Chapter One
My heart has been trapped in a cycle for one year, five months, three days and two hours. Well, according to the battered watch that is hooked to my tiny wrist. I had had to wring the leather around twice so that it wouldn't slip off my skinny bones. One year, five months, three days and two hours is the space of time where I have had to manage living whilst the entire world was against me like a tide pushing the ocean shells closer towards their doom inside a child's sand bucket. Two clashes of a metal gun against my steal door alarms me that dinner is to slide through the gap at the bottom of the door any second now. I scramble pathetically from one side of the cell to the other. If I don't grab the steaming hot tray than the guard shall rip it to the other side and I won't see food for three more days. I honestly don't think my body can handle that again. When I catch sight of the bright orange slipping through the crack, I dig my claws into it and pull the disgusting gunk towards me.
"Little brat!"
I ignore the officer as I feast on the stale beard and the mushed peas that are turning into a swampy brown colour. My hands, that are covered in thousands of burn marks already, now have a few more to add to that vast collection.
"Hey, Eaton! How's the family?" I hear an officer from outside one of the other cells, ask. I have learnt a few things from my stay here. One is that the officers are not supposed to use their first names when speaking to one another in earshot of any of the 'patients', for safety reasons. Just in case the 'patients' wish to become people of vengeance after their stay. Every time I think about this, I almost laugh – almost smile. No one has ever left the prison. We either rot to death, are killed or top ourselves.
"Ugh, the food shortages are real tough nowadays, I swear, just getting worst." Comes the reply.
I curl my hands into the form of a fist, ready to punch through the concrete walls are shove the horrific, small amount of food that he had served me not a minute previous, into his ungrateful mouth. How could he say that? He and his stuck-up family have most likely eaten luxury food their entire lives are now that they have to cut down to two meals a day instead of three, they've set off in a fit. The angry fuels the heat burning my blood to boiling point in a matter of seconds. I wish they could just see through the solid walls. See me.
Suddenly, feeling my hunger disintegrate and my antagonism rise, I stand. Lifting the tray with my hand and sending it flying towards the door. The little looking window at the top of the door was open, letting the rubbish produce slam into the brown curls of Eaton's head. He tenses.
The adrenaline in my bones is starting to wear off and I feel the fear settle in my stomach. Bravery? Courage? Nope, sorry, they don't live here anymore. Must have moved away. I'm stupidity and fear and I'm going to stay forever. Have fun with that.
A muffled sound comes from Eaton. A growl is the noise that I would most compare it to. Either way, I'm scared by the inevitable consequences of my idiotic actions.
Flip. Click. Creak.
The door that never opens, opens and I'm faced with a steaming guard. I wish I could fall to my knees and beg for mercy and forgiveness but my feet are imbedded to the ground like an engraftment on a pen, forever there.
Eaton was always just the back of a head to me as well as the hand that slips food through the gap at the bottom of the entry to my cell. He was the deep voice that had conversations with the unknown guard next door. Now, he stands before me like a skyscraper to an ant. I am intimidated, to say the least.
"Follow." There is no questioning in that voice. I trip over my own feet to carry out his request by following him as he sets off down the grim hallway. I know the blueprint of the prison like the back of my hand.
I hear muffled screams from the end of the hallway from a room with the number sixty-three engraved beside it. As I drag my bare feet against the ice-like ground, I caught a peek in through the window at the top of the door. What I see shall forever scar me. A man in a very unhealthily skinny state is at the back, centre of the room, with a brown leather gag over his mouth, dulling his frantic cries. A crippling fear subsides in the pit of my stomach as I watch the man – creature, really – try to free himself of his confinements. I wish I could pity him but it's hard to pity the person you are deep behind a solid shell of lies and fabrications. It burns my core in a sizzling pan of despair to know that I am an early evolution of what this... thing is.
"You are our last hope! You are our last hope! You are our last hope! You are our last..." The monster in its dungeon continues to scream but not just the nonsense it was before, but actual words. I find myself glued to the spot like I had just walked into the construction of a cement pavement without noticing.
"Follow." Growls an unfathomable voice, right beside my right ear, sending cold shivers down my spine. It seems that my guard has stopped beside me when I did and is irritated at my disobedience to his order. I snap out of whatever daze that I appear to be in, and do as Eaton wanted.