Lone Mercury

Part 5

As I tap my hand on the gleaming white bench, Webster absentmindedly hums a familiar tune to himself. After the whole fiasco with our arrival to the maximum security cells, we were ordered to wait patiently for the Boss. That was 2 days ago.

"Sorry." Brown Eyes suddenly states with a strained undertone.

"Just tell me how I get out of here!" I whisper-shout.

"Out the door, 2 doors down headed left, you will find a latch under the handle. If you pull it, a flight of stairs appear. Climb them all the way to the top. A warning: an alarm will sound when the latch is tripped, so you need to move extremely fast." Webster spills forcefully.

"Thank you. If I may, why are you helping me now?" I question humbly, not wanting to upset my guide.

"You are incredibly brave, intelligent, courageous, and selfless. In your time of trial, you still wept for your family's safety. I respect you, and hope to see you again. Though not too soon." Webster concludes with a wink, setting in motion a possible friendship.

"But I still don't understand. What's wrong with me?" I question shyly. Webster's shoulders slumped, and he hung his bronze haired head low, almost as if he was showing defeat.

"It was the shrapnel, and the oxygen." he confessed, and continued when I cocked my head to the right, simply confused. "When you were first on the war zone, and were bombed, shrapnel entered you eyes. It spread throughout you entire blood stream. When we were monitoring you, it had almost passed. But then, you popped the IV bag making the oxygen mix, and the chemical reaction caused your body to reproduce mercury and you miraculously survived." Brown Eyes finished in a pant. I simply sat there, gazing intently at a speck of dirt on the white wall across from me. All of a sudden, words that I would never confess tumbled from my lips, like rocks down hill.

"I was crying earlier. I just don't know what to do anymore." I whisper. A tear slides down my face, and I wipe it away with haste.

"I know." Webster simply states, a small sliver of empathy budding.

"So, you heard me crying earlier, and you let me be. Why?" I edge for more answers, buying time until the next guard shift, which is when the most confusion will be.

"You needed to grieve for your loss, and I respected that." Brown Eyes's eyes soften to a warmer tone, hints of emotion showing, a cleary private matter for him. I nod in his direction, just as the shuffle of feet signal the switching rotations.