The Sinister Shadows [Prequel to White Noise]

5. Haunted

The second I hear the keys jingle, and the front door of the cell block close, my mind is alert. The guard’s whistling echoes off the concrete walls, through the cold metal bars that trap me in their cage. My eyes slide along the floor in the path the guard will hopefully follow, and I smile slyly as I assure myself that the makeshift trip wire I had created in my cell is still in place, tied around a bar of my cell, and a bar of the one across from me.
The girl in the cell across from me is about sixteen, her parents nowhere to be seen. She had the Look, though. The look in her dazed eyes that screamed a single word; orphan. It took me only a few days sitting across from her to realise she was a mute. I know from watching her that this is a relatively new characteristic; it is a general occurrence for her to open her mouth and try fruitlessly to talk to the guards, before flinging her hand to her throat and staring at the floor, neither here nor there. Despite this, and her age, she managed to piece together my plan, until one day, I was hit in the back of the head with a scrunched up piece of paper. I turned and looked at the girl, hope twinkling in her eyes. I flattened out the paper to four simple words scrawled in blood, the only ink at her disposal.

Let me help you.
I look over at the girl now, her smile mirroring mine. She drops an eyelid in a wink before turning around, masking her face, void of emotion, as usual. I nod slightly, knowing she could see me in the corner of her eye.
I slowly stand up from my position at the bars of my cell, and move quietly over to the small, grated window in the back wall, the footsteps and the jingling keys moving closer and closer. I’m staring over at the cell block where Eli and the rest f the male prisoners are kept when the trip wire is triggered. One of the wood planks from my broken shelves in my cell swings down from the roof and hits the too-cheery guard in the back of the head. As his unconscious body sprawls across the floor, the keys that had previously been hooked onto his belt loops break free and slide across the floor. Right to the bars in front of my cell, just as I had predicted. I meet the eyes of the girl across from me as I pick up the keys and endeavour to unlock my cell.
“What is your name?” I ask her, suddenly feeling bad about not knowing.
It does not take her long to scribble down the two words and send them to me in a roughly folded paper aeroplane.

Calliope Grey.
“Right then, Calliope,” I smile as the lock clicks and the bars before me swing open, “time to get out of here.”
I run across the divide between us and quickly unlock her cell. She hugs me as she steps over the threshold. I know that if she could still speak, she would say thank you many times over, but the hug offers me so much more comfort.
I walk over to the cell beside Calliope’s and hand the key to the middle aged woman residing there. I tell her to wait for my signal to escape, and help everyone else to. When she asks what the signal will be, I simply say she will hear it. I then run back to Calliope and take her hand. The two of us run out of the door before freezing behind a stack of crates, waiting for the patrols to move out of sight. My heart pounds in my chest as I count the seconds that pass as we crouch in the dim shadows cast by the crates. Thirty-seven seconds later, we are running across the open space between the two cell blocks. We pause again at the entrance, and I reach behind my into my back pocket. I retrieve the deodorant can I managed to save from a dustbin, and place it on the ground before me. I roll it forward slowly with my foot, and at the press of the button in my hand, it fills the entryway with gas. Beside me, Calliope steps forward.
“No.” I say. “Not yet.”
I move her hands from her sides and place them firmly over her ears, before doing the same myself. Then the bang fills the camp, echoing off the night’s curtain of darkness. Calliope stares at me, her eyes wide. Terrified.
I shrug. “No time for subtlety now, come on.”
No longer bothering the be quiet, we run through the front door. Three guards are on the floor, their skin blackened between the red welts from the explosion, as they lay victim to my homemade bomb. I pull Calliope through the foyer quickly, hoping to protect any innocence she still has. I stop in my tracks as we reach what should be Eli’s cell. My brows furrow together as the boy who should be my brother turns to face me.
Li Yun sits in the cell instead.
My breathing becomes panicked. “You…You’re not really here. I don’t even know you yet!” I insist.
Yun shrugs. “I’m here as part of your subconscious, silly girl. I’m not in control of your dreams.”
I nod. “You’re right.” I gasp. “This is a dream. I’m in control.”
He raises a fine eyebrow. “Are you?” He clicks his fingers. Beside me, Calliope disappears.
A scream escapes from my throat. “What did you do? Why are you doing this?!”I ask, hysterical.
A smirk appears on his face. “I got bored of her.” He says. “She’s a little quiet, don’t you think?”
I narrow my eyes. “Just give me Eli back. I didn’t ask you to be here.”
Yun throws a ring of keys in the air and catches them. I reach for where the set I stole from the guard should be, and they’re gone. The scientist before me repeats this action once, twice, three times. Teasing me.
“Oh, Codi, I can’t do that.” His smirk grows wider.
“Why?!” I yell. “Why are you doing this to me?!”
He walks up to the bars and grips my throat tightly, his breath assaulting my face. “I. Never. Lose.”