Passing with Fighting Colours

Chapter 7: New Plan

          Cotton awoke with a jolt.  The sleeping form of Teal still lay beside him, her arms wrapped around him.  He pushed himself up without waking her, and looked around.  The rest were all asleep.  He looked back down, and realized just how blurry his vision was.  With one hand supporting his weight, he carefully lifted the other to his eyes to clear them up.  When he pulled his hand away, he noticed a shiny trace running along the length of his wrist.  He looked back down at Teal, and saw that she had been crying, too.  Her aqua hair was all ruffled, and she slept not-so-soundly, with a grimace plastered on her face.  He gently tucked the loose curls behind her ear, and laid back down, placing an arm over her.  He glided his hand up and down her back, to try to soothe her sleep.  She squeezed tighter. Her face pressed tighter against Cotton's side, her sharp nose digging into his left side of his rib-cage. Her muffled voice mumbled inaudible words in a disgruntled tone. She pulled away for a quick breath of air.

          "No, please. Don't, don't do this. Please, I beg you. Stop," Teal pleaded to no one in particular. Cotton combed his fingers through her hair, and shushed her down. Teal squirmed frantically, still asleep. Her cries grew louder, and louder, until she awakened herself. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, panting heavily and gasping for breath, only taking breaks to swallow the air. After a few seconds, remembering where she was and what had happened, she calmed down quite quickly. She looked over at Cotton, who was obviously concerned. She smiled, and laughed to herself.

          "Hey, buddy," she said softly. She ran her hand over the top of his head, and rubbed it gently. She pulled down to the side of his face, where her thumb wiped away the remnants of his tears that he didn't manage to get the first time.

          "How'd you sleep?" Cotton inquired. Her head cocked to one side. Her eyes squinted in confusion.

          "What do you mean?" she asked, clearly baffled.

          "Well, you were t-talking in your sleep, telling someone, 'No, please. Don't do this. I beg you. Stop,' and you were latched onto me, not to m-mention that you screamed yourself awake," Cotton explained.

          "Heh heh, heh heh heh," Teal laughed nervously.

          "Yeah," she breathed.

          "Well, it's, like, 2:30 in the morning now, so I should probably go," Teal said quietly. She hugged Cotton one last time before leaving to go into her own bunk. Cotton watched her leave, obviously caring about her well-being, before falling back asleep. Teal tugged the covers back, and stepped into her bed, lying on her back for a few minutes just staring at the ceiling. She sighed heavily, and closed her eyes, still not yet asleep. She turned on her side, facing the wall, and slept.

          She did not sleep soundly, however, for her mind was plagued with horrific nightmares, those same horrific dreams swirling around through her thoughts like toxic fog, looming ever closer, infecting her sweet lullabies with menacing ideas that filled her with dread, every single night.  Those exact same nightmares that she was having before her own cries for help woke her up.  Fear had embedded itself into her brain for a few months now, and she had tried everything in her power to keep it hidden within herself.  She'd bottled up her feelings from everyone, and succeeded.  No one knew how she truly felt, and she liked it that way.  She didn't like people trying to comfort her, or hug her, or try to calm her down; it just made her feel worse.

As she drifted off again, this time in isolation, the same nightmares she had every night replayed in her mind, dancing closer and closer, taunting her with what once was. In her mind, she stood alone, staring unblinkingly at the scene unfolding in front of her. A boy with bright bluish-green hair mirrored her, faced her, the copycat smile etched on his face. She took a step closer; he did the same. She skipped towards him; so did he. She started running to him, arms outstretched; like a reflection, he did too. However, just when they were in arms' reach, they both stopped. It was as if there was a wall, an invisible barrier between them. She pressed her hands up against the boundary that she could not see, hoping to get a closer look, when a man materialized out of thin air. His face disguised, she could not see his face, and did not know who he was. The boy, still looking at her, dropped his grin, like it was never there in the first place. The veiled man walked towards the boy, whose cyan hair was losing colour impossibly fast, and placed his arms around his shoulders. Tears started to free-fall from her eyes, as the man's hands migrated slowly, inch by inch, to the boy's neck. Shouting, screaming, crying all at once; the boy did not hear her. Instead, his eyes fell shut, making his face unreadable, as his neck was jerked in a direction that was most certainly unnatural. Falling to the ground, he last uttered the words, in a somehow hearty tone despite being nearly unable to breathe, "You look like shit."

          When Teal finally stirred, she saw the time just at the very edge of her vision.

          6:57.

          'Great,' she thought.  'I only have three minutes left. Well, I guess I better start waking up.'

          She kicked the covers back, fending off the clutches of the blankets that had her trapped for several hours. After the sheets were at a safe distance, she laid back down, her head sinking into the pillow like a lead weight. Thoughts were running through her mind, but she waved them away and started to actually get up.  Her hand migrated naturally to rub the back of her neck, where a small, little image of fireworks was tattooed, with the words "This spark will never die," written beneath. Sighing heavily, she leant over to pull the bedspread back up, lazily making the bed that seemed to be made of rocks.  Just as she did so, a sharp knock sounded at the door.  She made her way over to it, and stepped outside.  She looked around, searching for the source of the noise.  Normally, there would've been a guard or two, still waking everyone else up, while she would be going to do her job, but there was absence in their place.

          "Hello?" she called tentatively. She was met with silence. She squinted her eyes in confusion, her eyebrows furrowing together to match. Over her shoulder, she saw nothing. In the opposite direction, the nothingness was mirrored. She was extremely confused. They usually didn't disappear that quickly, did they? She shrugged it off, the uneasy experience still on constant repeat in the back of her mind, but she buried it beneath the impending task that she had, which was to clean the artillery that was used repeatedly. Mostly, she just dusted away the excess gunpowder, or made them shine so they looked presentable to the high-positioned people in the building. She didn't expect any different from that day's work, nor was she disappointed. It still felt odd, though, being answered with absolute silence like that.

          After she had come back, the room had seemed almost more lively, now that Green had joined. Cotton was a lot more talkative than before, Blue was looking a little more chipper, and Violet was even smiling genuinely. As she strolled in, hoping that the conversation would stay afloat, the noise had died down super quick. She instinctively raised a hand to her face, thinking that there was something there. Wiping away imaginary dirt and grime off her face, she looked around. No one was talking anymore, and they certainly weren't going to start again.

          "Hey, guys. What's, uh, what's up?" Teal asked, trying to sound casual. However, just like in the morning, her response was only more absent speech, with an addition of wary glances. They all backed away, except for Green. He didn't seem like he trying to keep away, more like he was confused as to what was going on, but not as much as Teal herself was. Blue sighed, like he knew he was the one who was going to have explain what was going on.

          "Listen, Teal, there's something we need to talk to you about. So, you know how a few months back we had made a plan to escape this place? But we had to abandon it because of his passing? Well, we were thinking, now that we have Green here, we can actually do it now. I know it's a little much to take on all at once, but trust me, we will discuss this more in-depth later. So, what do you think?" Blue stated. Teal was taken aback, and quite frankly, very overwhelmed. She could only respond with her mouth gaping open, her jaw almost level to the base of her neck, as if she was going to speak, but couldn't.  She closed her mouth again, leaving it only ajar in case any ideas came to mind about how to respond.  However, none did, and she was left completely and utterly speechless.  She let out a squawk that she hoped would suffice for an answer.  But Blue still looked at her with an eyebrow raised as if he was still in need of an answer.

          "I-I mean, s-sure, yeah.  That could work," she replied nervously, tripping up on her words several times.  Blue's grin stretched and grew into a smile, one that spoke of his delight in a better way than words ever would.

          "Perfect," he breathed.

          "Now, where do we begin?"

          In just a few short hours, before the majority decided that they wanted to sleep, most of the details were worked out.  They had the basic strategy of it, getting out, and very select others ideas incorporated into that.  Teal's favourite part was where she laid her hands on the guns to snatch them and hide them, rather than just clean out the gunpowder like she usually did; the blatant smell of smoke was far from pleasant, and she wanted a change of pace. Her face was plastered with a permanent smirk, and it didn't go away even as her head hit the pillow. When finally her eyes fluttered shut, she drifted off into dreamland. Only then were her dreams filled with happy thoughts.