Time lost its shape in here.
There were no mornings. There were no nights. Only intervals marked by my footsteps and the dim light's quiet persistence. He tried to count once...I saw it in the way his lips moved, numbers forming soundlessly...but the effort exhausted him. Time cannot be measured where nothing changes.
That was intentional.
He slept often. Too often. His body needed it. His mind resisted it. Sleep came in shallow fragments, interrupted by sharp inhales and sudden awakenings, his hands clawing at the floor as if searching for something solid enough to anchor him back to himself.
Every time he woke, he checked the room first.
Then...me.
I had positioned myself carefully. Always visible. Never looming. Close enough to be unavoidable, far enough to feel safe. I wanted my presence to become a constant, not a threat. Something expected and something familiar.
The first rule of attachment is simple:
Fear fades. Routine remains.
He flinched less now.
Not gone...but dulled. The sharp edges smoothed into something quieter, more manageable. When I knelt beside him to offer food, his shoulders tensed, but he no longer recoiled. When my fingers brushed his wrist by accident, he froze...but didn't pull away.
Progress.
I spoke to him.
Not questions. Never questions. Questions invite resistance. I told him things instead. Small, harmless facts. Observations about the weather he could no longer see. About the cats behind the university. About the way the city sounded at night...how sirens became almost musical if you listened long enough.
He pretended not to hear me.
But his breathing always changed.
That was how I knew he listened.
I learned his silences. The difference between exhaustion and defiance. Between fear and calculation. He was smart...too smart. Even now, trapped and weakened, his mind worked constantly, rearranging possibilities, searching for cracks.
I admired that.
I rewarded it.
When he stopped screaming, I brought him warmer clothes. When he stopped refusing food, I let him choose between two options—rice or soup. When he managed a full circuit of the room without collapsing, I let the light burn a little brighter.
Control disguised as kindness is the most effective kind.
One day...perhaps the sixth, perhaps the ninth...he finally spoke.
Not to me.
To the room.
"Please," he whispered, voice hoarse, stripped bare of pride. "Someone."
The word echoed uselessly.
I waited.
He said nothing else.
That was the moment something inside him broke...not violently, but cleanly, like a thread snapping under too much quiet pressure.
After that, his eyes followed me.
Not directly. Never directly. But enough. Reflections in the dim light. Shadows on the floor. The movement of my hands as I prepared his food.
I could feel his awareness sharpening, narrowing...until it centered on me alone.
Good.
I wanted to be the axis his world rotated around.
When his leg failed him again and he stumbled, I caught him before he hit the floor. His body went rigid in my arms, breath hitching, heart racing wildly against my chest.
I didn't let go immediately.
I let him feel the steadiness of me. The certainty. The fact that I was real...and I was there.
He smelled like soap and fear and something distinctly his. I wondered, briefly, if he noticed the same about me.
I lowered him gently.
He didn't thank me.
He didn't curse me either.
That silence...that suspended trembling pause was worth more than words.
At night, when he slept, I watched his face soften into something dangerously vulnerable. Without the tension, without the calculation, he looked almost peaceful. Almost trusting.
I brushed his hair back once.
Just once.
He stirred but didn't wake.
'Soon', I thought.
'Soon he would look at me.'
'Soon he would understand that this wasn't cruelty.'
This was care...purified of hypocrisy. Stripped of abandonment. Untouched by the world's casual neglect.
I wasn't hurting him.
I was teaching him.
And lessons like these...
They take time.