He needed to write and realized he could write about all this, adapt what had been happening to him. Make a sci-fi story out of it. Trapped in a deserted prison city in an alternate universe.

Yeah.

Just a few pages…just to take the edge off…

But he had to figure out how to use this damn typewriter first.

BARBARA

Well, Ellie had been right. The sunlight shining through those white globes created a spectacular display.

The globes had rolled out of the passage at a steady pace and I dutifully stacked them one by one against the window until all the panes were covered. They must have numbered about a hundred by then.

I spent the rest of the day wandering aimlessly from room to room. I knew I should eat to keep up strength but my churning stomach rebelled at the thought of taking a single bite. I called Bess to see how she was doing but she still sounded borderline hysterical and kept insisting I leave Ellie and stay with her. But I couldn’t do that. I may have dozed off in a chair at some point—I’d been up all night, after all—but I wasn’t keeping track of time so I couldn’t be sure.

And then the light of the setting sun had reached the window and lit up the globes, changing their color from white to every shade imaginable, painting the opposing wall with a magical light show. An old rock album my father used to play—he never threw out his scratchy vinyl LPs—had a psychedelic song with lyrics about a valley of trees with prism leaves that broke the light into colors “that no one knows the names of.” Bad English on their part but it perfectly described what I was seeing. Some of the colors splashing on that wall were like no hue I’d ever imagined. I’d never taken LSD, but I wondered if someone on an acid trip might experience colors like these.

Finally the sun set and the light show faded.

I wandered to the kitchen where I heated up a can of chicken noodle soup and forced myself to eat.

Night had fallen by the time I returned to Ellie’s room, but a street light shining outside was now illuminating the globes from below, creating intricate designs on the wall and ceiling. As I gazed at the patterns, I noticed an odd stippling. I stepped to the window for a closer look at the globes themselves and saw that they’d developed finely speckled defects in their cores. An effect from the sunlight?

Finally, I could take the silence no longer. I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled a short way into the passage. I hadn’t brought the penlight and inky blackness stretched before me.

“It’s me, Ellie,” I called.

Her voice echoed back. “I know.”

“I’m not coming in, I just wanted to check on how you’re doing.”

“I’m fine, Mother.”

“Are you ever coming out?”

“I’ll be ready to leave day after tomorrow.”