prison, eyes settling on Max. He doesn’t speak, but there’s fire in his gaze — the same fire I feel burning inside me.
“This isn’t over,” I whisper, more to myself than him. “I’ll be damned if they think this is over.”
Max nods slowly, a small, determined smile breaking through the blankness. “Together,” he says, voice steady. “We’ll bring them down.”
For the first time in forever, hope feels real. The darkness isn’t a cage anymore. It’s a challenge.
And we’re going to fight it.
