(Except taken from the medical journal of COG Doctor Karen M. Warbeck.)
Notes: Subject is responding as expected to treatment. Treatments will continue as planned. Side-effects include complained headaches and temporary mood swings. Continued evaluation is needed to decide the severity of these side-effects and their relativity to the medications.
Side note: At the risk of interjecting my feelings onto the test subject, I can't help but wonder if we're crossing some moral boundaries here. Yes, this new medication could have miraculous results for those who take it, but at what cost? Where do we draw the line in the sand?
Clarissa watched the door slide open in front of her. For a moment, she had been trapped between the two steel walls, unable to go forward or back. She didn't panic, however. Even if the warders had 'forgotten' about her and left her to die, trapped between the two steel walls of death, she wouldn't have minded.
Much.
Her expectations of humanity had diminished over the brutal years, until there was nothing left. She'd seen the worst of the worst, and was now about to join their ranks. Even if the solid steel door before her remained firmly shut, perhaps the universe would be paying her a favor. Perhaps she would die before one of these bastards made her wish she were dead.
Alas, it was not to be. The heavy locks protested as a rush of electricity sparked them to life. They clunked and whirred quietly, spinning into their allotted places and opening a new world to Clarissa – the world of The Slab.
As the door slid open, a breath of not-so-fresh air hit her full in the face. There was the prominent scent of raw sewage dispersed in the breeze, tinted with the heavy aroma of body-odor and sweat. Apparently, hygiene wasn't high on the list of importance in a male prison. The rank scent of myco-fermenters hard at work floated through the air, staining the fragrance of overturned soil and growing plants. It appeared the gardens were down on the cell-block also.
The prison wasn't quiet. There was the sound of more than one person snoring, the sounds overlapping into a rumbling cacophony of noise. Someone was mumbling to themselves close by, and she caught the stifled sound of murmured curse words from a number of different voices. The hallway extended into oblivion, the endless rows of cells upon cells disappearing from sight into the darkness. She scanned both side of the dirty, smelly hallway – the floors coated with thick dirt and cracked tile - before taking her first step into Cellblock 38.
Her pre-requisitions of a smudged white wife-beater gleamed softly in the darkness. For a second, no one noticed the stranger in their midst. Then, as the heavy steel door slammed back into place behind her, gradually the inmates took notice of their new bunkmate. A few wandered out to the wide-open doors of their cells, gazing lazily out at the front gates. "Oh, shit!" someone close-by said, but she couldn't see who in the darkness. "It's a chick!"
That garnered attention from all within earshot. Inmates flew out of their cells, jostling awake those dozing on broken-down cots. A wave of excitement and curiosity flew through the room as everyone crowded around for a look at the new inmate.
Clarissa watched all of this with a disinterested gaze, slowly scanning the dirty, sweaty, and hairy faces of her new neighbors. None of them in particular stood out as her grey eyes flashed throughout the room. Someone hit a power switch, activating the overhead lights, and cellblock 38 came into clearer focus.
She almost preferred it in the darkness. The added light drove her attention to things unseen; a splash of blood down the side of one wall where a recent fight had broken out; a carved out, stinking latrine; a pile of fly-coated dog shit near the door. The prisoners all wore the same sweat-stained, off white wife-beater t-shirts with baggy, black pants. Their boots were the standard-issue COG boots – thick, double-soled black boots with a high, waterproof tongue. Despite their similar uniforms, the prisoners were as different as could be. Their skin tones ran all the way across the color palette – from a dark, heavy black, all the way to a bloodless pale and everything in between. Other's had adornments on their person; a homemade belt here, a scrappy headband there – anything that could help determine social order.
"Yo' man," an unfamiliar voice called out above the others. "Get Merino. He'll wanna see this shit."
A broad-shouldered man maneuvered his way through the sea of inmates. His insipid lips curled upwards in a leer as his eyes traveled her body freely. "Damn," he said, the rows of prisoners quieting behind him as he spoke. "We must have been good little boys this year!"
The crowd that had amassed behind him crowed with laughter. It was unlikely that these men had ever done anything 'good' in their lifetimes. She decided that the inappropriate amount of laughter for the unfunny joke meant that this 'Merino' was somebody in this pack of criminals. After all, one was always supposed to laugh at the bosses' jokes.
She didn't move as Merino took a few steps closer, licking his lips hungrily. She mentally compared it to the way a coyote licked its chops before a meal. Her chin lifted as he drew nearer, so she could look him in the eye. He stopped just in front of her, not touching her – not yet. His head cocked to the side in a flirtatious manner that Clarissa was sure had gotten him laid hundreds of times before the war. "Damn, baby….what's your name?"
She didn't answer – didn't give any indication that she had heard him. She just continued staring him down with that bloodless steel gaze of hers. "She deaf as well as dumb!" Merino exclaimed, narrowing his dark eyes. "Hey, bitch, you hear me? I asked you what your name was." He reached out to grab her.
Before anyone could move, Clarissa grabbed his thick wrist and spun it around his back, yanking all of the joints in his arm the wrong way. He turned with the attack - an instinct born of the pain blossoming from shoulder to hand. In the next split second, Clarissa pulled the knife that she had seen Jarvi place between the sheets and jabbed it between Merino's shoulder blades. The point of the knife was sharp enough to cut through the sweat-stained shirt Merino was wearing, and to slice through the barest amount of flesh.
Clarissa felt Merino's heartbeat through the tip of the knife. She could envision the vertebrae in his spine, and the gaps between them. She could almost feel the way the knife would cut through the oh-so-sensitive spinal cord, rendering him immobile and helpless – as she had been helpless all of those years. He wouldn't have long to suffer, as she would continue pressing the knife through his back, to the dark hole where his black heart beat.
Lucky for him, however, she didn't kill on the first date.
"Don't touch me…" she hissed in his ear, letting the knife press harder against his back. He struggled out of her grasp, and she let him go. He was much bigger than her, anyway, and she wouldn't have been able to hold him much longer. Backtracking a few steps, she could tell that his arm pained him, although he wouldn't show that weaknesses in front of the pack.
Easily flipping the knife around her fingers, she spoke. "The first man who touches me gets a broken jaw. The next? He wakes up wearing his junk as a pendant." Her grey eyes flashed around the group as she spoke. Most of the group was watching her hand work the knife; how the sharp blade easily found its way through her fingers time and time again, never once nicking her. The rest were staring hard at her, wondering just what to make of the new 'chick'. At least their eyes were on her face, and not traveling down her body like before. "The next man – and every man after that, for that matter – doesn't wake up at all. Do I make myself clear?"
No one answered her, which was the response she was anticipating. No one expected a woman to be able to play hard ball with the rest of the boys, and it always surprised some when she managed it. Spinning the knife around one more time and catching it, she stepped forward. She glared at the row of men in her way. "Move," she growled threateningly.
Hesitating briefly, the sea of men parted for her. She gripped the knife tightly in her fist – a warning to all around her. She didn't look at anyone else as she waded down cell-block 38, instead scanning the grey concrete walls for cell numbers. 27…30…34…ah, 39…she thought to herself.
The iron bars of the cell-door greeted her menacingly. The cell was tiny, with a broken down, bare cot as a bed and a malfunctioning sink and toilet. Clarissa wondered idly if she stood in the center of the room and stretched out her arms, would she be able to touch both sides of the cell. She started to unfold the measly pile of bedding for her cot before a deep, rumbling voice interrupted her.
"You don't want to do that," the mysterious voice said. Clarissa spun around, knife held out warningly. Her eyes first jumped to the cell-door, but she found no one there. Still wheeling with adrenaline, she looked through one 'wall' of metal bars and into the next cell. A pair of icy-blue eyes met her own. "It gets cold enough in here to freeze the balls off a corpser. Cover yourself with the sheets – not the cot."
Clarissa froze for a second, staring at him with that same expressionless gaze. Surprisingly, the man returned it just as well. "I think I can manage sleeping without screwing it up, thanks," she said tonelessly.
The man shrugged, raising a hand to his head. There, he removed a torn do-rag and ran a hand through his dark brown hair. "Your call," he said, his voice deep and gravelly. He replaced the do-rag and turned from her, resting his bulky frame down upon his own cot. Clarissa was vaguely surprised when it didn't collapse with the weight.
She turned her gaze to her cot, reluctantly tearing back the sheet she had just laid down. She slid her body between it and the stained cot. She positioned the other one as sort of a make-shift pillow, wrapping the ends of it around her scalp to keep her head warm. In southern Tyrus she never needed to worry about staying warm. The triple digit temperatures both night and day did that for her. It was one of the fewbenefits of living in a COG farm.
She closed her eyes, but didn't dare fall asleep. Her fist clenched tight around the hilt of her knife, she wondered how long it would be before some asshole inmate made the mistake of wandering into her cell.
She didn't have to wait long to find out.
Author's Note - Thanks so much for reading/reviewing! Hopefully you're enjoying it so far? Don't worry - plenty more Marcus to come in the next chapter! :D
Reviews are always appreciated! Remember to feed the muse on you way out, please! :)