PART 1: BUBBLES
I inhale deeply and hold it in while I pull the cheap piece of plastic from the bottle. I blow my breath out slowly, before I even get the soapy ring lined up to where I want it. A small drop of the soapy water drips on my standard issue blue shirt. Maybe I should be standing up for this. No, not even spilling the whole bottle of bubbles over myself is incentive enough to get me up off the soft grass.
About twenty small bubbles gently float around me, one by one popping as they hit the grass. I repeat the process, intending to do so until the bottle is empty. Two joined bubble catch my attention; they are falling at a much faster rate than all of the others. The concept of being joined to a second entity can bring on ones demise on faster, is not lost on me. I dip the ring-on-a-stick in the soap again, and raise it up for a third round.
Painfully, it's kicked out of my hand, a couple of my fingers snapping sideways in the process. It takes one-fiftieth of a second to get over my shock, my attackers maniacal laughing reaches my ears. I tilt my head to the right slightly, so I can look at her without straining my eyeballs. My attacker is new here, I have never seen her before; she has a unique tan and I would've remembered, rare as it is.
She stops her laughing once she find my gaze on her and she starts talking. Her words come out fast and presumably fluent, but to me it is like she is speaking in tongues. Her talking-in-tongues continues for a little bit, but she is getting frustrated. I can tell by her body language,that she is about ready to pounce on me and beat the crap out of me. Well… try to anyway.
Thankfully, I'm not the only one to notice. The giant man in white tackles her to the ground and tries to subdue her. She doesn't make it easy on him, her flailing, kicking and biting would've made a lesser man give up.
It doesn't take long, but he gets her pinned on her stomach while restraining her hands behind her back. She is facing my way and the look on her tanned face is menacing. I look away from her face to her hands, I don't want this psycho trying to tear into me before it's even my turn. The guards grip is pretty stable, he also manages to get her hair wrapped in his grip too. That should limit her movements. I look back at her face and wonder what she is here for. The guard gives me a sidelong glance, probably just to make sure I'll behave.
I will.
I look back at her face and she is still jabbering on in her native tongue. Everyone here speaks different and perhaps they expect me to conform… but I won't, perhaps it is they whom should bend for me.
Two more guards join the one with the angry lady, grabbing an arm each while the guard on top of her keeps hold of her hair. They yank her up and she faces me to scream some more. A glint of silver catches my eye; it is a thick necklace with writing that sits perfectly in the hollow of her throat. Maria. That must be her name. Or she killed someone and stole the jewellery off their rotting corpse.
Both are feasible.
They are gone in the blink of an eye. I look to my left to find my bubble blower, luckily, it is within reach.
I blew the last of my bubbles sadly, and they are now all gone. It is the guards who provide me with my amusement, so I have to go to one of them for more. I approach a new one, I've never seen him before and he is talking to another guard. I quickly scan the second guards appearance and note he is also new. The first is very handsome, sporting a mop of shaggy, honey-blonde hair, pretty standard red eyes and scars litter his body. The second has shorter brown shaggy hair, also littered with scars, but not as many.
I hold the small container up for him to understand what I want. Both men are a bit stunned by my actions, I'm not sure why that is though. I school my features to appear bored, but I am getting a bit frustrated. I want my damn bubbles, and these assholes are just staring like stupid goldfish. I wave the bottle in their faces a made a shooing motion with my hand.
They still stare.
I'm starting to think that they stole the white uniforms, when they should be actually wearing blue like me. The blonde one starts talking to me, but again with the foreign tongue some here use. Wait, I think he said Maria. That was the weird lady that attacked me. I point toward the isolation cells, and they seem to understand. They start toward where I pointed to, but I want my bubbles damn it! A small growl bubbles up from my throat, this seems to get their attention. I wave my damn empty bottle of bubbles again, and this time, they both nod once in sync, then take off toward the main building.
One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four. They come back. The blonde gave me my bubbles, while the brown-headed man starts to build a teepee of wood. I walk backwards three and a half steps and sit on my bum. I want to know what these guards are up to. They are the only two out here supervising us and I've never seen this type of behaviour from a guard before.
I open my lid and start blowing bubbles in front of me again. They are so pretty. I like how the rainbows are moving on the surface of the bubble. They all pop and I blow out another lot. I focus on a group of three bubbles that join and they plummet too quickly for my liking.
A banshee scream disturbs me from my bubbles, so I look up to find the two men dragging Maria over to the pile of wood. I cock my head to the side, trying to understand what's going on. I obviously know whats going on, but I don't know why they're doing it. The brown-hair man. Thats too long to address him by, think I will call him Nag 2 and the blonde Nag 1. That stands for not-a-guard. So Nag 2 has gotten behind Maria and has forced her to her knees. Nag 1 is laughing and talking to her.
Definitely not guards.
The talking seems to be going on for a while, so I start blowing bubbles again. I managed to get the bubbles lined up perfectly, so it appears that the Nag's' and Maria were all trapped inside my bubbles. A small laugh escapes my lips at the thought. All three look over to me in bewilderment, well, only for a second. Maria starts screaming at me and the Nags are quirking the sides of their mouths up in humour. I know what I'm laughing at, don't know what they're humoured about though.
I ignore them and go back to my bubbles, and they continue their talking, but it is starting to get annoying. I once again divert my attention to them, to find the fire finally lit. But they are still taking too long, so I huffed in exasperation. This gets their attention. I raise my left arm and tap the top of my watch with my right index finger three times. They understand, but don't care. Maria screams and launches herself at me. I don't need to react, because the Nags have her dismembered in a quarter of a second flat. Nag 2 picks up Maria's head, whispering in her ear while Nag 1 starts to slowly pick apart her limbs and flick the bits into the now-lit fire.
At least she isn't screaming anymore.
I watch the show for a further eleven minutes, when they finally wrapped things up. They toss her head in the pyre and I can't help myself, but I started clapping. Nag 1 starts yelling something toward the fence-line, for some reason.
A dark-haired, dark-skinned, wild-looking woman clears the fence line. My clapping has starts to slow, but I don't feel like stopping yet. They address her as Zafrina, I think. She nods her head toward me once, then gabbers on in their common language.
I decide that the show is over, so I stop clapping and lowered my back down on the grass. This batch of bubbles is much better than my last lot. I can get about thirty bubbles per blow this time. They start their descent down, to their demise, once again, upon my face and chest. The sun reflecting my diamond skin onto their rainbow surface has me mesmerised.
Then some asshole goes and blocks my sun.
I look toward my feet to find Nag 1 slouched down, offering me his hand while nodding his head toward the fence line. I contemplate momentarily before I take it and he helps me up. I don't mind going with him, I only had four days left until it was my turn. The old guards held their fingers up for me. Death would've been my destiny, it's everyone's destiny here. A least with the Nag's, I can have more years with my bubbles.