In The Clear: Pre-Games I
Bridget Francis, 18, Victoria BC
Bridget winces as brightness assaults her eyes. She squeezes them tighter and turns into her thin pillowcase in an attempt to block it out. In response, it only seems to brighten.
"Welcome."
She sits suddenly upright as the voice fills the small room. Bridget's head spins with the dim surroundings, but she forces herself to look in every direction. No matter how much she squints, she's unable to find the source of the solemn voice. She straightens herself against the wall beside the cot she had been laying on. It's ice cold.
"Who's there?" She demands. Her voice is raspy as if it hasn't been used in days, and truthfully Bridget's body feels the same. Every muscle is stiff as she takes in the cell, each detail pushing the truth just that little bit closer to the surface.
This isn't the cell she remembers. The sink is a brighter white and positioned to face the wall rather than the cell's bars. The bed is higher off the ground so that when Bridget drapes her legs over the edge they dangle above the ground.
Not to mention the obvious. When she'd first opened her eyes it had been easy to dismiss; a trick of light or a product of her groggy vision. Now there's no mistaking it.
Rather than the grey of concrete, the four walls that surround her are coated in sinister black.
Bridget stands from the cot, her fists steady at her sides. She turns away from the edges of the cell and towards the brightness that first awakened her. A rectangle of vibrant pulsing glows on the wall opposite her cot. She levels her eyes at its center as her lips tighten into a thin line.
"Where am I?"
"It's not where you are that should be questioned." Its response sends a shiver up her spine. It hardly sounds human, in fact Bridget would bet that it's not. "But what is being offered to you."
"I'll question whatever I want," Bridget says defiantly. "Where am I?"
She doesn't wait for the response, the pause only infuriating her more than its last words. While the cell is strange, it's still exactly that. Bridget walks towards where the bars should be, but realizes quickly that they too look different. While the ones she stared at these past months have been cylindrical silver, these ones are square and as dark as the surrounding walls.
Bridget hesitates for only a second before reaching between them. Her hand doesn't make it more than an inch before it stops against something cold and slick. She shivers again and lifts her hands around her collar. Once again she freezes.
She looks down quickly, finding the dirtied orange jumpsuit has been replaced with clothes that… almost looks normal. Bridget's hands grasp the thick hood of a sweater then travel down the rest of the outfit. It's stiff, but the fabric is notably thicker. The detail her mind clings to, however, is the colour.
Against the dark walls, her body all but disappears. From the top of her hood to the tips of her boots, every piece is the same fervid black. The only strand of colour that stands out are the deep green bracelets that clasp around each wrist.
Without hesitation, Bridget pulls to try and remove them. She can barely feel them around her wrist, but they refuse to break. She grunts in frustration as the odd material slips from between her fingertips. She slams her hand towards the bars, which ring with the pain that explodes across her knuckles.
"Your markers may not be removed."
"I'll ask one more time," Bridget snaps, turning back to the pulsing screen. "Where am I?"
"Do you wish to know what I'm offering, Bridget?"
She can't help but stiffen. Every time the screen speaks, her ears won't allow her not to soak in each word. The dryness in her throat tells her to be afraid, but Bridget pushes that feeling far into her stomach. "Why won't you answer me? My mom will find out where I am, she'll-"
The lie refuses to continue. Bridget hasn't spoken to her mom since she got out of her car. She refused every visit until the offers simply stopped coming. More than likely, her mom will have no idea she even left her old prison unless someone notifies her.
The screen seems to sense her unease. The pause between its words is notably shorter this time.
"You've not had a visitor in one-hundred and forty two days. You exist here as you did in the last holding unit, alone."
Bridget pauses before turning quickly away from the screen. Her entire body is trembling, but there's not a tear to be found. Whoever - whatever - this is has no right to speak to her like this. It doesn't know anything about her. Her mom would've visited if Bridget had let her. She's only alone because she wants to be.
She wants to be…
Bridget slams her hands against the bars again, ignoring the pain until it forces her to stop. Someone will hear her. The guards, the warden, another inmate, anyone. They can't just lock her in here forever. Bridget knows that much.
"Is anyone there!?" She shouts. "Anyone!?"
She leans against the cold barrier, but the only thing she can hear is the voice as it rises between the walls once again. "Shout all you like. Freedom may only be obtained through me."
"Fuck off," Bridget hisses.
A moment later, the room plunges suddenly into complete darkness. She freezes against the bars, unable to see even her fingers splayed in front of her. Bridget's heart picks up speed, thundering against her ribcage until she feels like it's going to break loose. She turns in towards the cell, but the glowing pulse is gone.
Then, the voice speaks again. "As you wish."
"Wait-" Bridget breathes despite herself. Her throat feels like it's already swollen shut, the darkness permeating every shaking muscle until she can't even bring herself to move. She's never felt darkness so complete. She has every urge to crawl back between the sheets but no idea where the cot is anymore.
One breath. Two-
Ever slowly, the glow returns at her back. Bridget shakes against the bars, the square edges pressing harshly into her palms. She's always found unease in the dark, to the point where there's been a small night light in the corner of her room since she can remember. The glow of the guards' flashlights in prison never bothered her. In fact, they were a welcome reprieve as she laid in her bunk.
Bridget has never seen darkness quite like this. Even as the light returns, she can't bring herself to move towards it. She grips the bars as if her mere presence will swing them open and release her.
"Ask me." She can pick up the slightest hint of excitement in the voice, the tiniest inflection of its words within the monotonicity. Bridget squeezes her eyes shut, but the trembling anger doesn't return. She's too afraid. "Ask me what I'm offering, Bridget."
Her tongue feels too twisted to speak, but she manages to stammar the words out as the chill continues down her spine. "W-what are you offering?"
"Freedom." The words practically grin through the screen's glow. "Freedom and the chance to be unforgettable."
Bridget's eyes open again, but she's not looking at the bars ahead. She's taking in every word as the fear starts to melt behind her ribcage. It's been months since her last fire, months since she last held matches in her hand. The fires were never for her; they were for Anne. The growing flames were the visual representation of destruction, the only thing Bridget found herself capable of feeling after losing her sister.
Is the world already forgetting?
Truth be told, this isn't the first time she's wondered.
Shane Kilroy, 18, Whitehorse YK
The words come and go, but only one thought holds in Shane's mind.
This isn't living.
He's been in prison for two years now, the same one for at least six months after being transferred. Shane's seen the inside of various cells from solitary confinement to the infirmary and the regular ones in between. They all look the same. He's met many people, but none of their names stick in his head. They all act the same. Most of the time, the same unanswered questions occupy that liminal space behind his eyes. They're as unwilling to be pushed aside as the two syllable name that follows him everywhere.
It's the same too. It's always the same.
But here, as Shane glances again at the dark walls that surround him and the screen that watches, that's all been thrown away. The concrete has melted to black. The floors have been sanded slick beneath his feet. The air is crisp and new without a hint of the sour his lungs have grown used to.
This isn't his prison cell. This isn't the life he's settled into for the past two years. This isn't the guards shining flashlights in his eyes or the nauseating tone that wakes him each morning.
This isn't living.
And if this isn't living, then that must mean he's dead.
Shane sits stiffly at the edge of the cot, his feet firmly planted on the floor yet he feels so unsteady. His eyes shift around the walls slowly, unwilling to give away the panic that's sunk deep beneath his skin. The same, the same, the same. He's known the same for two years but before that everything was different. Everything changed without warning. Shane was picked up and dropped off in strange worlds where people seemed to know a person that he was not.
Except no one picked him up this time.
He simply went to sleep and woke up somewhere else. That's not how things work. Shane's fingers clench around the cot's frame as he searches desperately for something solid. He's forgotten the fear that comes with change. His body doesn't remember what it's like to breathe new air or sit against different furniture.
"You're adjusting well."
"The appeal process will go smoothly if you keep this up."
Never questions, only statements. Shane grew used to being spoken at and he nodded along every time. The people in prison stopped watching him over time; they stopped expecting danger because all Shane gave was apathy. He was a model prisoner, so they said, a calm pond in a roaring ocean of delinquents.
Except that's far from the truth.
Inside his mind, Shane is a tattered row of stitches coming apart at every angle. He feels like he's forgetting. At the same time he feels like he never knew in the first place.
One breath.
Two.
Three and his chin rises again to the surrounding room.
Four and Shane manages to unravel his hands from around the bed frame. He pushes it all down into the floor - all the questions and all the answers that fight to be the current truth. He'll get nowhere if he allows the thoughts to spiral around him, this is the only fact he's certain of. Even if Shane's mind wraps itself around every thought and squeezes it until he finds the lie, it will only come back with a new face tomorrow.
His mind or his body; he can't pilot both. That is the choice he has to make right now.
Shane chooses to rise on the shoes that sit just a little too tight. He paces once along the perimeter, his fingers grazing the strange darkness. It feels too smooth to be concrete but too rough to be anything else. He crouches to the ground and finds the same strange texture there. He swallows down the observation; he's unsure what else to do with it.
"Are you ready to speak now?"
His neck cranes slowly in the voice's direction. It sounds like no one he knows, yet it manages to calm him. Wherever he is - whatever after he's slipped into - he isn't alone. For some reason, that feels important.
There's no record of Teagan-
Shane shakes his head once then again. The repetition helps to shake the familiar name from the front of his mind. He doesn't wish to choose thought right now. That will get him nowhere.
"Is this heaven," Shane asks, swallowing down a lump in his throat before he can force himself to continue. "Or hell?"
"Neither."
His brows furrow from his place on the floor. This isn't living…
Or, more accurately, this isn't any living Shane's ever experienced. He looks towards the bars and a shiver runs quickly up his spine. There's something about their shape that isn't quite right. Just like the concrete that surrounds him in all directions, it's off. It's as though someone designed a prison cell without having ever seen one.
Another shiver trembles through him.
"What is it then?"
There's a pause. "That's not important."
Shane looks back to the bars. He hadn't considered that answer. Are there other places to go when one dies? Or is this confirmation that he is, in fact, still living? Was he ever living to begin with?
There's no record-
He shakes his head once again. He places both hands against the strange blackness beneath him, but the cold isn't as shocking as Shane expects. His eyes turn to the screen and squint against the brightness. He hadn't realized how dark the cell had been before it came back.
…. Came back…. Was the voice here before?
Shane wants to say yes and the answer leaps eagerly to his throat. He holds it in his mind, turning it every which way but there's no proof of its legitimacy. Memories spring forward but Shane brings the wall up to stop them. How does he know they're true? Can he even call them memories? Just because he can see them, does that automatically make them true?
Like Forty Mile? He's turned that forest over in his mind many times, but each time the leaves are slightly different colours. If the memory changes can it still be true? Was he ever there at all? Does such a place even exist?
Like Teagan? The name that has little else attached besides a warm feeling behind his ribs. Sometimes he sees a face, other times only a silver gun or a flowing shower head. Each time he thinks of the name, the blood runs a little further, a little faster.
How can he believe anything at all? There's no proof in any of his thoughts, no assurance that any image his mind pulls forward is anything more than a mirage.
The only thing Shane can believe is what he sees in front of him right now.
Blackened walls.
A pulsating screen.
His own hand held firm to the floor.
"Do you want to be free, Shane?"
He swallows, pushing his hand down further until the tendons start to ache. The word means little to him. In fact, the only image that it pulls forward is that of an uncountable sea of trees. He closes his eyes and they sprout in every direction. He feels safe, but free? Shane doesn't think he knows what that word means.
"No," he answers truthfully.
Another pause. "What do you want?"
Shane doesn't have to think about it, his lips move on their own. "To exist."
Angel "Omar" Jardinez, 18, Calgary AB
Omar stares at the screen, its glow like the heartbeat that pounds in his chest. His brows draw together in thought, but there's little question of what to do next. He understands the reward, though the circumstances eat at the edge of his mind. The voice has refused all further questions.
But the promise of freedom… the promise of all the "wrongs" that seemed set in stone simply unraveling just like that?
He might look like he's considering his options, but Omar has never been more sure of anything.
"Are you willing to pay?" He's listened silently to this question twice now. Both times Omar probed for more, but there was no answer. It's as if the voice can sense that there is no uncertainty behind his words, no real need for an explanation.
The simple truth is that, yes, he's willing. Omar has sat here for as long as he can force himself, but there's nothing he wouldn't give up to have his old life back. There was so much to look forward to, so much good left that he could still accomplish. Omar doesn't care what the judge said at his trial. He doesn't believe a word of it.
"The world has rules - and you, Mr. Jardinez - seem wholly unwilling to understand that."
Omar pushes the statement away. If the world has rules and procedures, why did Omar's explanation only earn him a harsher sentence? If the world works in binaries, it should punish him the same as anyone else. The truth is that the world doesn't work like that. The judge proved it in the courtroom that day.
She proved it when she near-doubled the minimum sentence that his "crimes" should warrant.
"Yes," Omar says finally. He rises from the cot, his posture as straight as the day he received this punishment. Even back then he knew forgiveness would come, though in what form he had no idea.
He's not going to refuse. He isn't meant to rot in prison. He isn't supposed to sit here while the world turns without him.
There is still so much good Omar can offer.
He ignores every instinct that tells him to read the scrolling text as it overtakes the screen once again. This isn't the first time Omar's seen it, so he knows the voice won't pause to give him enough time. Contracts should be read and the originals retained - he's learned this much from working with Davidson. Still, there's nothing this one could contain that would change his mind.
Omar carefully traces his name on the line at the bottom. The moment his finger lifts from the screen, his full name appears in print beneath it. Before he can take his next breath, the entire thing disappears back into its familiar glowing pulse. Omar swears he can hear each beat; it feels as alive as his own.
"Place both hands within the chamber." He swallows as the voice changes to something far less human. It sounds like his cellphone's assistant, though less pleasant. Still, when the red light illuminates a shelf beneath the screen, Omar does as he's told. He spreads his fingers open and allows them to rest on the warm surface. In contrast to the frigid cell, it's as comforting as an embrace.
As quickly and with the same sound as a stapler, sharp pain bites into each of his palms. Omar grits his teeth to keep from gasping, instead reminding himself to follow instructions. His fingers begin to shake within the chamber as the pain dulls to a slow ache. He doesn't remove them again until the light fades and he hears a grinding sound from behind him.
Omar turns as the bars have nearly disappeared into the adjacent wall. He watches, wondering what he should do next. He glances back to the screen, but the glowing heartbeat is gone. It looks like any ordinary television screen, no matter that it's still out of place in the prison cell.
The moment the bars finally click into place within the wall, everything around him shifts.
Omar drops instinctively to the floor as the room lights up around him. The haunted dimness that he's gotten used to is gone, now filled with a clinical brightness that feels like a microscope. He shields his eyes for a moment to adjust, and when he opens them something more feels out of place.
He turns to face every wall, but the same blackness stares back. Under the harsh lighting, he's now certain of the colour. It's smooth, not like the usual cement from his last cell. It's not until his chin tilts upwards that he sees it.
The ceiling - once the same glossy black - is now completely transparent.
Omar swallows and examines the room above him. It's dizzying to watch from this angle; in fact, he's not entirely sure what he's looking at. He can see furniture, perhaps the bottoms of tables or benches. The lights are just as bright up there as they are in his cell now.
His eyes shift back towards the cell entrance. Is it this simple? Part of him knows to be wary, but the rest?
Freedom…
Omar looks back at the screen once more before allowing his eager feet to step towards it. He peers out carefully, watching the room that, by now, doesn't look all that out of place. There's one round table at the center and six chairs fixed to the floor. When Omar's eyes travel up the walls, he finds three enormous screens waiting. Each looks to be in the same state of sleep as the one in his cell. The only thing that gives him pause is the fact that the walls inside are a sterile white.
He lets out a slow breath before glancing up at the ceiling. Just like his cell, it's completely see-through. Omar can make out the same cluttered shapes as he did from his cell. This time, in context with the tall staircase at the room's edge, he has to wonder how far up he's looking.
What is this place? Alongside the unease is a growing sense of excitement. While Omar doesn't know where he is or even how to ask, there's still a smile spreading his lips. This isn't prison, that much is clear; at least not any prison he's ever seen.
Omar runs his hand along the wall, finding several more sets of bars strung across it. He tries to squint inside, but can see little more than darkness staring back at him. He counts six cells total, with his being the third from the left. Omar waits silently in front of the wall, but not a sound stirs within them. He wonders if there's anyone inside at all.
As he starts up the narrow staircase, he hopes that there is. The offer that the voice gave him… it's exactly what he's dreamed about since entering prison. Omar made a point to talk to as many inmates as he could. He listened to their stories and heard their plights. There are many people behind bars because of mistakes and misunderstandings.
They deserve this forgiveness. Omar deserves to be free again.
He wondered how long it would take the system to realize its mistake. More than anything, it's simply a relief. He won't spend another night in a concrete cell. He won't have to answer more questions with his assigned social worker that doesn't know what she's talking about. He can stop hearing Sabina's name from her condemnatory lips.
Omar made peace with the loss many years ago. He still thinks about her, still smiles when his dad reminds him how proud she would be of him. Those are the thoughts he wants to surround her memory with. He doesn't want to think of her only in death.
He wants them to stop asking him to recount it again and again. He wants to stop catching glimpses of the social worker's notes as she writes them. He wants to stop wondering why all these details matter.
Does it matter that I can't remember if she slid from where she was or walked a step too far? Omar apparently said both in different sessions, the social worker pointed that out during their last one. He didn't understand the narrow look that followed, as if he'd been caught in some lie. It happened years ago. Omar apologized and said he must've been misremembering.
He didn't want to talk about her. He wanted to talk about being released, about putting the entire prison behind him.
Sabina has nothing to do with that.
And when Omar finally reaches the top of the staircase, he decides to leave her name behind him. This is his second chance, the very thing he's prayed long and hard for. He won't be held down by anyone's suspicions or theories. None of them matter.
This is for him. Whatever happens next is for him.
A/N: And here we are, pre-games. For anyone new to my verse, I welcome any questions you might have. If you're curious, I'd suggest skimming the outside-POV chapters from In The Cut's pre-games as I offered more explanations for what was going on. Otherwise, enjoy the weird I guess.
Until next time!
~ Olive