Masquerade

Chapter Twenty-two

The first thing I notice when I enter the building is how chillingly silent it is. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I suppose I imagined some conversations going on at least. Abner made friends here, so maybe he coped by spending time with them.

But everything is silent.

Luckily for us, there are no guards on post inside, all of them outdoors handling the Barlow situation. They're not much needed in here anyway, considering every inhabitant is trapped inside a jail cell with no means of escaping. But I know that we still don't have a lot of time; pretty soon, the nomad clan will overtake the soldiers and make their way inside. And then we'll be dead.

The building is plain, with nothing more than rows upon rows of iron cells. The walls are grey. The floors are grey. The prison bars are grey. Grey, grey, grey. The air is hazy, with a sort of eerie orange hue. The only source of light comes from a couple of lazy torches on the walls.

Overall, it's an incredibly sad place to spend your last stretch of life. My heart aches as I think of Wren's lovely grandmother, holed up in a sterile room barely big enough to walk in. Nothing to do but sit and wait until you give your last breath, silence being the last sound you hear.

"Fawn, we need to hurry, find what we're looking for," Jac whispers, giving me a gentle nudge. His mouth is stretched into a thin line, and he looks as if the life has been sucked out of him completely.

I give him a quick nod in response, and we solemnly walk down the hallway. As I peer into the cells, I notice that most of the inhabitants seem quite...normal. None of them wear masks, so the large red boils that dot their faces are visible to everyone. They all have a haunted look in their eyes and watch Jac and I pass as if we are ghosts.

However, I find myself unable to understand why they had to be sent here in the first place. Other than the obvious trauma they've been through, I can't make sense of the logic behind hiding them away. They seem stable, nothing like the crazed shells of people that I so often hear about.

In fact, some of the citizens we pass by seem as if there is nothing wrong with them at all. The silence we became so used to dissipates at a certain section of the building, where a couple of them casually conversate with each other through the bars. They eye us suspiciously but seem unfazed by our presence, acting like ordinary village goers gossiping in the town square.

And then we reach the back of the building.

Something is very off about the inhabitants in this section. Their eyes are white as milk, with not a trace of color or life. They sit absolutely still and stare off as if they are statues, barely breathing. I can't tell if they are alive or dead, and that scares me.

Suddenly, they're able to sense me and Jac's presence. One inhabitant, an elderly woman with snowy hair, reaches out through the bars in an attempt to grab me. I jump back into Jac's arms, who protectively steers me to stand behind him.

But then the prisoner behind me grasps at me, their fingernails scraping my arm. I jump forward this time, causing Jac to stumble. It's then that I realize that all the inhabitants of this block are now in this state, grasping for us with a crazed sort of desperation.

I walk back the way we came, wanting nothing more than to get out. But I am stopped in my tracks by an older gentleman who grabs my arm with an iron grip, keeping me immobilized.

And then it all goes black.

<><><>

I am no longer Fawn Godfrey. I am a bird.