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Four walls. She had always thought -No-hoped she would die in the field, in the heat of battle with the rising crescendo of gunfire as her funeral music. Instead she was once again caged within a box like room awaiting her end, counting the seconds before it would be over with. So was the fate of Gretchen Morgan. Repulsed by her parents, the academy, and the general but firstly by life.
Draped in coarse, uncomfortable clothing and forced to endure unfavourable accommodations, almost similar to her captivity in the jungle. Irony knocking at my door!.
A hint of a wry, twisted grin curling the corner of her lips. At least being trapped in the jungle had some advantages; the noises chased away the deafening sound of silence, a consistent tempo to measure time. You could tell what time of the day it was unlike in the solitary pit where everything merged together into one, nothing seemed discernible except your presence in the empty screeching of solitude. There were occasions when the voices of other prisoners flittered through the heavy brass door cracked with rust, age and scratch marks. There was also a faint barely distinguishable whiff of the bitter coppery tinge of blood. Anybody else would think they were hallucinating, you couldn't smell it unless your nose was attuned to it like wild animal who depended on its bloodlust to satiate its primal cravings.
Sanity claws at the walls , struggling to remain in whole plate.
Her head lolled backwards on her neck, muscles sore with strain, and stared at the singular bulb glowing brightly, dulled over with dust and grunge. White light-maybe the prison staff had a sense of humour or their choice had more to do with tormenting their prisoner in her last moments. You can see yourself a lot better in white light, than a dim bulb. Darkness was the blanket of the wicked and the sinful according to Shakespeare. Her gaze shifted to the crassly designed, murky and soiled ceiling, then the floor and returned to the surrounding walls. All betrayed the same thing, the mind is sinking into a murky swamp.
Fleetingly she thought of Tyler, her unborn child who was murdered because he would be born different. The general was happy when he found out their baby was a boy-happy wasn't a sufficient word. The creases of his face lifted and the brilliant blue of his eyes sparkled with the charm of his youth buried by the callousness of experience.
Everything happened as if in a dream-Sadly it had to end when a DNA test revealed that the boy had the supposedly homosexual gene. The general swallowed the news with red-faced indignation and obstinate refusal. He wanted a boy, not a fairy and in time convinced her that the life growing inside her wasn't worth it. Gretchen took the easy way out because no child with them as parents could ever expect a normal future. She was saving him from a lifetime of problems and rebukes no child deserved. There was the pathetic optimism that she had done the right thing but fraudulent she was if she could convince anybody that Gretchen Morgan was cut out for motherhood. The second time couldn't be helped and it saw them move further apart because "a man as busy as himself had no time for woman who insisted on procreating in mistakes". In time he commences to call on her when her expertise was required on a mission, their trysts slowly sidelined to the past and made up very little of the future. The torture was the last straw especially for someone like her who had remained dedicated and loyal bordering on subservient. He had spurned her with the insensitivity only a man of his tenacity could administer.
Don's words filtered through her conscience invoking a wry, crooked twist to her lips. Maybe the traitorous man wasn't far from the truth, certainly the men in her life were entitled to some kind of punishment. They never appreciated her or what she did for them which was more than their own wives. Gretchen quickly climbed to her feet, started circling her limited space because she couldn't ignore the cramp in her legs, from hours of seated contemplations, any longer.
Wonderful dreams await your sleep
Filled with laughter and sweet things
Spring is eternal in your dreams
Toys, unicorns, kittens and candy canes
Jewels, princes, fruits and palaces with stables
There is a special fountain filled with maple syrup
Gretchen didn't know for sure, but she imagined she would have liked to recite the verse to her daughter by her bedside, every night given the chance. Emily's cherub face bright and interested under the glow of the lamp, nestled under the Barbie covers waiting patiently for her mommy to complete the daily ritual before giving herself up to an uneventful sleep. Her sleeping beauty. Straight from a movie scene with the perfect, happy family. The verse began as a haiku but persisted to a small verse that carried the weight of a child's once cherished ideals.
"Gretchen, you have a visitor!" The guard's gruff announcement seeped through the spaces of the door, it was nondescript, a barrage of muffled voices with no faces. Or faces with monotony and dullness rolling off their fat. She barely elevated her head but thought her body was lifeless, a twinge of fright interrupted. Gretchen had had only a couple of visitors, all relentless in drilling into her the consequences of talking. Her daughter and sister were not likely to come unless they had been forced or worse-The general had nothing but cold contempt for her and even if he wanted a last goodbye, it would be by means of a bullet, the final ending to the modern tale of lady Macbeth, who paid for her treachery and her manipulation. After all the flattering speeches the woman should have been made of sterner stuff but maybe she still had the conscious that Gretchen had easily discarded.
For a fleeting moment, terror pierced her heart but it was half hearted because the aches and groans of her weakened limbs had engendered the pain to weld into her. Eyes rolled to the door, uninterestedly in anticipation of the guest of the day. It was probably another man, the girls of her life thought prudent to stay away. Shocked disbelief courted her as Michael Schofield entered in leisurely, reticent strives. The piercing light was reflected in his eyes, giving them a brilliant, stony sheen. "Hello, Gretchen!" Dropped from his lips like the slagmites of thick ice, "I'm betting you're surprised to see me!" Folding her legs against her despite the cry of protest, she lifted her head to face him squarely, a bleak resolute line balanced on her shoulders. There is something impressive about his entrance or maybe he is just larger than life taking into mind his recent actions.
Inwardly she cringed at the sticky mess that coagulated between her thighs, but if there was any glimmer of her ordeal then she wouldn't be Gretchen Morgan. Noting his stoniness, briefly she entertained idea that he was going to end her existence. Relaxing slightly, resigning herself to the inevitable because why insist on living another day when her body shrieked her weakness every minute.
"Not at all Micheal!" Retorted equably and disarming cordiality, resuming her impervious façade regardless of the chinks in her armour. "I figured that once the general was done with you-you would soon join your brother."
"I'm not working for the company!" Snapped harshly, assuming a frosty affronted air. The barest hint of a snide grin tweaked her lips, "Then for is it that I hold the pleasure of your company? I certainly hope it is not some stalker infatuation you have for me!" Michael's eyes glazed over with pure, unadulterated hatred and detestation and she had to release a heavy sigh for the events that were about to unfold. Granted he was going to start working her over because of some imagined or real slights that occurred during their entwined providence. Her skin tingled and peeled under the heat of his stare.
It slithered into her consciousness. Fear. Because no matter a carefully laid out strategy, Michael would remain the enigma and wouldn't walk the line. The woman who had made it her business to stay a step ahead of the game..Micheal made her feel that she was playing chess while he had already traced the path to her queen. There wasn't a lot reasons for him to be here unless it was a lover's trial. "Is that why you're here? Michael. Come to slay the big, bad dragon for your lady love?" Said archly and with baleful cockiness. Her voice hitched, partly due to stress and her impending damnation. Through mere slits the light of his anger flickered dourly. A shrill cry of dread rippled through her spine before her eyelashes flickered to direct her pathetic gaze to the tattered floor, which is embellished in filth and human suffering. Eventually, it had come to claim her also , wrapping her skin and adhering her to it.
When she raised them to meet his he had crossed the short distance to stare at the wall where someone had scrawled jagged marks. Maybe it had one day made sense but the remnants of the person had dissipated with time. Now anything residual chipped away at the present occupant's sanity, it was the norm of solitary. The past set the precedent for the future. You could imagine the tormented agony of those gone by. Honestly, for a second she thought Michael could read the signatures of the wall. "Where are they holding my brother?" Suddenly she heard a male voice tersely ask hoarsely. "They are not holding him anywhere-neither are they forcing him to do anything against his will." Smiling woodenly, displaying canines streaked red and brown. His face became drawn in a cold mask; lips pursed tight, unspeakable curses heaped her prostrated frame while his eyes regarded her with subtle violence. "Where can I find him?" The emotion is budding and tension begins to creep into the room because for a long time the atmosphere was static. "I wouldn't know!" Shrugging her shoulders vainly, spitting out the coagulated mixture of blood and saliva onto the floor. There was an almost whipped look in her eyes like a rabid, beaten down dog but then he could be mistaken or he wasn't bothered because the fiery spite and rancour still thrummed through his veins.
In his vision he saw her as company product and an abnormality deserving of no pity. "I think you do-" Then he looked directly into her eyes, cackling with some electricity. "You were 'involved' with the general-" "I don't know where you get your information from, Michael!" Interjected with a sour edge to her mocking, dry spirited tone, "But the general and me were never 'involved'-it was just sex." Giving him a full toothed vapid grin. "That is why you pulled that little stunt!" Raising his brow in that typical, shrewd, intuitive facile as if had already unearthed the contents of her mind.
'You and I are going to spend some quality time!' Lustrous with uninhibited promise.
"When the exchange is over-you better run for your life!" Responded with glibness that was tilted toward scorn
A wisp of old memory from their many confrontations, her seclusion seemed to scream louder, the sheer pressure of their predicament grinds in their bones. "I want everything you know about the general's operation!" Stressed with heated, ferocious coercion, "And you are not going to lie to me!" A snort left her lips, she couldn't help it. Despite her 'prostrating' condition, the venomous snake wasn't going to crawl on her belly. Snakes flared treacherously even if their poison had been milked. "You really had this speech planned before you walked in, didn't you?" Candidly and brazenly scathing, "You are not as convincing as your brother but he being the thug can do it better!" Shrugging her shoulder though it hurt, the tendons delicate enough to aflame the nerves.
"Don't waste your time Micheal! Once your brother is done then you can all return to your normal lives. The general only wants one thing, He is very single minded in his quest to retrieve Sylla-" However, Gretchen didn't appear to believe, working on sounding fixedly blasé. She was a demented, murderous monster who inherently couldn't or wasn't capable of anything other than anarchy.
By interrupting him, she had piqued him once, then to continue so conversationally and with added nonchalance, infuriated him. Seemingly everything that had transpired; the lives lost and the hours spent fighting was nothing more than drops of rain in a waterfall. That propelled him forward because his integrity was repressed under moulds of cynicism. Therefore, his lips thinned to a slash across his chiselled features before rigidly flexing as he recovers the photograph that had been pushed deep into his pant pocket. Time slowed to ticking seconds of self recrimination but it had to be done. Maybe one day he could recover fully. "We have Emily!" Those deadpanned syllables had a devastating effect on the woman.
She was reduced to a lowly peasant and he was Zeus. "Michael, You too!" The man was venerated as a straight arrow, a virtuous pigment of the noble human race. She was floored by this man who sauntered into her prison and threatened her daughter. "What have you done with her?" Throat parched and constrictive, wheezing her answers between her teeth. "Is she okay?" "Fine!" There is something warped about the man standing above her, like he wears the body of a known genius but his heart resembles a mechanical pump machine. For the life of her she cannot muster the strength to be explicitly hostile. "How could you?" Sad, wearisome sear into his shallow cobalt ones. His tongue licks the roof of his mouth, biting back a comment because his somewhere decency burrows under his skin. She is tired, exhausted, beaten down and trod over. Good. Should he feel sympathy? An innocent girl, sparkling blue eyes, a devious mimicry locking his gaze with something unheard of in a embittered mercenary's heart.
What do you think? Review and you will be justly rewarded. Definitely a second part where it gets more intense and emotional. ;) Micheal/Gretchen intimate. Lots of love for my reviewers-You guys are my rock!!