Ultramarine -- REWRITTEN

Twenty Six. [c.h.] -- REWRITTEN

          The worst day was when he never came. When I had been alone with only the camera to monitor me in the hours that I had almost drove myself insane from the screaming inside of my thoughts. To miss and yearn for his presence just so I didn't have to fret the ideas that only he could soothe was now an added stone to the hundreds I carried on my back. I was going to collapse, if I hadn't already.

         Steps around the corner that I expected to be his the next day was instead from a bigger man. A bald head that glistened in the white light, narrow and beady viridian eyes which were similar to a rat's, and built to the point where it looked unhealthy (I knew Commissioners were typically larger than the average citizen, but I wasn't aware that there weren't any limits). He was a bigger version of a cartoon character that I had seen in old commercials. I was on the opposite end of the spectrum. Frail to the point where it was unhealthy, bones that had turned into sticks and muscles that weren't growing from the few workouts I was doing.

          "Where's my other Commissioner?" I questioned, approaching the force field and eyeing the intense muscles in his back that could crush me with one bend of his arm. Even through the force field he smelled threatening. His aura and stance was much more hardcore than Harry's.

          "He has been released from his duties for crimes against the Association," he replied with a bold, guttural voice that emerged from the deepest part of this throat.

          My heart collapsed in my stomach and dissolved in the acid, clawing at my skin from the pain of the air being taken from my lungs. I wanted to throw up and suffocate because surely I was going to be murdered. It couldn't possibly be right.

          "Released?" I choked. The man did not reply, and I did not have the energy to cry over everything that was now lost. A friend, a hope for the future, the single light in the black that smothered each pore on my body. It was too overwhelming to comprehend. I wrapped my arms around my stomach and perched myself on the edge of the bed, an echoing shrill of each and every horrible thought exploding all at once, like a field full of inactive grenades that had been set off by a single one. Released had to mean dead, because there was no other possibility that I could think of.

          My fingers were digging into my sides but couldn't distract me from the calamity happening inside of my chest and head. Throbbing grew and thundered in my ears as the realization hit that I had (most likely), been the cause of his death. His life was on my conscience. All of what he was and what he could've been for me to roll over in my thoughts until the day I moved on, which would be sooner than later.

          I was alone and would be until I escaped or was executed.

          A dull ache began to spread in my lower back and stomach and I rolled my eyes. "I need to go to the bathroom," I said, standing from my cot and placing my hands at my sides. "And I need a tampon or some other feminine product."

          Mr Clean did not look back, only grabbed the monitor, typed in a message to Aria to release the force field, and clasped both wrists behind my back. My wrists stung and pulsed from his hold as the two of us marched to the bathroom. He stood next to the door, informing me that my feminine product would be sent through the newly installed slot. How convenient.

          I thought of all of the ways I would run, turning over each and every scenario. Punching him in the nose, temporarily crippling him to give me a head start as I ran the opposite way of where I had run when I had first been here. Or, I could knee him, allowing me more time to run and find my way. Another option would be to just run, which wasn't smart compared to my other choices. He could easily reach out and grab me; his arms were much longer than mine. They were trained for purely running, but were they trained for physical combat? Sure, I only knew the bare minimum, but it was enough to get me by. I could do both; knee and punch to send him into a chaotic sense of damage as he tried to figure out if his nose or groin hurt the most. He'd become too unsettled to worry about me for a few extra seconds.