It was not the first time the young American had gotten caught up in revolution. Less than two months earlier, he'd been evacuated from Egypt with other foreign students after protests erupted there.  Even for Tik, who had traveled widely, it was humbling to see the Egyptians rise up against their government and put themselves at risk for the freedoms Americans enjoy. It was an education he'd never anticipated. Now he was getting another one, in a windowless 3-by-7 foot cell.  Two times that first day, his captors led him to a small office where he was blindfolded and interrogated.  Speaking Arabic, his accusers peppered him with questions, weaved stories about who they thought he was and threatened violence. Tik, who began taking Arabic as a freshman, understood what they said, but under pressure his language skills faltered. He struggled to tell them who he was, that he had simply been roaming the city and waiting for a college friend visiting from Beirut.  "We don't believe the tales you tell," he remembers them saying.  They focused on the stamps in his passport: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon. They said he was a CIA agent or a journalist; that he planned to share secrets with his friend to take back to Beirut.  Over and over, Tik tried to clarify matters. Eventually, he was led back to his cell.  Day and night passed under the glare of fluorescent lights. To fill time, Tik knocked on the wall separating him from the prisoner one cell over and waited for a response. Back and forth, each imitated the taps of the other. It was a language of desperation and boredom, communicating only that they were not alone.  He thought about the American hikers detained in Iran in July 2009. Sarah Shourd was released for medical reasons in September 2010. But her fiancÃ©, Shane Bauer, and friend, Joshua Fattal, remain behind bars.
Numb. He decided early on he'd go numb. Getting worked up, scared, angry or even too hopeful would do him no good in a Syrian prison.Pathik "Tik" Root focused on making it through small chunks of