It’s spring again. He can feel it in the air. The stiflingly, suffocatingly humid air. If he still had to breathe, he might have found himself struggling between the vivid scent of must filling the air, and the condensation collecting on his decayed flesh. But as it stands, the only inconvenience it brings is the ever-worsening rust corroding his joints. And the maddening reminder that the world outside of this room is still moving forward without him.

The weather is worse than normal, he thinks. Though, he can’t be certain. He had long learned to tune out the sound of rainwater dripping from the ceiling and hitting the filthy, mouldy tiles. For all he knew, a tornado could have ripped through the town and knocked down everything but the crumbling, rotting tomb he remains trapped in. He didn’t care much to pay his surroundings any mind. Not after so long stuck in this dark, dreary room. The only thing that ever changed was the number of mouseholes lined the edges of the floor, and how far the mildew stretched across the walls.

How long had he been trapped here? He had lost track. Twenty years? Twenty-five? Maybe longer. He couldn’t tell. The obsessive counting of minutes and hours that he’d done early on had only served to drive him further into the margins of insanity. He’d stopped thinking about it, for the most part. If only to preserve what little of his lucidity remains. Very few things drew him from his thoughts, nowadays.

A rat pads up to him, squeaking, sniffing at the dried, blackened flakes of blood around his feet. He slowly shifts, sitting up from his slouched position against the wall. The rat startles at the unexpected movement, quickly darting under his leg.

A painful, creaky noise crackles from the shredded remains of his throat. Something broken, roughly approximating a laugh. It’s funny, seeing something scared of him in this state. Granted, that’s probably the most appropriate reaction to seeing an old, rotten animatronic, filled with the gore and carnage of its creator.

He tilts his head, spotting the beady black eyes of the rodent cowering under his leg.

Early on, he’d found the small creatures a pest. Insolent little menaces that often crawled up to him, nipping at the vestiges of the man he once was. But as the years wore on, and they became less keen on eating him, he found them… less insufferable.

He holds out his hand before the rat, and after a moment, it quietly emerges from under his leg. Its head cranes upwards, its whiskers twitching as it sniffs the decaying fur of the thing looming over it. Slowly, it creeps forwards, sniffing and poking at his hand with its blunt, slant snout. It climbs onto his fingers as it investigates, its short, sharp claws scratching at the bared metal of his endoskeleton.

It's hard to tell in the darkness of the room, but from the weight, he’d say it’s a juvenile. Were it not for his current condition, he might see the humor in a young soul finding him in this sorry state. But as he is, he finds no such insight in the interaction.

It’s a cold comfort. He remains trapped in the unwelcoming clutch of the dark, dank saferoom. Met with the presence of a creature perfectly capable of leaving whenever it pleases. A puny, filthy creature. Endowed with all of the freedom he could never again have.

The furred critter crawls along his hand, its claws digging into the ruined, rough felt covering the plastic and foam shell. He turns his hand over, and the rat skitters over his knuckles, squeaking as it’s raised from the floor. He holds the tiny creature before him, staring at the thing’s dust and grime-covered face. It stares back, crawling to the tips of his fingers to sniff at his 'face'.

The thing has no idea of the horrors he has committed. The pain and heartache he has put so many through. The suffering he has, himself, experienced.

It is oblivious to the mistakes of the world.

An innocent being. Unable to comprehend or commit such atrocities.

...

He supposes it could be worse.