BREATH . OF . LIFE . ~ { ReGenisis Chronicles Book I }

Chapter Nine [Part 1/3]: Angel From Hell

                      -Kate Andersen -

Laying awake, staring up at the bottom of the bunk above me. Seeing a single, fair, almost white, hair stuck statically to the fibres of the mattress through the metal bars that supported it up. I reached up absentminded, brushing my fingers along the bobbled material around it, where it had rubbed against the frame, feeling the tingle of the static collecting on my finger tips, sending shivers down my arm. I plucked the little white hair from the cream mattress and stared at it until I was cross-eyed, I was so bored.

Platinum blonde and perfect. The scent on it was familiar. Almost comforting up my nose, and very mild. It was a little like my own, but richer. I could wonder if it was my father's, the smell and colour were so similar. But as I pulled it long between my fingers I found it was just a little shorter than my own locks. I frowned at it, wrapping it around my index finger in a coil, until the tip of my finger was bright red and had its very own, hard pulse. Then let it loose, watching it bounce in a cork-screw shape. It was fine, but strong as horse hair. It was odd. Made me wonder who had occupied this room before me.

I started to feel something warm and wet run from my nose. I held my hand up to feel a nose bleed. It stopped as soon as it had come, but a slight buzzing headache remained. I sighed and hid the stray piece of hair away under my pillow, as if it was worth not throwing to the floor to be swept up later.

Ignoring the grumble of my empty stomach I pushed from my bed and walked over to the door. I was going to see if I could get myself out of this room one way or another. I just wanted some air, a little space. Not to be trapped so heinously within such a tight cropping of walls. Walls that were once white, but now tarnished grey to my keen eyes.  

I had nothing to pick a lock with, and I really wasn't all that skilled at it. But I was stronger now than I used to be, buzzing head and nose bleed or not. I could probably take the hinges off with a good tug and twist, even if I made my nails bloody trying. But then, looking at the door, I found to my dismay, the hinges were on the outside of it. I huffed a heavy sigh and slumped myself down to the cool floor to see if I could sneak a peek through the gap under the damned door.

There was barely any gap there, not enough to see through properly. Maybe I could get my fingers under there, perhaps they're strong enough to lever it up and pull it out? Probably not. Thinking about it, this place was built to hold people like me.

I stood up again, whacking the sides of my fists hard against a little square inset in the top middle of the door at about my height. The metal shifted back a little and I found myself blushing and looking around as if there was an imaginary audience laughing at me. There had been a little slide there the whole time that pulled open to reveal a barred opening. It opened from this side of the bars though, which seemed like a luxury for a holding cell. Not that I'd been in one before. If I didn't count my childhood home.

It was just then that loud steps filled the hall outside, and subsequently my ears, like several hammers bashing at the inside of my skull over and over. Raised voices approached with it, stressed and strained and the smell of thick, overbearing sweat. The kind that comes with struggle and fear. It outweighed any individual scent, so all the entities seemed to blend into one.

I ducked back a little as they came into sight. Six people, indistinguishable from each other by the hoods pulled up over their faces. They carried between them a metal case, the size of a coffin. Heavy locks keeping it secured closed. They were nervous about its contents, struggling to move it along as it rocked in their grasp. Some of their sudden jolts came with the loud clap of something smacking hard at the roof of the casing. The sound bouncing about the halls like the echo of a bullet in an empty room. A doming dent started to form where the hits were concentrated on the box.