Evil Is Pink (bxb)

Chapter 4

At some point, Sticks must have fallen asleep. He was still curled like a baby next to the cell's iron bars when they clicked and suddenly started to rattle. Sticks didn't notice nor did he wake until he was suddenly smacked by a truck—oh wait, it was just a slab of paper. In any case, he yelped, which caused the guard looming over him to scoff in disgust.

"Pathetic." He heard him mutter under his breath. Behind him, the grumblings of his fellow prisoners told him that he might've woken them up too. Yikes. But thankfully, it didn't seem like it would've made that much as a difference, as right then and there, a set of alarms began to blare with the force of a thousand bells. From the corner of his eyes, Sticks could see Tendril stir from his bed, the blanket that covered his body shifting in annoyance.

"That there's your new life." The guard said, pointing to the paper. "Welcome home."

Home...

How strange it was to refer to this new alien place as such. But he supposed he should be used to it. He had been moving around, calling one strange new place home after another, all his life. Being the son of Dr. King meant that he never stayed in a single place for more than a month or so at most. Home was wherever his father wished it to be. Be it an abandoned subway, an old sewer, a trash can, a stack of newspapers, a moist cave, a broken oven, or most recently a half constructed warehouse. And so, when he thought of home, he could only ever picture his father's face—a charming, wonderful, lovable face screaming at him to unpack their things.

Sticks lifted the paper from his face and stared at it. SCHEDULE it said. He flipped the page, but before he could finish reading the first sentence, Tendril's shadow glazed over the paper.

"You didn't change."

Sticks looked up at him, which was probably a mistake. From the angle he was sitting at, Tendril looked like he was just about ready to commit murder.

"C-Change...?"

"Your clothes." He scowled. "They'll punish you during roll call if you're not in them."

"Oh th-thank...you..." Sticks's voice trailed off as Tendril, without so much as a second glance, slid the grille door and went outside. Sticks glanced at the pair of untouched clothes he slept beside. It was an ugly gray set consisting of a long sleeve sweater, gray pants and a single pair of stained gray canvas slip ons.

He changed quickly, ignoring the prisoners that passed his cell, sneering at him, and then quickly joined them outside their barracks. A dense patch of mountainous fog streaked the sky above them, forcing the sun's rays to shine through as tiny slivers, like a spotlight that had been broken into a thousand separate pieces. Sticks could see that their barracks was situated in front of a large expanse of cropland. Lining the edge of the fields were sets of stone, cube shaped barracks, each one with their own attending guard. A giant cement wall circled them. Sticks could see people standing high above on top of the walls and knew that scaling the wall would be impossible. The only way he would be leaving this little pocket of farmland would be through the large, metal gate that was just as heavily guarded, with two large watch towers serving as its shield.

They stood single file in front of the same guard who had slapped the stack of stapled papers on his face. The guard then went down the line, reading out loud a series of numbers. Looking down, he noticed the number 467 sewn onto the corner of his shirt.

The guard tapped on his clipboard.

"Announcements. None. Business as usual. School continues. Next month is the switch as planned. Farming duty for you lot."

Sticks blinked.

School.

School?!

He felt as though someone had smacked him in the face. But, like, in a good way!