Arkay kicked the blanket off his bed then immediately regretted it. His bedroom wasn’t cold, but it certainly wasn’t warm enough for his aching body. Every part of Arkay’s body hurt in a different way, and he couldn’t remember why. As he sat up though, Arkay remembered he had painkillers he could take.
Swinging his legs out of bed, Arkay glanced at the clock. He looked at it several times, blinking to clear his vision. He had overslept. By a lot. He was supposed to have woken up at 0700 and it was currently 0930. This annoyed Arkay, but not enough to hurry himself up. He didn’t need to go anywhere but he had been trying to wake up earlier and so far, he had failed miserably.
Didn’t matter. He was awake now. He put the blanket back on the bed and stood up, being careful not to do so too quickly. Arkay made his way to the kitchen, just as his stomach began to rumble.
For some reason, Arkay felt very, very hungry all of a sudden.
Luckily though, he had plenty of food around. Arkay first went to a lower cupboard to fetch himself a bowl, then to another cupboard higher up to choose from several types of cereal. He was feeling particularly hungry today, so he went for the wheat and chocolate pillows. There was a bottle of half-frozen milk defrosting on the side, which would go nicely with the cereal. Finally, he rummaged through the cutlery draw to find his favourite breakfast spoon.
With breakfast sorted, Arkay sat down at the dining table. It was then that he realised where he was and what was going on. The windows were all blocked off with heavy, metal bars. The doors were all locked. Outside, movement could be seen as guards checked every nook and cranny.
At first, Arkay decided to ignore this. He was hungry. He ate his cereal and realised he was still hungry. Part of him considered just getting another bowl of cereal, but Arkay remembered he had ice cream in the freezer. He decided to have some of that instead.
But as Arkay sat back down and began to spoon ice cream into his mouth, he began to notice just how closed in he was. Sealed inside his own home. He tried to think why. Was it punishment? Probably. But what did he do? He hurt someone. He hurt lots of someones. He nearly killed his friends.
Everything swiftly came flooding back to Arkay’s mind. The pain. The mind control. The torture. How he’d acted, how he’d retaliated. In his shock, Arkay accidentally knocked his bowl on the floor.
“You okay there?” someone shouted.
“Uh… yeah…” Arkay replied. He didn’t know who it was though.
“Need any help?”
“No.”
Arkay picked up the bowl and took it to the sink, only to notice that it was full of dishes he hadn’t done yet. He washed the bowl up, then went to put himself some more ice cream. As he sat back down though, he suddenly decided he didn’t want any more. Arkay looked around the house, becoming more and more aware of how messy the place was.
With a sigh, Arkay dumped the bowl in the sink alongside the other bowls of ice cream, then went back to bed.