Safe House

Day Two

Safe House Four

            Fuck. I’m sorry, that is the absolute worst way to start off the transcript of the end of your days, but it’s all my brain can really process right now. Fuckfuckfuckfuck. There. That’s a little better.

            I thought it would all blow over in a couple of hours. I was hoping for it too-we were supposed to camp out tonight. But now it’s the next morning (is it even morning? It’s hard to tell time in this stupid underground prison) and we’re still here, bored as ever. I should be waking up to hear birds chirping, feel the Maine air blow around my poorly-ventilated tent, and walk outside to a breakfast of pancakes over the fire. Instead, I woke up to the static of a radio trying to be tuned, and felt the stagnant air go nowhere as I walked over to a plastic container and grabbed a weird peanut energy bar for breakfast. Hey, add the internet and it’s almost like I’m back home in New York.

            It’s weird being the only guy here. I barely know Birch and Juliet, but they’ve been in each other’s cabins for four years now, and are currently finishing up their books. Come on girls, I want to scream, we’re going to be in here for who knows how long! You’ll have plenty of time to finish Beautiful Creatures or whatever. I’m trying to leave Good Omens untouched until I’m so bored I’m counting cracks in the cement.

            Scarlet and Juniper, the counselors, are busy too-like I said, working on the radio. They’ve been working for about three hours, and have managed nothing but about ten seconds of some eighties song before the thing went all fuzzy again. Who’s great idea was it to place a radio somewhere where you can’t get reception?

            Damn it, this journal was the only thing I had to keep my dying from boredom and I’m already out of ideas. I know, I should attempt to go socialize with my deathmates, but I’m way too nervous. I haven’t talked to Birch since we were ten and she was in my horseback riding class (note to past self: no matter how many times you get on that horse, you will fall off. Every time. And Birch will ride circles around you-literally-and break your little ten year old heart.) And I can’t bear to make a fool of myself in front of her again.

            She’s just too perfect, okay? She has these flickering golden eyes and brown curly hair that frizzes up when it rains and honey skin without a flaw. And whenever I see her with Emily and Lea and Natalie, she’s always smiling. As in I have never seen her without a smile on her face, without that pretty little head rocking back in a laugh. That is, until yesterday.

            I was in Woodshop, and I was the last one left finishing up my project. It was a radio cabinet for my dad’s record player-that would be kind of useful right now, wouldn’t it? Birch and Juliet were upstairs, in the stained glass studio, doing who knows what. Then I saw Megan, a tiny little girl Kat was friends with, sprint by me. And trust me, she is the least athletic person I know-I was worried. “Megan!” I yelled. “What’s going on?”

            “Can’t talk,” she panted, gasping for air between every word. I ran closer. “There’s men-with guns-near the animal pen-coming here-look out-“ She was clutching her shoulder in agony, and her hand was stained red. I had her move her hand, and I saw a gaping wound right around her shoulder. She was on the verge of tears, her face slowly turning pale.

            “Come with me,” I said, my voice shaking, and I started to dash back towards the woodshop before realizing she couldn’t keep up. I picked her up, her body limp in my giant arms-I was easily twice her size. I ducked under the shed where the wood is kept to find Juniper, Sabrina, Birch, and Juliet all standing over a large opening in the floor.

            “We need to find the nurse,” I panted, my voice cracking as the salty tears flowed over my cheeks. Megan started to cough violently, her hacking spilling blood all over her pink cardigan. I couldn’t let her die, she was so young… But her body went limp, and there was no pulse when I lifted her chest up to my ear.