From the Ashes

1

"I'll tell you what freedom is to me-
No.
Fear."

- Nina Simone.

_____

People had talked about space, for as long as the humane race, and how important it was to earth. Earth- the planet Bear had only seen through glimpses in a window from thousands of kilometres away.

Most days she sat in her cell, exercising- counting her days by every bounce of the ball that she sometimes threw aggressively at the wall opposite her bed.

During those moments, she would pretend to feel the suns rays on her eyelids, the trees branches catching at the clothes that hung on her back, and tried every second to imagine what the wildflowers would smell like.

She never knew the scent that the breeze moved around- but, oh man, did she beg every entity out their to smell it on her last seconds alive.

It's been 97 years and counting since a nuclear apocalypse killed everything- all because the humane race got to greedy, that they forgot the natural beauty that flourished around them.

Clinging to the necklace around her throat with one hand, with every throw of the other- the two rings hooked in the chain clinked together, making the reassuring sound that Bear has grown to love over her (almost) four years in solitude.

The ark, believed to be the saver of the humane race, was a smouldering sky box of death to the prisoners upon it. Bear stated she never committed no crime, yet the council believed she conceived the worst- the murder of Mr and Mrs Harvey. Aka Bears parents.

In three days from now, Bear will be floated. Meaning she spent the last moments of her life, shut up within her four walls- with only seeing glimpses of the world beyond through the shaft they served her food in.

Labeled as a criminal since birth, she believed her family would've been better off if Abby had just killed her right then and there.

Spending her last three days still stuck in a cell that she's been in for nearly four years- just to die, it's not the nice life the privileged got to live.

All she could remember was her families faces from three years ago- her beautiful sisters, Who's now a teacher, and her parents sickly coloured faces. As they sprawled on their bedroom floor, their blood dripping from her hands.

Bear was never mad at her parents, though, only at everyone else- especially the council, including her uncle.

In three days / seventy-two hours /four thousand-three hundred twenty minutes... whatever measurement she used... she'll be flown out on her eighteenth birthday.

Dead within milliseconds from the lack of oxygen, her body'll be floating around for everyone to see- used as a makeshift warning sign for anyone else who tries to do shit the council doesn't like.

She'll never die upset and not believing in herself, because she has tried to escape plenty of times. Mostly through shower breaks, running from the guards- as they used their tasers on her at full throttle.

As Bear grabbed the ball that had forced its way back to her, the door to her cell was pulled open. Two guards enter, one holding her favourite weapon- the taser stick- whilst the other held a silver brace with little needles sticking out in the inside of the bracelet.

"Prisoner two five eight, face the wall," both guards order, as they enter her domain.

"Oh, are we finally going out for dinner? It was about time you asked hot stuff," Bear quipped up, she always hid her emotions behind remarks like this.