Winter Went | #2 Winter Series

Chapter 7

|| Amelia ||

A few hours later and I still have no plan.

Nothing.

There's something eating away at me, something that's turning me inside out. I give into it, letting myself flop back onto the bed, staring blankly at the dirty ceiling.

No plan, no escape. No escape and I will die in this hell.

And so I begin again, trying to conjure up thought after thought that are all wasted, all stripped apart by my own critical mind. Flaws rise in them so high that I fight to smother them down along with my tears.

I turn back to the wall, eyes grazing its coffee stain that dribbles down, dry. I have often made stories up about that stain. Fantasies rise in my brain. Perhaps there had been a cheeky prisoner living in here before me. He'd snuck out to the kitchens, stole a mug of coffee to himself. And perhaps the guards found him. Maybe that one long brown drip is his way of saying goodbye before they threw him out by the hair onto the streets.

My brain is one huge confused mess.

I'm still imagining about what could have caused the stain hours later. But there is one sound that lifts me from my reverie.

Speaking. Faint because I'm far away. But someone is speaking and the sound drifts down the hallway. I strain my ears to make out what they're saying.

"ID yes... No, but she... sent me... Yes." That's all I can pick out. The rest of the words that fill the sentences are lost in the echo of the corridor.

Then a muffled snort and a quick, "Come with me." After that, there's footsteps but they're walking away. The flame dies. It was my hope, the thing I could hold onto. But now the person walks away and in doing so, they snuff the candle out.

I decide I don't care. Whoever they are, they're not here because of the prisoners.

And I so turn my gaze back to the wall, beginning the Stain Game again.