Instinct

Chapter 13 -- Crimson

He was dead. My father.

Emptiness filled me like the fog in our city.

He's gone forever. He was shot in in cold blood. He was shot in front of me.

All of the things I never got to say to him. All of the things he'll miss out on in my life.

My mother.

She'll be devastated.

And what's worse is that she won't have Madelyn and I in her life. We'll be living our lives.

She'll have no one to be with. She'll die alone.

I don't want to leave my mother now. I want to be a little girl again, the one she came to know and love. I want to be in my bed at home, wrapped up in my blankets.

No one should ever have to go through this hell.

A huge part of me was torn away. Shot and killed like my father.

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My vision was still dark. I wasn't sure what happened to me.

That serum did something to me. How could this happen? I thought the city was better than that. I thought they never made mistakes and then just give them to someone with no worry.

My eyelids flickered open. The light from the room was sudden and blinded me for a second. My eyes adjusted to the brightness of the room. Pain hovered through my back. I groaned and rolled over to my stomach. I pushed myself on to my hands and knees, and then to my feet.

I wobbled in place until I regained my balance. The room I was in was a little strange. Last time I remembered I was lying in the middle of the courtyard. And now I'm here. The room had a bright reflective glow to it. The walls , floor and roof were completely white. A porcelain bench was against the wall. There was blood on the floor from where I laid. I wiped my nose and mouth to get rid of the rest. I looked up to see an iron gate in the doorway.

The corner of the bars were bent outward.

I was in the holding cells. But why?

It didn't matter 'why' right now. I just have to get out of here. I looked again to the bent corner. I could probably climb on it and pull myself through it.

I climbed halfway up the iron bars to the outward corner. The bars were ripped from it's support. It looked like it was forcefully opened. The bars jabbed in to my stomach; tearing my skin. I gritted my teeth and finally pushed my way through. I fell and landed on the floor on my side.

I rolled over to the wall and rested my back on it. There was some liquid soaking through my shirt. I turned around to see it was a red substance with a weird aroma.

It was blood.

Who's blood was it? What happened in here? I stood up quickly to move away from the blood. An urge had risen inside of me saying to get out of here. I wasn't sure if it was the bars bent outward of the blood on the wall and floor. Something just told me to leave.

There was an exit at the end of the hallway. I walked quietly to the door. The door slid open to the side when it sensed my presence.

The air rushed against my skin in an instant. The sky was completely dark. Lamp posts lit up the stone walkway. It had finally stopped raining. The lingering smell of rain hung all around me. I always loved the smell of rain. It brought me this sense of freedom. Like I was a child again. It made me take my focus off of what happened earlier today.

Now what?

Where did I go from here?

I thought for a minute. I couldn't home now. There must have been a good reason why I was in that holding cell. If I went home they could catch me. I could go to the hotels where Anthony was housed. I started walking to the abandoned hotels.