Room 101
As he sat stiff backed and upright in the hard wooden chair, Jotham looked around anxiously. He could only see three of the walls, and the ceiling, if he craned his neck upwards, but that was enough to make him very uneasy indeed. They were grey and bare - not silver grey, but a horrible murky grey, that made it seem like everything was closing in on him. The room was rectangular; not at all wide; there was perhaps a metre between him and the nearer two walls, but it was extremely lengthy; probably about fifteen metres long.
On the wall facing him, Jotham could see a shiny black surface, a bit like a switched off television screen. He wasn't sure why, but for some reason it made him feel exceedingly edgy, and he kept shooting darting glances at it, to see if it had changed.
There were no windows in the room and only one door, as far as Jotham could see.
French, Jotham A. House in Keene New Hampshire
The boy and the dog
French, Jotham A. of Keene New HampshireIt, too, was grey, and had no handle. Anyway, he reflected, there was not a lot of point in trying to formulate an escape plan when he was tied to the chair so tightly that all he could move was his head and neck. Jotham couldn't even feel his fingers and toes; evidently the ropes had cut off his circulation.
Jotham groaned. He was extremely uncomfortable. The chair had a rough surface and he'd already felt the sharp pricks of several splinters pierce his skin.
The young man could hear nothing; he felt like he was in a vacuum or that his ears had popped. He was suddenly struck by the realisation that he could (and probably would) go mad if he never made it out of this deadly silence, and so strained his ears...