Voices
Chapter 1: 8:00am
…:…
11:00pm
The chimes of the clock rang, rumbling, through the uneasy silence in St Mungos, a figure hung limp from a bloodstained rope in one of the many bathrooms that existed in the old abandoned hospital.
The figure – a female – swung silently in the breeze that swept through the room from the open window, high in the wall and level with her blood stained, lifeless face.
From the shadows of the bathroom a tall, lean figure stepped out from within as the final chime signifying the twenty-third hour of the day rang almost noiselessly around the bathroom.
The man walked past the woman hanging high above him, a smirk plastered on his face, a sudden rush of wind, like a whisper to the night, in the wake of his footsteps caused her to rock all the more dangerously and the rope that held her groaned with effort.
He slipped out of the bathroom with a flurry of platinum blond hair as a final drip of blood slipped off her chin from a head cut caused not ten minutes earlier but had ceased to bleed upon her death, the final blood she would ever draw.
It hit the floor, splitting and spreading, staining the grubby floor, once so clean, as it reflected the dead, limp body almost directly above it, to which it used to belong.
…:… 15 hours prior …:…
8:00am
I let out a stifled groan as I regained consciousness, the floor hard beneath me.
I was stiff all over, but years of experience had taught me a lot about my body, this was nothing.
Somewhere far off I could hear a clock chiming the hour, like a death toll, counting down the seconds until that final blow is delivered … 3 … 2 … 1
I squeezed my eyes shut, my imagination getting the better of me, but if we are not to imagine what are we to do in the hellhole we are forced to call a home.
Reluctantly I open my eyes, not willing to take the darkness of my closed lids anymore. I needn't bother.
The world away from the dark confines of life behind my eyelids is just as dark, dingy and I begin to feel jealous of those who lost their lives before Harry Potter, the joy of killing Harry forced the dark lord into an utter frenzy of killings and torturing. I say the dark lord as every one who once called him he-who-must-not-be-named or you-know-who died along time ago and only the death eaters and fugitives like me remain.
My eyes are unable to penetrate through the thick darkness surrounding us. I can only see the slight silhouettes of the sleeping figures spread out randomly all around me, each chest rising and falling with each wheezing breath taken.
I turned to see the flicker of a fire being formed, illuminating the dense room and bathing it in amber light, flickering and jittering, the flames forking outwards, blown by an unseen, unfelt wind.
I shivered slightly, the heat omitted by the fire reaching me, warming up my cold body and boiling my blood. I closed my eyes, enjoying the sensations of heat on a cold winters day, it was the best we could hope for in these days, fire and a triviality I used to take for granted.
I squeezed my eyes shut, exhaling deeply, imagining I was fourteen again, curled up by the fire in my own home, my fathers laughter ringing through the house, echoing through my mind and slowly disappearing, disintegrating joining the silence of the room, a silence broken only by the crackling of the fire.
A sudden lurch in my stomach, causing the bile to rise up uncomfortably in my throat forced me to hold out an arm to steady myself, my mind fuzzy and dizzy.
A silent whisper broke the silence, circling me with its voice, winding words around my being and core. My world began to swirl and spin threateningly but my eyes remained closed.
I felt sick, paranoia was a common occurrence within our group and I silently wondered if I was finally succumbing to the madness of my mind, not knowing just how dangerous that place would be.
I tried to unstick my eyes but for some unknown reason I found that I was unable to. The pleasant heat suddenly did not feel as pleasant anymore; it felt burning and oppressive, pining me to the ground, ignoring my desperate struggles for freedom.
The voices continued to whisper in my head. A sudden painful thumping accompanying them in my head.
My breathing became harsh and ragged as I desperately attempted to force some air into my chocking lungs.
My hand flew to my head gripping it hard within my finger nails, they dug in hard, painfully and it took all my self resolve not to scream out loud in agony, the voices coercing me not to speak, I listened idly as I felt blood trickle down my temple from the place in which my finger nails dug into my head.
My eyes remained forcibly shut against my will and my screams sat boiling up inside me, the fire's heat causing it to bubble and froth as the pressure built up behind my vocal cords.
I shook backwards and forwards slightly as my mouth relaxed and as scream of utter agony escaped my lips.
As if shocked the voices shrank away to the corner of my mind where I assumed they had come from as my eyes snapped open, my pupils contracting fast as I found myself writhing directly beneath the flickering flames, orange burning, obscuring, my vision.
My screams died away from my tongue, the rumble still lingering silently on my tongue. My breaths slowly began to even out, a mixture of blood mingled with sweat slipping off the tip of my chin.
But the damage was already done. I could hear the grumbles of the others as they stirred out of their sleep.
I gulped a bit to forcefully, but had no time to think as with a sudden force I found myself thrown hard against the wall, my spine feeling as if it had cracked in many places due to the force of the impact.
I looked up into a pair of dark, chocolate brown eyes, fear and regret washing over me. He held me at arms length into the wall, a fistful of my robes clutched tightly in his grip. Jordan, he was the one who lit the fire.
Jordan was just over a year older than me and a sort of elected leader among us. It was all I could do not to shrink under his gaze.
I could feel most people's eyes on me; angry at waking them up out of their dreams and into the harsh reality of the life we lit. The fire behind Jordan lit him up impressively, not a person you wanted against you.
"What do you think your doing!" He hissed at me, causing me to wince slightly. His grip on my robes tightened slightly. "Screaming your head off like that! People thought you had been attacked, or worse, if there was a death eater in the building you would have given away our whereabouts!"
I shut my eyes, inhaling deeply in attempt to calm myself down, trying desperately to block out the pounding in my head and ignore the trickle of blood running slowly down my temple.
We both knew that if death eaters were in the building they would come right out and kill us. Lost was the sly behaviour of the start of the war as to which Slytherin's were famous for, then again most of the death eaters were no longer Slytherin's but of the other three houses, perhaps not Gryffindor though but there were some, out of desperation to live.
I opened my eyes and looked defiantly into his, showing I wasn't going to back down. He saw the fury in my eyes, if anyone had gotten paranoid over the years it was Jordan he was one of the first to camp out in St Mungos, having being in the waiting room at the time the death eaters came. I did not know all the details though, Jordan did not like to talk about it but inside he really is just a scared child and that I can see, deep down I think we are all like that, just scared kids.
His eyes scanned my face and he noticed for the first time the blood and sweat that covered it. As if receiving an electric shock he dropped my robes and his face softened. He looked down, ashamed. When he looked up he had regained some of his composure. He sighed.
"Come, we had better make everyone some breakfast." I nodded and followed him to the fire, where we choose to make all the food.
I wiped my forehead with the sleeve of my robe, the fabric soft on my broken skin despite the fact the robes was worn and dirty, each person only had the bare robes they had on their back when they came to St Mungos as all the hospital robes had been destroyed by the death eaters upon the buildings abandonment, the west part had been where they stored the spare robes and that had been demolished without hesitation.
I chopped some of the fruit Jordan had conjured for our usual breakfast of fruit salad; the silver bade glinted and shined, reflecting the amber flames of the fire in front of it.
The first rays of the morning sun began to peak through the cloudy grey sky as I placed the chopped fruit into the bowl we used every day, the juices running slowly down my fingers.
Every one knew I was the best cook out of the lot of us, I had always assumed it had something to do with me being good at potions in school, of course I never got any recognition due to the snarky potions master Snape.
Although no one expected any slack from a Ravenclaw such as myself, we are renowned for our intellect.
I sighed placing the knife on the table and rubbing my eyes with my hand, a heavy, silent gloom had fallen upon us and all sat contemplating our lives, some staring into the flames of the flickering fire and my head continued to pound. A far off clock didn't help this, the same I woke up to, chiming the ninth hour of the day.
…:…
A/N: A bit more action in that chapter I think!
Thanks toAwayukiLeafunia, Kates Masterand Joywho reviewed the last chapter! Ta very much!
As some of you may have noticed from the title of this chapter and the story description, each chapter will be a new hour … thanks for reading!