Sea of Embers

Uncomfortable Cell Mates

A lion is called the king of beasts for a reason

Love Lies by Khalid and Normani

"Show me where your love lies. Waste the day and spend the night. Underneath the sunrise," The tune bounced off the walls, echoing around the small prison cell before retreating back to me. "Show me where your love lies," My voice could carry a tune quite well, as many had told me as a child. Singing was always a passion of mine.

So was punching people.

I believe it was very well known what profession I chose to follow.

I continued to sing the ancient song. It was, what, two hundred years old? I was not sure, but music from that age called to me, as did the extreme urge to karate chop my jailer in the throat. The chubster currently sat in a chair opposite of my cell. I glared at him through the bars for at least an hour after I woke. He didn't know just how lucky he was to have two inch thick steel bars separating my claws from him face. Very lucky. He did not seem fazed by my glaring, however. He buried his chubby face into his four chins and began to doze, leaving me alone with the company of a forever flashing red light drilled to the ceiling. I guessed it was a siren that would wail this monumentally irritating screech if any prisoner were to escape.

His sleeping left me with no other choice but to make noise. I slapped the bars, screamed, even fake sobbed... my acting was absolutely fabulous, of course. But nothing, so I settled for sitting with my back against one of the four dusty gray brick walls of my cell and singing. "WHEN IT FEELS SO GOOD BUT IT'S BAD FOR YOU." My voice had cracked from the sheer pressure and force of my scream but that was the point. I had abandoned all good tune and proceeded to shriek the lyrics as obnoxiously and sometimes nazally as I possibly could.

Mr. Mc Chubster, as I decided to call him, launched like a friggin rocket off his fold up chair and was girlishly slapping all the contents off the table beside him in terror. It was quite comical, if I said so myself... that is, until he uttered a deep growl that made his jowls tremble and his beer gut wobble. Within seconds, surprisingly he was a quick oaf, he had whipped out what looked like a black bat and was swatting my left hand's fingers as they were wrapped around one of the cell bars.

A shriek only comparable to the bird I lit aflame exited my mouth and I swiftly unlatched my battered hand from the bars. "I WAS JUST SINGING YOU CHUBBY MONSTER. I HAPPEN TO LIKE THOSE FINGERS." Apparently he did not know how to speak... or maybe he was saving his voice for a screaming match we would most likely participate in later.

The rest of what I guessed was daytime, wasn't really sure how long I had been in that awful cell, I sat there, fiddling with the frayed edges of my sleeves or shoe laces. Enzo was nowhere to be heard, if he was in fact, in the room with me, he still lacked discovery. My only company was Mc Chubster and the ever annoying tap, tap, tap of some random dripping faucet that I had yet to see where it actually was.

I knew, despite the many mysteries of my predicament, that I was somewhere in Coli's palace. Not the one my Unit had demolished. The irony of this, to me anyway, was the fact that I had spent the better part of a year searching for this dang place, only to be trapped in it, and STILL not know where it was. My throat still ached and throbbed from the SiHound's metal teeth latched around it. It was early in the game that I discovered that I really did not appreciate syringes either. They left nasty purple and black bruises that ironically contrasted against my dark skin. I really needed a cleanse, as well. My usually wavy hair was matted and covered in dirt and dried mud, the naturally bright gold streaks intertwined within the dark strands had dimmed dramatically... I even shook out odd bits of shattered glass from the wreck. It seemed as if the car accident was years ago. My eyes felt tired, and with a gentle touch with the tip of my fingers, I felt tender bags under my eyes. My throat felt as if someone had shoved a massive cotton ball down it and my lungs rattled with every breath I shakily inhaled. The bleeding of my recently stitched wound was an on and off process, but I knew that I had lost a dangerous amount of blood and would die within the next two days without any medical care.