skeleton skies ★ k.takami

five

QUÆ FEURANT VITIA MORES SUNT
— "what were once vices are now customs"

AMBIANCE; in the woods somewhere, Hozier

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The plate of food that Keigo left remained by the door he exited through. Goosebumps crawled across the expanse of your torso. You're famished and kind of cold, but you don't trust him. You don't trust the food on the plate, no matter how appetizing it is. Everything about this situation has your fight or flight mode on hyperdrive. You're going to find a way out of here. Before that, you want a shirt. You wanted your weapons back, too but it was obvious that wasn't happening anytime soon, if ever.

The cuffs on your wrists are police edition. You can already feel the tenderness of the bruising from the uncomfortable edges. You wonder if there's something in here that you can use to break the center link in order to have your full range of mobility back. You already knew that Keigo wasn't dumb enough to leave the key. If he did, it was more than likely a trap.

You start digging through the cabinets as quietly as you can. Most of them are empty unfortunately. You scowl at the discovery before shutting those ones and continuing on. You stumble upon a bathroom that's relatively clean and when you step inside you find a pile of clothes in the corner. You dig through it until you find a shirt and pick it up. It's black and stained with blood but you don't care. Turning it around in your hands reveals that there are two holes cut into the back. You throw it back down onto the pile and head back out into the main room. Another look around concludes your theory; you're in his room.

The only option you have was trying to break the chain over the pipe you'd been strung up on earlier. The chances of that working were slim. The opportunity of your wrists breaking on the other hand was high. That was no condition to fight for your life in.

That makes you highly uncomfortable and you hurry to the window again, taking another look around. The mist still hasn't cleared. You swear mentally and look down to your boots. You're out of ideas. You wouldn't make it far in a base full of quirk users. It's apparent that Keigo's the leader of this group, nodding back to that black bird headed man calling him 'Boss'. You scrunch your nose in distaste. You aren't sure if you should be more scared of him or the undead lingering outside the train car walls. A shake of your head is an attempt to rid yourself of those thoughts. You still might have a chance, even if you have to wait for nightfall. Weapons or not, you probably wouldn't make it out of here alive.

'Shit'.

You press your head into the wall in frustration. The cool wood isn't enough to stave off the pounding in your head. Your stomach screams in agony and you press your arms into your torso. You won't eat, you can't. You want your things back so you can cook your own food. You'd be damned if you gave in to his manipulation and abuse. You wouldn't lower yourself like that. You refused to. There were points in time where you went without eating for a week, only relying off of the water you'd boiled which was minimal already. Making fires created smoke and the scent of it could draw the undead so you preferred to stay in the cold.

You straighten up from the wall again and stare out the window. The mist is the perfect resemblance to the fog in your head. It's difficult to make sense of all this. You'd lived on your own for so long—long enough to not get caught stealing and plundering by groups or Wanderers, people who decided to stray away from the communities built after the Wipe. Most of them happened to be criminals who didn't fit in well with society even if all prior statuses had essentially been washed away. Did you only make it out because of what he had taught you or was it luck?