ASUNDER (I) : tmr newt

23: I'm Tentative

23 Michelle

The days are beginning to blur into the nights now that I am in a room alone. They sent over Leo to bandage me. She tried to speak to me but I wouldn't say a word. I couldn't. Not when she almost got me killed.

Sure, she tried to vote against my execution, but she didn't stop it. Her feet didn't move, and she didn't pounce up ready to fight. Words aren't weapons. They are simple things without power. People assign them the ability to have weight and strength, but they mean nothing. It's imaginary.

How could things have strength that aren't tangible?

She also tried to talk to me about the pipsqueak. Something about a spasms, or sleeping, I tried my best to ignore every word that exited her lips. I imagine everything that she says has to pass through a filter. Their leader really is the one with control. He only has it because she gives it to him, but she gives it none the less. I doubt anyone has heard a free thought come out of her mouth.

They said three days. I am on my first. The sun rose this morning, and when the sun rises after the next day, I will be free. Not that I will actually be free, since I will still be trapped in this thing after all. It's all something they made up to keep me obedient.

Sure, after this I'm not going to rip apart trees to shred, or attack any boys, but that's just because I want to keep being alive. I didn't really learn a lesson from all of this, except that their system is unjust. The way they live, the way they make me live, it's not fair. It's not based in reason or in fact, or any shape or sort of similar thing.

It's a pain being in here, because if I want to so much as take a klunk I have to call. No one ever comes. Last time it took me an hour to get a guards attention, and another hour before he actually took me to the bathroom. They're lucky I have some dignity, and didn't decide to make a mess for them to clean up.

The sun is already setting yet no one has brought me food since the sun rose. It's funny, because even if I am being provided no attention I still feel like I am being treated better in here then I am out there. At least in here there are no lingering eyes, no brutal hands, and no collapsing buildings.

No boys.

The latch on the door clangs, and I scramble back to the wall. At least I thought there were no boys.

A boy stumbles in out from the darkening glade. The door drags along the ground, the cement weighing it down. He spins on his heels before pulling the handle and latch shut.

I can tell who it is, but I am surprised. He is taller than me, and I never really payed much attention to his height before now. I don't think he is actually tall, it seems I am actually pretty short.

I only notice his height because he blocks out the sun that cracks through the small bars in the door. The dirty and bloody walls seem even grittier in the dark. The sun passes just past the lines in his face, sharpening his jaw and his nose.

He turns his head to face me. In the dim lighting, his face looks less red than usual. He seems much less angry, and he looks down on the ground.

I'm not going to speak first, but it seems he isn't either. I stare down the wall behind him. My bloody handprints drag down the sides of the concrete on both sides of the door. He stands perfectly between the two prints.

When he looks up at me he crosses his arms. He sighs before he speaks.

"I know David lied." As he says the words, they curl out of his mouth into a snarl.

I don't know who David is, so I stare at a wall and wait for him to continue. What he wants me to do is respond, but I cock my head to the side. I can feel my hair falling around my face as I peek through it at him.