Locked

Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

    I wake up later, my mouth dry. I smack my lips and the dirty tang of stale breath is evident. I yawn before swinging my legs over the side of the bed and touching my toes to the cold cement floor. Maple, as usual, is up before me. She's sitting in the corner of the cell doing something, I'm too sleepy to try an think about it. 

    Sitting down at the table, I flip open the ever-nagging book to pass the time. I longed for the Cibbi to hurry up, I wanted to see if there was another letter. Besides, my ever-persistent stomach is growling. Rubbing my eyes, I focus my attention back on Maple.

      "Watcha doing?" I mutter sleepily. 

     "Counting." she replied after a moment of silence.

     "Counting... what?" I probe. Wandering over, I see her sitting under the light bulb with a huge pile of paper cranes in her lap. "Oh." 

      "I have over one thousand, Sonya." she laughed lightly. "I have two-thousand and three!" she exclaimed giddily. "That's a wish each." she breathed. I knew she believe that by wishing on one thousand paper birds, it might come true, but I had trouble believing a word of it. 

      "Oh, cool." I say, plopping down next to her. "Have you been up since I went to bed?" I question.

     "No, I slept for a little while." she replied. "But I have too much on my mind to sleep." I nodded in agreement. 

     "I do too, but somehow sleep always comes." changing the subject, I say, "Maple, what do you think of the voice we heard yesterday?" I question. "And the journals? I mean, we talked a little about them, but..." I trail off, leaving her to fill in the blanks.

     "I think we need to escape, go after the voice. We know there are more people down here, getting to them is the next step. They may know more than us, we already know the people sending the messages do." she voiced. "Sonya, we need to come up with an escape plan." 

      "I know. But how the heck would we escape?" I said, throwing my arms quizzically into the air. Out of habit, I stand up and begin to pace around the cell. I clutch the bars, deep in thought. Pieces of the journal text keep coming back to me. The thing about the 'Nexts', the people before me, and Maple. The person had written about their memory being swiped, could that possibly be the reason behind the fact that, try as I must, I couldn't remember anything past the moment when I woke up in this cell? 

     It made sense. Perfect sense. So we were Nexts. People with random memories stored inside of our minds for some ungodly reason, probably. 

     I glance at the fork marks on the wall, my hands suddenly becoming clamming even in this chilly pit. I guess I've been down here long enough to acquire the ability to sense when the Cibbi is coming. I'm nervous, hoping desperately that another filthy piece of paper will be waiting for me on the tray. I wring my shirt up, twisting it around my fidgety fingers. 

      I'm right of course. In no time, the little flashing orange light can be seen gliding down the hall. Much to slowly, to my liking that is... It's too dark to be able to tell if another letter is waiting on the tray. Painfully, I watch the CBI come closer, the time in between feeling like a million fork scrapes on the wall. Finally, its arms reach forward under the bars, delivering food, water and - another letter.

      I practically leap for joy, letting out a tiny squeak while doing so. "Maple, we got another one!" I whisper, as if by speaking out loud will cause the delicate letter will vanish. She turns from her work and pick up her tray, setting it down next to mine on the table. She leans over my shoulder to read along with me.