Chapter 19 - by Sugar Faerie
Aretha
How long have we been
here? Four weeks? Five? I've lost count of the days.
We're not in the glass cells anymore, they moved us to the more permanent cells about three weeks ago. It's better, because without the glass I don't feel so watched all the time.
We're still in groups of three, they just shuffle us around ever so often, god knows why. What was once a daily horror of being bashed or raped doesn't occur so often now, now that the guards are loosing interest in us. There isn't a single person who they haven't hurt.
I'm in a cell with Charlotte and Madonna. Cheeky Fairy was in here, but they took her out and put her with Hamster and Seal. I'm worried about her, as she's not well. She had the flu when they captured us, and malnutrition, bad treatment and the constant low temperature turned it into something serious.
Five of us still haven't been taken out of solitary. We don't know if they're still alive or not.
I lean against the concrete wall, and try and make myself reasonably comfortable. Madonna is in the other corner, leaning against Charlotte while she sleeps. Charlotte's staring into space.
A noise outside the door jerks me out of what was almost sleep. Two SP enter, and pull me to my feet. "You're going somewhere else," they tell me.
I'm taken down the corridor and shoved in another cell. It's empty except for Hamster.
She raises her face towards me, and I can see that it's streaked with tears. "Cheeky Fairy died last night," she whispers.
My blood runs cold. "What... who did.."
Hamster shakes her head. "No-one killed her... Seal was holding her, her fever was so bad... she was coughing, it was like she was coughing her lungs up, and she was all shaky and... well, she closed her eyes, and she was... she just died!"
I sit down on the cold floor to process the information. "What did they do with her?"
Hamster shrugs miserably. "I don't know! They just took her body away... I don't know what they did with it. They took Seal away, too."
I put my arms around her shivering shoulders, thinking about the girl I don't think anyone really knew, who cheated death without understanding it, until one day it caught up with her in a way she hadn't wanted.
There's laughter outside, the SP are getting bored. They're angry and restless, and they're looking for a release.
Cheeky Fairy won't be the last to die.