Familiarity
When people walk, it is generally to get from one place to another, with a specific purpose in mind. The purpose could be as simple as the desire to get from that one to place to the other, or could be something more complex and hidden. However, my stance, movement and general demeanour indicate that I have no purpose. I'm just walking. It is as simple as that.
Then again, there isn't much else to do in a slam, especially one on Crematoria. Walking becomes a habit and, quite quickly, the prisoners get used to walking without a purpose, including me. At first, they would invent one. Any reason that popped into their head, just for an excuse to move from one place to another. Just for an excuse to not stand still for too long. Then, as time grew on, the reasons got more and more ridiculous, until there was really no point in justifying it; so they just walked.
I had passed that stage a long time ago, and now I'm walking without even thinking about it. People observing from the outside would refer to it as wandering rather than walking, but ask any of the prisoners and they would be adamant that they were walking. Definitely walking. I glance around the dimly lit prison, which doesn't actually seem so anymore, since I have grown accustomed to the poor lighting. I contemplate going in search for Rust, a dim-witted fellow inmate with a short fuse. Although slow and sluggish, both in his mental and physical attributes, I always find slight amusement in winding him up. This often ends with me temporarily knocking him out, since he always assumes he could kick my arse, so to speak. Perhaps slow and sluggish are words that are too kind.
A familiar grunting noise captures my attention, and an almost indistinguishable smile graces my features. Looks like Rust has decided to find me. Standing still, which is not something I do often, it takes me a few moments to realise that I am not his target. Following his gaze, my eyes widen in…I can't describe the feeling, but it's something totally alien to me.
Dangling calmly from an incredibly thick chain is someone I have not seen for five years. Someone who haunted my dreams for the best part of those five years. Someone I assumed was dead.
Richard B. Riddick's familiar voice echoes around the prison, but I can't make out what he's saying. I sit down on a rather uncomfortable set of rocks, something else I don't do much and, feeling a sharp stab from the pointy rocks, I realise why. I don't adjust my position, though. I just sit there, uncomfortably, and look at what seems like a ghost. I look, but I don't really see. A familiar leap in my chest jolts me, and thoughts I thought had died, thoughts I thought I had buried, come swimming to the front of my mind.
'He's come back for me. He's come to save me.' The millions of thoughts are merely different interpretations of this. The voice in my head, the one whispering these thoughts, is one I thought I had buried, also. It is whiny and immature, filled with hope and naivety. Childish.
The sudden appearance of the man with the coolest eyes ever has stirred Jack. I shake my head foolishly at this thought. Jack is gone. Jack is dead. I won't let this familiarity bring her back. It's not fair.
I stand up and walk over. Rust is dead. Not sure how it happened, but I know who did it. He hasn't seen me yet, but the smirk plastered on his face is all the evidence I need. He has come for me. Then I see his head inclining this way and that, his goggled eyes searching for someone, and it hits me. He isn't looking for me. He's looking for Jack. He didn't come back for me. He came back for Jack.
The pain that rips through me is unbearable, made worse by the self-loathing. I should be relieved, should be glad he hasn't actually come back for me. Instead, I'm frozen to the spot, grief and betrayal coursing through my every vein. The abandonment I experienced five long years ago washes over me with clarity and new vigour.
There he is, standing in the middle of the prison. He broke free of his chains with ease and class, and now he is standing there, waiting for someone who doesn't exist. He is unaware of his familiarity to me. Unaware that he has caused these familiar emotions to bombard me, emotions that I had thought I had buried. Buried along with the person he is waiting for.
And for all the love Jack holds for him, all the worship, respect and trust the dead girl can muster, just for him. For all the happiness she is suddenly feeling because those emotions weren't wasted on him, he did come back, just as she had honestly believed, I match with the only emotion I, Kyra, have come to know and experience. The only emotion that has become my familiarity over these long, long years. I match Jack's feelings with simple, unadulterated hate. Hate for the man Jack adores, the man who has come back for her, but not for me.
The familiarity he instilled when he dangled obnoxiously in the middle of my prison has since died, along with Jack, having been resurrected for a few unbearable minutes and I glare at the familiar bald-headed man. I withdraw the shiv from my leather boot and approach him unflinchingly from behind, pressing it against his neck. And I so badly want to press deeper, to slit his throat open, as watch as his life fluid drains steadily from his body, because of me.
But I don't, because of all the hate that rages inside me, all the hate that is commanding me to kill the bastard, there is Jack. And she stops me. I, Kyra, despise the fucker that is Richard B. Riddick and wouldn't blink before ghosting the twat. But Jack, she's still here, and she loves him with all her strength. And Jack is a damn strong girl. So I say, with a voice that is so familiar, yet I haven't heard for years;
"Where the hell can I get eyes like that?"
