Society

Chapter 10

 

The journey down seemed to go faster than the one up, and we reached the ground quickly. Once we hit the ground we headed down another corridor, Dan was walking he was almost running though.

"What's the rush, why are you going so fast?"

I ran to catch up with him, as I saw him checking his watch.

"Dinner's gonna start soon and if we don't get out of this corridor we're gonna get trampled."

"Oh ok, then I'll change my question, why are we not running?"

Dan laughed and then we burst into a sprint, me slightly behind so I didn't lose my way. We got out of the tunnel, and into the gray spire as a loud bell rang.

"Dinner?" I said, squinting my eyes while trying to block out the noise. Dan just nodded, seemingly oblivious to the noise, maybe I'll get used to it.

When the bell stopped, I heard the rumble of feet hitting stone and concrete as people made their way to the canteen. Once all the noise had died down, Dan lead me to the other side of the spire, like the others this one had an elevator, but it also had a staircase and I could see the top of this spire. Dan lead me past the elevator to a large wooden panel on the other side, on the wooden panel was about fifty small keys and underneath them was a drawing indicating which key opened which door.

"Choose one."

I turned round to Dan, apprehensive in case there was some string attached.

"Just any one?"

"Yeah, no one else is living here just now and they're all the same so just pick any one."

I shrugged off my worries and lifted the first key in line, then looked for the room on the map. I quickly found it; it was on the second floor.

"Can I just go?"

Dan started laughing, "Yes, of course. You're a mass murderer why are you so cautious about picking a room"

I shrugged and started towards my room; I fumbled with the key to get the door open but was rewarded with a large, warm grey home with two rooms.

I walked into one of the bedrooms; there were two small single beds on either side of the room and a chest of drawers in between them. There was a window above the drawers and a mirror hanging next to it. I circled the room, on the other wall was a large closet and underneath the beds were two large drawers.

"What are these for?" I asked looking up at Dan, kicking the drawers.

"Your weapons, well anything really, but we use it for weapons normally. Put yours in there."

I lifted my shirt only to be stopped by the abrupt shouts of Dan. I was startled and went to pull out a knife before looking over.

"What are you doing?!" he shouted, his face had flushed red.

"I'm taking my weapons off, you told me to." I shouted back, confused as to why I was being shouted at.

"Why are you taking your shirt off?" Dan's voice became high pitched, and I understood what happened. Was he really that immature? How old was he? I thought to myself.

"Well I'm wearing weapons all over I need to take my shirt off to take them off, if it embarrasses you so much go stand outside." I said, as if explaining something to a young child.

His face flushed an even brighter red and he walked out.

"Tell me when you're finished."

His voice was still high pitched and I held back a small chuckle, which was certainly a pleasant and amusing surprise. I lifted my shirt over my head and undid the belt buckles, which secured my multiple weapons to my body. I had one that hung around my neck and across my torso it held three knives along my ribs. I had another belt encircling my stomach and two intertwining along my waist and hips. I undid them and they all clattered to the ground which made a loud bang.

"How many weapons were you wearing?" shouted Dan from outside, his voice had returned to his usual register.

"Shut up!" I retorted as I quickly replaced my shirt and placed all my belts and weapons into one of the drawers, "you can come back in if you want, my shirts on."

Dan came back into the room but his face was still a little red, surely he's seen worse before. I sat against the edge of my bed, pulling my boots off, as I pulled them off, two blades clattered to the floor and I pulled a third out from the sole of my boot. I repeated the same with my second shoe receiving the same results.

I pulled out the two daggers which were tucked into my socks and removed the five small improvised throwing knives from the top of my trousers. I lifted my things and dropped them into the drawer with a resounding clatter of metal hitting metal hitting plastic. Dan just stared looking at the disorganised pile of weapons, ranging from cleavers, to throwing knives to a very, very miniature axe.

"You were carrying that on your body?"

I gave a small snort of derision, "of course, I had nowhere else to keep them, did I?" I felt good at the sight of Dan's confusion and slight disbelief.

"Well, I don't think you really need to know about the armoury now, but I'll show you where it is just in case, but do you want to go get cleaned up first?"

"Yeah sure" I pushed myself up off the floor and walked across the hall to the bathroom. There was all that I expected, a toilet, a sink, a mirror and a shower, but it felt foreign.

I turned back round to Dan "Is there something I can change into, these aren't particularly clean."

"Yeah, in there I think, behind the door maybe?"

I peeked my head round behind the door; sure enough there was a pair of black trousers, a dark grey shirt and a black jacket.

"Any particular reason for the boring colours?"

"It's standard for those who just arrive, I'll ask Tanya and Shara to get you stuff later. Once you're ready let me know and I'll show you the armoury."

I nodded then slammed the door, I fiddled with the unfamiliar shower knobs until I final got a comfortable temperature and washed the caked on dirt, off of me.

The water felt strange, even before in my house I was never allowed a shower. Actually I don't know if we owned one. I never saw anyone ever having a shower. I thought back to how much everything had changed in the span of hours. I had went from homeless, living in trash and among rotting bodies to taking a hot shower in a cosy, clean empire of a home.

Once I felt clean for the first time in six years I scrubbed my hair. I could literally hear squeaking off of my hair as I rubbed it vigorously. I reluctantly looked to my feet knowing what state awaited me, thick almost black water ran past my feet, as I'm sure occurred when I first stepped in the shower.

I wondered if my hair really looked blond when I lived in the area previous, I mean I know it was but with this amount of dirt coming off I began to question it.

I finally got the knots out and managed to brush out my hair, without it being knotted or matted, it reached past my hips. I stepped out of the shower grabbing a towel and drying myself off. I quickly got changed then went to the bedroom, I dried my hair with the towel and when I was satisfied with the results, motioned for Dan to head out the door.

We stepped out and I locked the door pocketing my new possession, my house key, and turned back to Dan following him down the hall.

"You think you'll like it here?" he queried turning to me on our way down the deserted halls,  I was a little surprised by his question but gave it some thought before answering.

"Yes, I like it already, it seems really fun. I can't wait until I pass the tests."