Dogtag

The Pendant

(Alex P.O.V)

My head hurts. I open my eyes to a dark and grey, square room. I look around to see about ten other silhouettes of kids just like me scattered around. I go to stand up and find a heavy, steel cuff tightly fastened around my left ankle. I yank at it as if this will help, and see the metre-long chain attached disappear into the wall. I inspect my hands and arms and see rope-burn around my wrist (been there a few days, by the look of it) and dried blood on my knuckles. I just start looking over my also-bruised legs as voices appear just outside the door.

I quickly lie flat on the thin, springy mattress and pretend to be asleep or unconscious- I don't know how the people responsible for my injuries left me. 

The sound of two sets of footsteps approach and then the sound of a key unlocking the thick, metal door. I do a mental scan of the room and can't remember any other way in or out so escaping will prove a challenge. 

The lock clicks and the door is flung open. The pair enter and one says, "Matuesz only wants one tonight. Just a small client coming later". His voice is deep with a thick eastern-European accent. I open my left eye enough to make out the shapes and see that both men that I can see are holding rifles which from the shape of the front sight's shadow look like Remington Semi-Automatic Snipers. I know, pretty strange for an 11 year old girl to be able pick out the model of a firearm from just its shadow but my parents were insistent upon sharpening my senses and strength from a young age with a variety of combat and survival classes.

My eyes are adjusting to the absence of light in the room and I see that both men are wearing clown masks. I squint and do a double take but I'm certain and if this wasn't unnerving enough before, their red, plastered smiles stretching halfway up their face make my spine shiver. What the hell is going on?

The men are quietly mumbling and gesturing towards various shadows slumped on mattresses around the room and I wonder whether I am the only person feigning unconsciousness? Almost as quickly as they came in, one man points to a tiny figure under a paper-thin sheet and the other grunts in agreement. The first goes over and turns the rifle around and slams the wooden butt of the gun into the child's head with a sickening thump, knocking them right out. The other man slings his gun onto his back and scoops up the figure. As they walk past, I see a small trickle of blood running down the head of a young blond boy's face. He looks no older than 5 or 6. I have to get out of here. 

The door slams shut after they leave and the lock clicks firmly. I sit bolt upright and look around. The room is around 20ft x 15ft. One door with a lock. One window about 6 inches squared set high up the wall. That'll be no use then. My bed is in the corner of the wall opposite door on and I knock on the wall and am disheartened to see it's unyielding and very solid- probably concrete sheeting. So that only leaves the door.

I hear a commotion coming from the bed next to mine and see a figure about my size struggle to regain consciousness and sit up and look at me. She eyes me up and down for a few seconds.

"Newbie. Found out you've got no chance of escaping, huh?", says a groggy voice. In the gloom I can see the outline of a blonde girl who looks about a year older than me.

"I'm not giving up yet,"

"Well let me know when you figure out how to break us all out. That is if they don't come and get you first". She says it with a bitterness which makes me think she's been here a while and seen too many kids get dragged away and presumably not return.

"Where do they go? They just took a small blond boy with them. They--"

"--What?", she interrupts and her eyes dart round the room. She clocks the now empty bed where the boy lay and throws her hands over her mouth and chokes on tears that now begin to spill out.