The Decay

Chapter 36 - Prison Thoughts

36

A clanking sound made Alexia open her eyes. She looked around, dazed. Her eyes had got accustomed to the darkness of the prison cell in which she was. A pair of hands passed a tray through a small slit at the bottom of the metal door. Food, she thought, hungrily. Scrambling over to the tray, she picked up the dry bread and whatever meat there was and stuffed it in her mouth. It tasted horrible, but it would keep her alive. Downing the small glass of water, she went back into her own little corner, huddled up and closed her eyes.

Her thoughts inevitably went to the images of Richard. One day, she had received a written message from him. 'Alexia, they are after me. Wish you could come with me, please be safe, I love you. - Richard.' She was confused. Who was 'they'? She found out soon enough when the very group she formed part of took her in for interrogation. Eventually they believed she had no idea where he was and, after putting pressure on the higher council, she was asked to help searching for him. They believed that her love for him would fuel her will to find him. They were wrong. She knew that he was going to die if he was caught. That was when she decided that she would sabotage the search.

She always wondered what he had found out. The death of Joshua had seemed suspicious but she had no proof, and with Richard on the run, she couldn't ask him either. Whatever it was, it was highly classified.

She thought about an incident 2 years ago. Richard and herself had been on a mission to recover an electrical component for a 'classified project'. Their four-man team had been treading through a 'dead-zone'; an area with pockets of radiation, a result of fragments from old nuclear bombs. The radioactive elements would seep through the ground slowly for years causing the entire nearby area to be significantly radioactive

A humanoid being had attacked them, it's enhanced speed and over-sized hands causing the deaths of both their comrades. Had it not been for Richard's experience and expertise, she would not have survived either.

Arriving back at the main base after completing the mission, the two of them had informed their officer about the incident. For some reason, he didn't seem very surprised, although he did raise his eyebrows at the death of their two comrades. Reports of 'large-mutated-beasts', or as other people liked to call them, 'monsters' had been few and far between. Thinking back at that now, she wondered why there had been a sudden increase in their sighting around a month ago. She had always ignored it, particularly after stopping her on-field duties in favor of administrative work which guaranteed her safety by the Snake Island security.

She returned back to the present. Without any knowledge of what would happen to her, she only had one thought on her mind: survival. Endurance of whatever lay ahead was imperative. Survive, survive, survive. Nothing else matters. She would survive, find Richard and never leave his side.