Drome had no idea how much time had passed when he woke up to find the same grey walls around him. The same sickly light came from the ceiling and the same aches and bruises nagged for attention, but were now joined by a stiff neck from sleeping with his head on his shoulder.
However, the thing most immediately demanding attention was his overstretched bladder, followed closely by the uncomfortable pressure on his sphincter. There wasn't anywhere in the cell that could be described as a toilet, apart from the drain. But he had standards, dammit! How could they expect him to make use of that stinking hole? And, in any case, if he did a number two the small gaps in the grille would be... well, too small.
That must be why someone had sawn through the pins that had held the grille in place.
But the thought of using the drain like a squat-toilet and having nothing to wipe with afterwards was just too much.
He'd wait. Someone was bound to come soon.
Almost immediately, his discomfort mounted. He tried to think of other things like... fountains, erm, waterfalls... A faint sheen of perspiration broke out on his forehead.
The drain then. Despite his earlier resolve, it had to be the drain. His stomach lurched at the thought. He stood up into a painful half-crouch with his eyes fixed on the grille when the cell door clanged open. Hulger came in carrying a small, three-legged stool and a bowl. He pushed the door shut, put down the stool and offered the bowl to Drome.
"No thanks. I don't want anything right now. I'm desperate to, um, you know, go." Drome gave a theatrical wink.
Hulger looked at him blankly.
"You couldn't show me to the men's room, could you?" said Drome. "I really can't wait much longer."
Hulger seemed mystified. Drome was in no state to be patient. He grabbed Hulger's arm and tried to pull him to the door, but it was like trying to move a house.
"Now," said Drome. "It's rather urgent."
Hulger put the bowl on the stool. Drome could see the concern in his eyes. Then Hulger smiled.
That was nearly Drome's bladder's undoing. Hulger's resemblance to an overgrown wombat ended as soon as he bared his teeth. No vegetarian had any business having a mouthful of sharp fangs like that.
"Er, friend?" said Drome.
Hulger smiled again and pulled Drome out through the door and down a smooth corridor lined with similar doors and with lighting panels in the ceiling, only some of which were working. Every step jarred Drome's waste management system, and he had to concentrate hard to keep it under control. Any fear of Hulger was eclipsed by the discomfort in his nether regions, and he was only dimly aware of where he was going.
At the top of a crudely built spiral staircase that descended from a rough hole hacked in the stone floor, Hulger paused, picked up a lantern from a row on a shelf, and lit it. With another blood-curdling smile, he motioned Drome to go ahead of him down the stairs.
The climb down the slippery stairs passed in a haze of misery heightened by the moisture oozing from the walls and glistening in the dancing light of the lantern. Drome held on like a lover to a thick, rough rope that twisted around the central column, knowing that one small slip would be the end as far as his bladder was concerned. Possibly his sphincter, too.
When they reached the bottom, he hobbled after Hulger along an uneven passage hewn from the rock, the tapping from his cycle shoes echoing off the walls. At last they came to a nondescript grey door set into the side of the corridor.
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Flight of the Gazebo
الخيال (فانتازيا)Drome isn't paranoid. The entire world really is out to get him. And that world isn't even Earth. It's a weird hollow world that his whole village ends up in through a thaumaturgic accident. And to make matters worse, as soon as they arrive he's tak...
