The room is dim,

the only light that which spills beneath the door, trickling over the worn wooden floorboards, a pale gold stream caught and held back by the coating of dust on the floor. Small bits of dirt and debris cast disturbingly long shadows behind them, stretching back to merge with the deeper shadows which fill the rest of the room. There is little else which can be made out in the room, but there is a strong sense of isolation, of emptiness. The windows are blocked by heavy drapes, and behind them thick dark paper covers the glass, letting through neither light nor peeking eyes. There is an uneasiness here, a sense of fear and unrest, and a heavy, dank odor. Silence hangs heavily in the thick air, which seems to make mere breathing difficult. It is musky and warm, as an old unused attic in midsummer's heat, though the room is on the ground floor; there is no air movement, the blocked windows which have long been unopened drawing in only heat.
     Muffled by the dusky atmosphere, there is the sound of slow breathing, and what might be sobs, mixed with a few unintelligible sounds. The voice is human - but what it produces are far nearer the fever-induced mutterings of one long-ill then they are to words. Yet there is a plaintiveness to them, a haunting sense about the high, soft sounds, which give way for a moment to sudden light prattlings, as of a young child's first babblings. At times the sounds form combinations almost like those of words, but the tongue is clumsy and slow, even these chatterings slurred and unintelligible.
     A sudden loud thud resounds through the wall, causing it to shudder violently, and the voice to halt in a frightened gasp.

     For a long time, there is again only the faintest sound of breath in the musty silence and blinding dark.

     Some time much later, there is a knock on the door, and a low voice. "Stay back, don't come near."
     There is a slight soft scuffling, as of one being startled awake, but then silence returns, only breath and darkness. The warning is not necessary - she knows she cannot approach, and the pain from rebukes for her few attempts are more than enough reminder. Though she does not understand the words, she has learned their intent.
     Also, the brightness beyond the doorframe frightens her, she cannot look toward it without searing pain. She shies away as a sliver of bright light slides across the room, swallowing a whimper of agony. There is a light thump on the floor and a slightly louder grating sound - and though her voice is silent, she cannot hold back her stomach's eager plea nor her mouth from watering. In spite of her want, she dares not look up for fear of the brightness and the sharp words which might come. The words pain her ears; they have grown to hear the smallest details in the still room, and do not take kindly to sudden loudness.
     There is a sliding thud as the door closes tightly, followed by the shimmering sound of a chain and the heavy clunk of a bolt thrown, though she does not know what these last two sounds are. Nor does she stop to wonder, they are customary and she has long grown used to them. Besides, there are more immediate concerns: She immediately scampers across the floor, her palms and knees callused and long used to the rough wood, hardly noticing the occasional splinter unless they become infected, as they sometimes do. Delighted, she finds her prize well within her reach; there have been times it was not so.
     One particularly terrible instance persists in her vague memory - her sustenance had been once thrown to the other side of the doorway. By mistake or design, she did not know nor consider, for the motives of other persons are not a concept she has ever been exposed to. All she knows is the chain which bids her ankle to the immense wardrobe will not allow her to reach even the door, let alone beyond it. That time, she had tugged futilely at the chain, to be rewarded only a chafed and bleeding ankle for her efforts. She had tried to find something with which to reach out and move the food closer, but had found nothing which extended her reach more than a foot or so. Even in the dim gloom of the lightless room, she had known it was not nearly enough, and had cried until the wall again shook and made a loud sound, startling her for a time out of her hunger and thirst.
     And she had not eaten until food was brought to her again some very long time later - she has no concept of hours or days, but knew only that her stomach ached with want and her tongue felt large and dry in her mouth.
     But happily this is not the case now, and she eagerly begins picking away bits of the slightly stale bread she has gathered into her lap. She pinches off a tiny piece at a time, eating the smallest morsels slowly. After a few of these, she reaches for the crudely-made tin cup, obviously ancient and abused, never washed. Lifting it to her lips, she delights in the slick wetness as she allows a small trickle run over her lips and tongue, savoring it in her mouth a moment before letting it soothe her throat.
     She shakes her head in glee and contentment, feeling her long matted hair tease lightly over her face, but making no sound. The outside voice is still too near in her memory; she will not risk doing anything to hasten its return. It frightens her.
     She takes a few more pinches of the bread, and a second previous sip of the water, then almost reverently places them in a specific place against the wall. This is as she always does, eating only enough to quell the pangs which twist her insides and keep her from sleeping when she is tired. She does not know when she will be given more. In one certain place, demarcated by some means only she knows, is where after each meal she sets aside what she does not ingest, so she is always able to easily find it in the ceaseless twilight of her world.
     This place is all she remembers. She has no knowledge of anything other, only silence, solitude, hunger, the taste of bread and acrid water, the sleek restraint of metal around her ankle, the ever-present drag on her leg's every motion, the rough bare floor, the feel of dust and oil on her skin, hair falling into her eyes, darkness and thirst and a feral anxiety.
     Yet there must have been a time where once she had contact beyond the fearful voice through the wall and the door. For when her body has taken what it needs from her scant meals, her memory holds that she has always used a bucket to one side of the room. Though, it is possible that she merely used it without forethought once, and then upon realizing some days later that it had been emptied, she had continued to use it. There are times now when it goes for a long while without being mysteriously emptied. More than once its contents, gradually added to as they are, more than filled the bucket, and the pungent liquid spilled over onto the floor, gradually seeping in and between the wooden boards. Eventually the smell had grown so bad she had begun to constantly wretch dryly, and she had barely been able to eat, as the smell had soaked through her tiny store of water and bread, spoiling the taste. She fell into a troubled sleep, feeling hot and cold at once, waking in chill sweat and violent stomach cramps, but too weak to move. This continued for a very long time to her, until upon one waking, she found the smell greatly lessened. Her eyes slowly and hazily focusing, she saw new food on the floor near the doorway, and had eaten eagerly, no longer caring in what pain she had so recently been in. And she continued to use the bucket, and it was empty with slighter greater frequency.
     Having set her precious food aside, she sits still for a time, feeling her body digest. She curiously touches her hands to the small area of distended skin - what was meant to be the softly chubby belly of a child, but now hangs from frail bones with far less cushioning surrounding them than there ought to be. She gurgles quietly, feeling the inner workings of her stunted, scrawny body in amusement, her palms pressed flat against the thin skin guarding her insides.
     Once her stomach has quieted, she curls up near the wardrobe, on a patch of floor that is ever so slightly worn smoother by her having laid thus countless times. She closes her wide eyes, and sleeps, seeing no more colors with eyes closed than with eyes open.

     When she wakes, it is to a light trickle running down the side of her leg, and she scuttles over to hold her groin over the bucket. She shakes her hips a little to cast off the warm drops, then wipes herself with one hand, wiping her hand in turn across the peeling paper on the wall.
     Idly, she pads softly around the room, trailing her hand over the walls, her fingertips tracing an invisible filigree. Her lips move in motions of her own creation, though they make no sound. What games are played are all her own, and she has no words to describe them. Her ears perk - she skitters on all fours over the worn, dirty boards, to kneel up by the panes of paper-covered glass, ducking behind the rough drapes. She seeks no new and wondrous vision before her - sight is one of the senses she pays least heed, for she has long known there is little to see in a dim, bare room.
     Pressing her ear to the rough paper, she feels the smooth coldness of the glass window she has never seen. And she holds herself perfectly still in excited wonder, as she hears a soft pattering on the window, steady and soothing. The sound of the rain is all she knows of it, yet it is enough for her to love. The sound caresses her, as loving fingers she has never felt against her young cheek. She shivers in delight, the thrill inside her too deep for her usual expressions of happiness.
     She remains beside the window until at last the sound slows and fades away, when she places a palm plaintively against the covered window. The drops which seek out the windowpane are the nearest that she has to outside contact, the soft staccato of their conversation the nearest she has known to kindness.
     Lightly, she taps her fingertips against the silent hidden glass, in echo of her now-absent friend. Her eyes fall slowly closed, as the soundless darkness of her isolation again pulls her in to dreamless sleep.