ꌗᎮꀤ꒒꓄ ꀤꉓꃅꂦꋪ - ᴀ ᴘᴇʀᴄʏ ᴊᴀᴄᴋꜱᴏɴ ꜰᴀɴꜰɪᴄ

ꉓꃅꍏꉣ꓄ꍟꋪ ꓄ꅏꂦ - Fresh Out the Slammer

Freedom isn't real
True escape is counterfeit
The prison, replaced

⋆⁺₊⋆ 𖤓 ⋆⁺₊⋆

My savior, namely Gleeson Hedge, yanks me down the stairs by the wrist after pulling the fire alarm because "chaos makes for a good escape!" A wave of security guards rushes past us on their way to get the other patients out of the rooms and evacuate. They pay Hedge and I no attention.

The alarm blares in my ears, the soundtrack to my long awaited escape. I'd prefer Taylor Swift, but it will have to do. The Bolter would be fitting, or maybe Fresh Out the Slammer. No, definitely Getaway Car, except for the fact that I don't have a car to getaway in and running away on foot just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Gleeson pulls me down the last steps and we round the corner, only seconds away from the front door, but find dozens of nurses blocking our paths. The women wear the facility issued scrubs on their tops but the bottom halves of their bodies are exposed to reveal two snake tails holding them up. Snakes again. Why snakes? Much smaller snakes then the one Lamia was attached to, but snakes nonetheless. Even the women's hair blurred from normal to locks made of serpents.

"Not sssso fassst ssssatyr! You killed our mother! Now you mussst pay the pricccce!" The snake woman at the front declares.

"Dracaenae," Hedge states. He spits it out of his mouth like the word is filthy, silt-coated. Then he turns to me, bouncing on the balls of his feet... or hooves, and says, "There's another exit out back. I'll meet you outside."

I blink at him in surprise. "You can't take all of them by yourself-"

The dracaenae don't let me finish. They swarm us and the moment I see them slithering towards me, I sprint in the direction Hedge pointed without a second thought. Maybe The Bolter is more fitting for this escape after all. When snakes are around, all decency is flushed down the toilet.

"Hiya!" The satyr whoops from behind me and I dare a look backwards in time to see him disintegrate one of Lamia's minions. For one guy, he can certainly hold his own.

My eyes catch on the green glow of the exit sign. You're on your own, kid. You always have been, I think-sing to myself. Even snakes can't turn off my internal Spotify. I see the great escape, so long, Daisy May.

A hiss startles me out of my internal concert. I turn to see two of the creatures slithering towards me with alarming speed considering they lack the ability to run. My brain goes into overdrive mode and without thinking, I grab the first object I see, a fire extinguisher. I bury my elbow into the class and pull the canister free. A stinging pain erupts on my elbow at the site of impact and hot blood trickles down my arm, but I can do nothing for it right now.

With instincts I didn't know I had, I blast the monsters with heavily pressurized jets of air that are painted white by the powdered chemicals inside. They hiss and claw at their eyes, stumbling backwards. One of the dracanae trips over the other's foot (snake?) and pulls her companion down with her in an effort to catch herself.

"Cupcake!"

I look up to Gleeson just in time to see him toss a bronze sword at me. With a yelp, I jump out of the way and drop the fire extinguisher in the process which hisses as it releases its contents in white clouds. The weapon clatters to the ground without nicking me. Seriously, who throws a sword? Shaking my head, I pick up the sword and turn to face the writhing mass of angry women with snake legs. The scaly little bodies make me want to climb onto the nearest piece of furniture to get as far away from the creatures as possible. I gag.

"You gotta stab 'em!" Hedge shouts, glancing over his shoulder to see me hesitating. "You're not gonna hurt 'em, they'll just regenerate, but if we wanna get out of here, you gotta do me a favor, kid!"

The monsters struggle to get up, both blinded by the extinguisher and tripping over their snake feet. One of the snake heads on the dracanae's hair hisses at me, revealing a mouth full of needle thin fangs. I can almost feel them sinking into my skin just like the shots that poked and prodded me all these years of being in the facility. Except, with the needles, it was medicines that was injected into me, not venom like the snake fangs.

Panic crawls up my throat in the form of bile and, rather than fighting the creatures, I throw the sword with shaking fingers at the monsters and back away quickly. The sharp edge of the blade nicks the dracanae on the left and she immediately begins to disintegrate. Why a cut on the cheek seems to be deadly to her, I have no idea, but I'm not complaining.

The second dracanae screams in fury, a hissing sound that chills me to my bones. Snakes, I shudder, only hot on Taylor. Having wiped the white powder concoction from her eyes, the she-demon picks up the sword and charges me. I suddenly regret throwing the weapon at her.

Her hair squirms as the angry snakes mimic the movement of striking, even though they're not close enough to actually bite me. Goosebumps rise up and down my arms, pebbling my bronze-brown skin.

I retrieve the fire extinguisher and try the trigger, but nothing comes out. Frantically, I hold the canister out in front of me. The woman swings at me and I block it with a metallic clang. We dance around each other, me hiding behind my weak shield and her backing me into a corner with the advantage of a sword. I'm going to die. I might just die, it would make no difference. Down bad, waking up in blood- no. No, I won't be waking up, but I will be in blood.

I hold the fire extinguisher up above my head just in time for the monster to bring the sword down into the red metal surface. The rebound sends both me and the beast sprawling backwards to the ground. Air swooshes out of my lungs as I land in a daze. She drops the sword and it clatters away.

Just then, Hedge barrels over to me, charging straight through the monster. Literally. The blade on his baton sticks through the dracanae's back and through her chest before she shatters into gold powder. He pants and wipes the dust from his shoulders. "Come on, kid. Rule one of fighting, never give the weapon to your opponent."

Trying to keep the tremble from entering my voice, I mumble, "That might've been good to know before now."

Hedge huffs out a laugh and leads me out the door.