The woman in the pit has stopped talking.
Not gradually. Not a slow fade into silence. She just stopped mid-sentence three sleeps ago and hasn’t said a word since.
Tom doesn’t know her name. Never asked. Seemed rude at first, then seemed irrelevant, and now it’s been too long to bring it up without making it weird. So she’s just “the woman” in his head. The woman who used to talk about her garden. About hydrangeas and soil pH and something called companion planting that Tom never understood and didn’t care about but listened to anyway because it was better than silence.
Now there’s silence.
The other guy is still here. Still functioning. His name is Ray, which Tom knows because Ray introduced himself on what they all agreed was probably day one. Ray’s maybe fifty. Bald by choice, not circumstance. The kind of guy who probably looked intimidating before but now just looks tired.
Ray’s doing push-ups. Again. He does them in sets of twenty. Always twenty. Tom’s been counting. Forty sets yesterday. Thirty-eight the day before. Not because Tom gives a shit about Ray’s fitness routine, but because counting things is something to do.
The woman sits against the south wall with her knees up and her arms wrapped around them. Staring at nothing. Tom’s watched her for hours (he thinks) and she doesn’t move except to drink water and eat her protein bar when it appears. Mechanical. Automatic. Like someone programmed a robot to do the minimum necessary to stay alive.
“You think she’s okay?” Tom asks Ray.
Ray finishes his set. Stands up. Wipes his forehead even though he’s not really sweating. “Define okay.”
“I don’t know. Present. Conscious. Not completely gone.”
“She eats. She drinks. She’s alive.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Ray shrugs. “Then no. Probably not.”
They’ve had this conversation before. Different words, same meaning. Tom’s starting to recognize the loops. The way they cycle through the same topics because there’s only so much to talk about. The pit. The food. The sky. Each other. The woman’s silence. Ray’s push-ups. Tom’s inability to sleep for more than what feels like an hour at a time.
Round and round.
“We should try talking to her again,” Tom says.
“We tried.”
“We should try harder.”
“Why?”
Good question. Tom doesn’t have a good answer. Because it feels wrong to just let her disappear into herself? Because three people is already lonely and two is worse? Because he’s scared that whatever happened to her might be contagious?
“Forget it,” Tom says.
The food appears while they’re sleeping. Tom’s starting to hate that part most. The involuntary unconsciousness. The way his body just shuts down without warning. He’ll be sitting there, thinking about something (usually nothing, but the act of thinking feels important), and then his eyes get heavy and then nothing and then he’s waking up and time has passed and he has no idea how much.
Three protein bars. Three water bottles. Same flavor. Same size. Same everything.
Ray divides them. Not because anyone voted or agreed. Just because Ray started doing it and Tom doesn’t care enough to fight about it and the woman doesn’t react to anything anymore.
Tom tears open his bar and chews. It tastes like cardboard fucked a vitamin and had a baby. He’s thought this exact thought before. Many times. But thinking it again gives the routine a shape. Makes it feel like he’s experiencing something rather than just existing.
The woman takes her bar. Takes her water. Returns to her position. Eats slowly. Mechanically. Never looking at either of them.
“How long do you think we’ve been here?” Tom asks.
Ray’s chewing. Takes his time answering. “Stopped counting.”
“Roughly.”
“Does it matter?”
“Probably not.”
“Then why ask?”
“Something to talk about.”
Ray makes a sound that might be a laugh. “We’ve had this conversation.”
“I know.”
“Multiple times.”
“I know.”
“And we never get anywhere.”
“I know, Ray. I fucking know.”
The silence after that is worse than the conversation. Tom finishes his protein bar and sets the wrapper in the center of the pit where it’ll vanish next time. The woman’s already done. Sitting. Staring. Ray’s only halfway through his, taking small bites, making it last. Like that matters. Like rationing helps when more food just appears anyway.
Tom does laps. Not for exercise. Just for something to do. Twenty feet across. Forty feet deep. Smooth concrete walls. Gray sky. He’s memorized every non-feature of this place. The way the wall feels slightly cooler in the south section. The tiny imperfection in the floor near the east side that’s not really an imperfection, just a slightly lighter spot in the concrete that his brain has latched onto as significant.
He counts his steps. One lap. Two laps. Fifteen laps. The number doesn’t mean anything but he counts anyway.
The woman doesn’t watch him. Doesn’t watch anything. Ray’s doing sit-ups now. Different muscle group. Always got to vary the routine, right? Can’t let yourself atrophy. Got to stay ready for when you get out.
Except nobody’s getting out.
Tom knows this. Has known it for a while now. Ray probably knows it too but won’t say it because saying it makes it real. The woman figured it out before both of them and just decided to stop participating.
Maybe she’s the smartest one here.
“I used to have a job,” Tom says to nobody in particular.
Ray doesn’t respond. The woman doesn’t respond.
“IT support. Not the interesting kind. Just password resets and telling people to restart their computers. My coworker Jerry used to bring in these homemade cookies every Friday. Oatmeal raisin. Who the fuck makes oatmeal raisin when chocolate chip exists?”
Still nothing.
“I hated that job. Complained about it constantly. Would’ve quit if I’d saved up enough money. And now I’d give anything to be back in that beige cubicle resetting Karen from accounting’s password for the fifteenth time.”
Ray’s standing now. Looking at Tom. “You done?”
“Done with what?”
“The trip down memory lane.”
“Just talking.”
“We’ve heard it before.”
“So?”
“So it doesn’t change anything.”
Tom feels something hot in his chest. Anger maybe. Or just the accumulated frustration of existing in a space where nothing matters and everything’s the same and the only person trying to maintain some kind of human connection is being told to shut up about his shitty cubicle job and Jerry’s terrible cookies.
“What would you like to talk about, Ray? Your push-up count? The precise shade of gray in our ceiling? The fucking weather?”
“I’d like not to talk.”
“Then don’t. Nobody’s making you.”
“You are. You keep asking questions. Keep starting conversations. Like talking about it makes it better.”
“Maybe it does.”
“It doesn’t.”
Tom’s hands are shaking. When did that start? “So what, we just sit here in silence? That’s your plan?”
“I don’t have a plan. That’s the fucking point. There is no plan. There’s no strategy. There’s no way to win this or get through this or solve this. It just is.”
“So we give up.”
“We accept.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s really not.”
The woman shifts slightly. Both of them look at her. For a second Tom thinks she’s going to say something. Join the argument. Break her silence. But she just adjusts her position and goes back to staring at nothing.
Tom sits down hard. Back against the wall. Opposite side from Ray. As far away as you can get in a twenty-foot circle, which is not far at all.
The routine continues.
Ray does his exercises. Tom does his laps. The woman sits. They eat. They sleep. They wake. The sky doesn’t change. Time doesn’t pass or passes endlessly. There’s no difference anymore.
Tom tries to remember his life before. Really remember it. Not just the broad strokes. But it’s getting harder. Faces are blurring. Names are slipping. He remembers Jerry’s cookies but can’t picture Jerry’s face. Remembers his apartment but can’t remember if the couch was blue or gray.
It’s all fading.
Maybe that’s the point. Maybe the pit isn’t just trapping their bodies. Maybe it’s erasing them slowly. Not with violence or pain. Just with time and sameness and the absolute absence of anything new.
“We should name her,” Tom says one day or night or sleep cycle.
Ray’s mid-push-up. Doesn’t stop. Doesn’t respond.
“The woman. We should give her a name.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s weird not to have one.”
Ray finishes his set. Sits up. “You want to name someone who can’t consent to the name?”
“It’s not like she’s going to object.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
Ray doesn’t answer. Just gets up. Walks to his section. Sits down.
Tom looks at the woman. Really looks at her. Trying to see if there’s anything left in there. Any recognition. Any awareness. But it’s like looking at a mannequin. The shape of a person with nothing inside.
“Lisa,” Tom says quietly. “I’m calling you Lisa.”
The woman doesn’t react. Ray makes a disgusted sound. Tom decides that’s her name now. Lisa. It makes her feel more real. Which is probably stupid. Which is probably Tom’s brain trying to maintain some kind of order in a place designed to strip all that away.
But he keeps it anyway.
The sleep comes again. Tom fights it harder each time. Not because he thinks he can win. Just because surrendering to it feels like losing something. But his eyes get heavy and his thoughts get fuzzy and then he’s gone.
When he wakes up, Lisa’s in the exact same position. Ray’s already doing his routine. The wrappers are gone. New food is there.
Tom takes his share. Eats it. The taste is already gone from his memory before he’s finished chewing.
He does his laps. Ray does his exercises. Lisa sits.
The gray circle of sky watches them not escape.
And Tom realizes he can’t remember what came before this anymore. Can’t remember Jerry or the cubicle or his apartment or anything that felt real.
There’s only the pit now.
There’s only the routine.
There’s only the three of them, trapped in their own separate hells inside the same concrete circle.
And the worst part isn’t the pit.
The worst part is knowing this is all there is.
Forever.