Illumination

He had been only fifteen years old when he was shut away, but now, after enough time had passed for a beard to grow on his hollowed face, his yearning to return to the pleasant family home of his childhood ceased; this dark, dank-smelling room was where his heart was.

It wasn't as though his needs weren't catered for down there. He had a small bathroom with a toilet that lead off the main room through a decaying archway, and though a majority of tiles were broken – being the cause of numerous light-deprived mishaps – it served its purpose. Food was lowered down to him twice a day via an old-fashioned laundry chute, and he could identify night and day through cracks in the solitary barred and boarded window in the wall opposite the door, so his sleep patterns were at least somewhat regular. He didn't mind the darkness, either. He'd heard that people with blue eyes can see better in the dark, so he liked to think that he was more well suited to the place than most, but, of course, had nothing to compare it to, so was left to wonder.
He had wondered a lot of things during his time in the darkness, though now he wondered less, being in what he liked to think of as his 'stage of acceptance'. He hadn't always looked upon his detention as positively as he tried to now. In fact, it had taken him many years to get through the various stages. At first denial, then attempts to communicate and bargain with his captor (none of which succeeded), then morbid depression and refusal to eat or read any letters of communication (he had gotten dangerously skinny during this stage), until he reached his stage of acceptance. Not to say that he had completely given up hope, but he now focused the majority of his energy on just getting by – that and thoughts of revenge. To him, nothing seemed sweeter. He frequently fell asleep dreaming up new ways in which he would achieve it.
Though his stage of acceptance had been reached, there was one single word that remained ever prevalent, seemingly burnt into his consciousness. He had scratched it into the door with a rusty nail that he had found lying about during the first few weeks of incarceration:
'Why?'

He was sitting cross-legged on his worn mattress pondering this question when he heard the accustomed rattle of his food being sent down the chute. There was a thud as it reached the bottom and he walked over and opened the hatch to reveal a meal of lasagne and reconstituted vegetables on a paper plate, still steaming from its time in the microwave. He was fed well, and for that at least, he was grateful.
He lifted the plate off its platform, looking underneath for a rare but welcomed connection to the outside word – and found it. Every now and then a note would be left under his meal: a note that detailed progression in the world outside his prison, written by the person who kept him there. This one started similarly to most of the others that he had received: attempting to justify his imprisonment; portraying her (Leo had discerned that his captor was a female by the neat, cursive handwriting the notes were written with) action as having a degree of kindness. He was not foolish enough to believe the majority of what was written in the notes, but savoured them, regardless.

"Things outside your haven look no better, I'm afraid.
Your continued protection is ensured by your confinement,
and really, your situation makes me envious.
Many would gladly swap places, given the choice,
rather than persisting to endure this unremitting oppression,
but this draws to an end.
Soon we will find out."

He stopped and read the last part again. "This draws to an end. Soon we will find out." Could this really be the end?
His thoughts went to his family. He didn't used to think that there would be anything to miss about his relationship with them, but the prospect of his possible death or freedom brought a new level of appreciation to the matter. If he were to be freed, he probably wouldn't see his father. He'd left a year or so before this all happened, but maybe his mother... He wasn't sure if he wanted to see her. They had never gotten along.
He opened his eyes to be greeted by the familiar darkness. He couldn't pretend that it never got to him. The feel of sunlight on his skin was now nothing more than an old memory or a distant dream. He would, at times, press his face to the boarded window; attempting to catch the knife-thin rays that slipped through, but the feeling remained elusive today, as it did every other. He crawled sleepily to his mattress and closed his eyes.

He was awoken by the sound of footsteps. Could this end be coming so soon? They were definitely descending the stairs – the stairs towards the door – towards him.
The hairs on his body stood up straight and he scuttled silently over to the door, pressing his ear to the coarse wood; waiting for another sound. At first there was nothing. He tensed, holding his breath; unsure of what was happening. After what seemed like half an hour, but what couldn't have been more than half a minute, a timid voice seemed to seep through the imperfections in the wood.
"Leo?"
Leo... That was the first time he'd heard that name since he'd been locked away. Thoughts and memories of the life he once lived came rushing back to the forefront of his mind. Leo the Lion, his uncle would call him – after the zodiac sign. He had never forgotten his name, but where he lived, there was no need to communicate – no possibility to communicate. When there is no longer a reason to differentiate oneself from another, the need for a name becomes defunct.
"Y-..." Lack of communication meant that speaking had also lost its necessity. He tried again, "Y-, yes?"
"I know that you probably won't understand this, but I want you to listen anyway."
Leo didn't say a word. The voice was definitely female, and sounded oddly familiar, but he couldn't pinpoint it. The prospect of the voice's familiarity disturbed him, so he rationalised: he'd probably never heard the voice in his life, because not hearing any for however long he'd been kept here surely means some connection would be formed with the first you do hear after that period, wouldn't it?
"When you were younger, you must understand that you were very hard on both your parents," she began. "When your father left, your mother was given the sole responsibility of your care. Divorces are hard on the children, everyone knows that, but you seemed to almost take pleasure in testing the patience of her already broken heart. You were all that she had left, Leo, yet at every opportunity, you would make her life a misery. She tried to do what was right for you, of course; sending you to counselling, but eventually she went looking for more desperate measures."
Leo's malice towards his mother had crossed his mind many times, but never really as a possible reason for being there. His ear, now red and sore from being pressed against the door so firmly throbbed loudly, threatening to obscure some of what she was saying. He quickly spun his head to the other side and continued listening.
"One of the things she read about was Stockholm syndrome."
Leo was not familiar with the term.
"Stockholm syndrome refers to a psychological paradox, of sorts. People that have been taken as hostages or kidnapped develop positive feelings towards the people keeping them captive."
How did she know all this? Who was she? The more Leo listened, the more the answers became obvious.
"There was only a roughly a twenty-seven percent chance that this would occur, but as I said, she was utterly desperate. If it didn't work, at least you would be easier to manage locked away where your words could not hurt her. So you were taken down here unconscious, where you would reside for the next ten years of your life. People came looking for you of course, Leo, but she couldn't let them know. She couldn't let them risk the failure of her plan. She told them that you had jumped in the river and taken your own life. An investigation was opened, but nothing was found – no conclusions were made, and I was left alone to cope with my loss."
There it was: 'I'. He stepped back from the door in disbelief, shock, horror and revulsion. It was her. She had done this to him.
He doubled over and vomited violently. That was why?
There was a dull clunk as what sounded like a large metal bolt was pulled aside on the other side of the door.
"Your ten years are up, Leo. For better or for worse."

As the blinding light poured in through the door that had trapped him for so long, Leo was temporarily blinded – now cursing his blue eyes, he stumbled backward with his hand in front of his face. When his vision finally adjusted, his captor – his mother – stood plainly in front of him. It had been ten years since he had last seen her, but Leo still recognised her worn face. She stood meekly in the doorway; flinching when he took a step towards her.

The number of vengeful scenarios Leo had devised sitting alone in the dark now raced in front of his eyes. His mind was filled with violent images as one moved quickly to the front, before being pushed back to make way fore another, more horrid one. He pictured himself grabbing her head and smashing it against the wall with all his force, of jumping at her and pounding her face into the cold concrete until her until it was transformed into an unrecognisable pulp. How the psychotic woman thought that this could have, in any way, made him develop feelings for her, he was unable to comprehend. His dreams had more often than not been of destroying her: she who had devoted her life to keeping him down here.
Now she stood before him, though, Leo felt sapped of life. All that his violent imaginings finally amounted to was his unceremonious collapse.
Leo knelt crying on the floor, sunlight finally illuminating his haggard face. He was free.