13
Higgs sat with his back against the cold stone wall, legs straight out before him, fingers drumming idly on the rough rock floor. Someone had carved this cell out of the mountain, hewn it and shaped it, but he felt no spark of life in response to his touch. There was only an emptiness, an ache of what once had been. No way to shape it to his will, to call it into focus. He was a prisoner, trapped. No way out.
He closed his eyes again, hoping for the emptiness of sleep to take him, to let him drift free of this numb dread, but it would not come when called. He had already slept for hours, perhaps days, yet no hunger or thirst troubled him. Perhaps he was not truly alive after all. Perhaps this was what lay on the other side of death. A holding cell. A silent, endless purgatory.
His fi
