The Thief |Sokka

TWO

This was perhaps the busiest lockdown Jaya had ever experienced. She had been one of the first prisoners to get in her cell, long before the alarm had finished ringing and everyone had been escorted into their rooms. But the corridor hadn't been silent for even a second. Footsteps came and went, people talking in hushed tones. She attempted to spend her time in a productive manner, or as productive daydreaming could be considered, but the voices and sounds from outside distracted her and in the end she could do nothing but give up. She headed to the door of her cell, and from the small barred window, she peered outside. She could finally understand the reason for all the commotion now.

New prisoners had arrived. They were shown to their cells, and she followed them with her eyes for as long as she could. One of them was put in the cell directly opposite her own, behind the railing on the other side. Soon, the prisoners had all been put into their rooms and she could spy no movement from the corridor. Until she noticed a guard on the other side, stopping right in front of the door the new prisoner had been put in. He looked around and then, sneakily, got in the room. Her eyes widened. She attempted to shake the door of her cell open, help the new guy. But it wouldn't budge. She had no choice but to stay where she was. 

Her eyes didn't leave the door of the new prisoner and she tried to hear what was happening as best as she could until a while later, the guard left. She looked on as he did, measuring his footsteps as he walked on and on, got down the staircase. Until he fled her sight. When the corridor in front of her remained silent, and once she had cursed the guard and his family enough times for her liking, she retreated in the back of her room and sat down on her mattress. She busied herself by running her hands through her long hair, smoothing it down, untangling it to the best of her abilities as gradually, she fell into the habit of daydreaming. Her thoughts ran to older times, when she had been free.

Growing up, Jaya's dreams didn't include closed spaces and limits. She had planned on being free, with her family there to support her all the way, as she got better and better and found a job near the village she had once lived in. Perhaps she would have fished for a living. But her dreams had been shattered with her family's death. 

She had lived in the streets or the forests she encountered as she moved, stealing anything she could to survive. To this day, she was unsure about how she had gotten lucky enough to survive all those years on her own. She got better at stealing as time went on but she had still been caught and led to her first prison. The food had been adequate but she missed the freedom she had had until this moment in life. She missed the greenery, the feeling of the ocean's water at her feet, the unobstructed glow of the sun and the breeze of the wind. So she escaped the moment she could. And that was how her history with prisons had started.

Jaya attempted to think of the world beyond the four walls that surrounded her. She remembered the feeling of grass beneath her skin, the coolness of water as she touched it, the warmth of fire in the lucky nights she had had the chance to make some and use it so she didn't freeze. She closed her eyes, imagined it so vividly that for a moment she thought if she were to open her eyes, she would be in a green field with grass as tall as her waist, birds singing around her. The imaginery was so close she could almost live through it. And then the door to her cell opened with a groan.

Her eyes snapped open. For a moment, she seemed unsure as to what was going on before she remembered, and her brows furrowed. They were on a lockdown. The doors weren't supposed to be open. Cautiously, she stood up and slowly made her way out of her room. She looked down the moment she could, instinctively looking for Suki. And there, finally, she saw her, leaving her room. Relieved now she had seen her, she turned back around and headed to the courtyard. She stepped to the side the moment she was outside, waited by the door. As soon as Suki had passed, she fell into step with her.