Breaking Barriers

Locked Away

Squirt Octus:

I was unsure where we were going. There was only a slight crack of sunlight peeking out from the sky, but it felt as if we'd been walking for ages. I peered up at Paani, who was carrying my uncle on his back. Uncle Inkling had protested against being carried, but after Paani and Peso had implored him to cause of his age and his walking abilities at the moment, he finally gave in and hesitantly allowed Paani to carry him the rest of the way so he wouldn't worry them. Sweat soaked through the layers I had on, and my tentacles felt chafed.

"Here we are!" Min smiled cheerfully as we approached a building that loomed over us and seemed to cast us in its shadow, but her sunshine quickly faded into urgency as the shadows of our hiding place grew darker and darker, "Hurry, hurry, everyone inside!"

She pushed the polished, glossy black door open. Inside were equally polished and pristine offices. All of them were as empty and dark as the street we had just left behind. We looped around them all and into a littler office bunched up in the back with Bianca's name on a glimmering bronze plate on the door. Min's paws fluttered over the door, gingerly feeling up and down the hard, black door until she knocked 3 times sharply.

"Who is it?" Bianca asked as casually as she could, like we were one of her clients.

"It's a friend with a delivery." Min replied, leaning on the door and murmuring barely above a whisper.

"Come in." Min stepped forwards and pushed the door open to reveal Bianca standing in a grey pantsuit with her back to us. Peculiarly, she seemed to be trying to pull the wall apart, until, in front of our very eyes, the outline of a large rectangle, slightly smaller than the door we had just entered through. A hidden panel.

"Bianca, it's-" Dashi began, but Bianca could read her mind.

"Once everyone arrives, I'll put a file cabinet and some pictures of the cubs up to hide it." Bianca whispered, and ushered her into the secret corridor, "Now hurry! We don't have much time!" Paani put my uncle down, and Min placed a comforting paw on my tentacle as she helped my uncle in.

"We'll be fine, dear boy." She smiled, and her eyes softened for me, but sharp creases of worry in her face gave her away.

"Yeah, we'll be fine, Min. No need to worry." I tried to smile comfortingly for her, but the motion felt so foreign to my face. In all the toil and tragedy I'd witnessed over the last few months of my life, I'd forgotten how to smile, how to laugh, how to be a child.

"You're a good boy, Squirt." I caught the slight shimmer of tears in her kind eyes, "Take care of your uncle when I'm not here, will you?"

"I will." I promised and wrapped my tentacles tightly around her, "Be safe, Min. Thank you."

"Thank you, dear boy." She whispered in my ear as we broke apart, "See you next week." I watched as she left the room, and I began to go cold and numb. What was I supposed to do?

It was at that moment I realized Koshi, Jane, and Pinto were waiting for me halfway up the staircase, so I rushed to them.

"What'd Min ask you, Pendejo?" Pinto asked and elbowed me. I only shook my head.

"She asked me to take care of my uncle." I responded, feeling slightly numb, but warmer, now that friends were nearby.

"You won't have to worry about that, Squirt." Jane smiled impishly, "Peso won't stop fussing over him if you paid him."  and I had to laugh, feeling all the tension roll off of me as we walked into the apartment and storerooms above the offices.

"So, what do we do now?" Pinto asked, shimmying out of his coat and yanking a sweater off, "I'm boiling."

Koshi shrugged, taking off her own coat, "the only thing we can do. Wait for everyone else to get here."