TWØ:

Tyler lay awake, his room shrouded in darkness, long intimidating shadows looming over him, making the space between his small bed and the door to his room dangerous and threatening territory. He was waiting. Waiting for that familiar knock on the door to his small room where he would be forced to eat and then be made to get dressed just in time to be set to work for the sunrise, regardless of how much – or in this case, how little – he'd slept during the night. Scratching his right arm, Tyler sat up, the worn wood of the bed creaking and groaning loudly with his movements. Tyler stretched as he stood, a shiver running up his spine caused by the cold night's air as his ill-fitting grey shirt rose to expose a sliver of his bare skin. He tugged his shirt back down with a sigh and moved over towards the small desk that resided in his room, flicking on the small lamp there, casting a small amount of illumination around his room.

Tyler's room was bare to say the very least. The walls were made of a cold grey stone with dark wooden floorboards, there was his small rickety bed in the corner of the room with the thin grey blankets thrown back and the wooden chair and desk that sat on the right-hand side of the small room just opposite his bed. The thin white curtains fluttered slightly in the icy breeze that slipped in through a crack in one of the windows giving Tyler a glimpse into the courtyard outside as the early morning sun began to rise.

Much like his room, the walls of the fortress of Dema were grey stone with no decoration and rectangular windows exactly like the one to Tyler's room. A stone pathway led down the centre of the courtyard towards a giant stone statue of a cloaked figure with its hands outstretched towards the overcast sky above. Just like they had throughout the night, strange and unrecognisable sounds and screeches echoed through the silent and desolate courtyard, sending chills down Tyler's spine and a cascade of goose bumps down his arms as he tugged the curtains closed. Any moment now there would be a knock at the door and his day would begin, precisely the same way that it had ever since he'd first woken up in Dema with no recollection of how he had even arrived at the fortress in the first place, he didn't even know or remember what the world outside of these grey and dreary walls looked like. 

A knock at the door drew Tyler out of his thoughts as he turned to face his daily visitor. The figure sidled in through the open door, making sure to lock it again behind them as it observed Tyler with its blank eye sockets through the white gasmask. They always looked the same everyday and their regimented outfits never changed, the same white hazmat suit printed with the black printed symbol of Dema; three rows of rectangles all outstretched in a circular angle expanding in size the further they got from the centre. The gasman – or rather gasperson – didn't speak as they stepped further into Tyler's room, stretching out one arm to present Tyler with his uniform for the day, a grey jumpsuit with the symbol of Dema printed over the left side of the shirt and a pair of plain black leather boots. 

Tyler took the offered clothing without a word, waiting until the gasman left the room, the door closing with a soft click, before he began to get dressed. He knew that the gasman would be waiting just outside of his room for him to exit as soon as he was fully clothed, and he wasted no time in stripping down and putting on the grey jumpsuit. He sighed, sitting down on his bed once more to slip on the boots and hurriedly tie the laces before he walked towards the door of his room and looked at the waiting gasman. "Ready."