A/N: italicized passages are from the journal from chapter one/the prologue. Read and Review Please!
It all started with the discovery of one tiny little minuscule thing. Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA as it's commonly referred to, was discovered in the late eighteen hundreds and holds the answer to each individuals anatomy; what makes that person who they are, both physically and psychologically –let's not talk about nature versus nurture for the moment—is contained in their DNA sequence along a regular double helix structure. Well, that is at least for the "regular" human being.
It was this discovery that led to this entire mess. You see, a witch's DNA has something unique about it that sets it apart from all others; the triple helix. I know, I know; it sounds like some kind of move you'd see in a figure skater's Olympic routine but it's not. In truth, it's the most important discovery to have ever been made because of its impact on society. Truly ironic, seeing as "society" has no knowledge of said impact, just as more and more witches are losing their knowledge of magic.
Phoebe ran through the woods, jumping over fallen logs and barreling through thorn bushes. The sound of dogs barking were getting closer and the pressure to escape grew more intense as she felt the possibility of it slipping through her fingers. She knew that there had to be a way to get out and leave this life behind, so she ran.
Phoebe ran until the woods thinned out and before she knew it there was a ditch coming up on her. At sixteen years old the girl was a force to be reckoned with as she had proven to the other inmates and the guards of what they liked to call Paradise Prison. Throwing her arms out to the side as if to find something to clutch onto for safety, Phoebe felt her adrenaline kick in when she found nothing to keep her feet on solid land. That was how the teen was forced to take the eighty foot dive off of the Island's cliffs, but escape wouldn't be that easy.
Two guards walked into the infirmary with a young brunette and tossed her at eighteen year old Piper. The shy young woman held the girl steady and walked her over to a cot before looking back over at the guards.
"What's wrong with her?"
"The idiot tried to escape the island and did a cliff dive off the southern shore. Make sure she doesn't get hypothermia," the short, mousy haired brunette shouted at her.
"Yeah, especially since we don't want her to die before she's taught a lesson," the taller, but significantly leaner guard responded.
Piper grew pale at the mention of the guards' punishment. She knew the guards were heartless; more robot than human, and usually more cruel.
Moving about the room, Piper grabbed towels and dry clothes for the younger girl. Of course she had known who it was the moment the two men had entered the room but Piper didn't want to give Phoebe any more attention than was allowed. She had made a name for herself as a problem prisoner and any attention from other inmates would get her severely beaten in a tactic to keep other prisoners from joining her break out attempts.
"You're going to be okay," Piper told the shivering girl as she began removing her sneakers and other clothes. "I'm going to dry you off with towels, but it's important that you dry off completely before we put new clothes on you otherwise the hypothermia won't get better," she explained and saw the other girl nodding her head through the shivers her body was wracked with.
Moving through the infirmary Piper went from drawer to drawer taking out towels, socks, sweats, blankets and anything else the girl would need. Putting it down on the bed right next to Phoebe, Piper thought for a moment and went into the bathroom to grab the blow dryer and brush.
"Don't worry. Everything's going to be fine."
"The guards," Phoebe said through chattering teeth, still nervous about what waited for her once she left the infirmary.
"Don't worry," Piper reiterated. "I'll take care of the guards."
The guards were laughing as they entered their lunch/lounge quarters. This was at least the twelfth attempt by Phoebe to escape in the last year and a half. At first she had just been considered troublesome but now the guards looked forward to punishing her in new and inventive ways. The other inmates had learned to keep quiet and didn't provide the guards with any kind of release or entertainment, and so Phoebe was the star of their fantasies.
About a dozen or so guards were eating while the first shift change was occurring and the new guards were reporting into the warden for their daily tasks. Prue sat at her desk outside of Warden Pratt's office. At twenty-one years old, Prue was a smart, confident, and somewhat hard young woman.
She had learned to play the role of Paradise Prisoner in order to make sure that she wasn't subject to the harsh treatment from the guards and research team that conducted experiments on the prisoners. In order to do that Prue acted as the personal secretary to Nathaniel Pratt, a particularly cruel man who loved knowing that the people he abhorred were forced to act as slaves to him.
Prue was scanning the written report on the latest incident with Phoebe, prisoner number 0304fh. Numbers were assigned by birth place among families, whether the witch is a pure bred or hybrid, and the witch's gender. Phoebe was supposedly the third child of four and of course was a female. That meant that if her siblings were alive that they were somewhere in Paradise Prison with her or the gene had skipped over them since her number identified her as a hybrid.
Prue made a mental note of Phoebe in what she considered her file of potential confidantes. The plan was in place and time was on her side. All she had to do was find a way to get to the younger girl and convince her to go stepford if Phoebe wanted to live long enough to bring Pratt and the rest of their organization down.
All I can hope is that my plan will work and I can convince the others to follow my lead. Otherwise there will be no chance to save good magic.
– P
