Surveillance [BNHA]

Chapter Two

Cora: Age 10

Toya: Age 13

Cora was uprooted from her blissful childhood the day the police gunned down her father at the park. It was only later from the awful things the police and media said about him that she learned he'd murdered twenty people. As the daughter of a criminal with no family to speak of she was placed in a special government operated orphanage...at least that's what it was called. It was more like a prison. There were bars on every window, they were locked in their rooms at night the entire grounds were surrounded with tall barbed wire topped fences. There were armed guards at every exit and a few that patrolled the facility at regular intervals.

Apparently, the government thought it would deter the at-risk children more by giving them a taste of the life they expected of them. Over the years she'd learned to keep her head down and keep to herself to stay out of trouble with the guards and warden. He wasn't really a warden, but that was how everyone referred to him because the orphanage felt more like prison.

She spent most of her days seeing the world, visiting all the places she heard about in daily lessons. Rather than be allowed to attend schools with the general public they were divided into groups and schooled on the premises. No one ever left. When kids turned eighteen, they supposedly graduated and were reintroduced to society. Cora had checked in on one of the boys who'd graduated since she'd been here, one of the policemen escorting him goaded him into a fight and he was taken to jail for assaulting a police officer.

The world had given up on them all. No one cared about the children of criminals. Everyone said good riddance. It was better for society if they all just disappeared. Cora laid on her horribly uncomfortable cot. It was tattered and worn and she feared one day she'd wake up on the floor after falling through it. There were thick buttons in the fabric that dug into her back. They were given a single thin blanket and a mostly flat pillow. All of her belongings had been seized by the government, they wouldn't even let her keep Mr. Bear. She'd looked in on him for a while, until he and all her other possessions were incinerated.

She stared blankly up at the ceiling though her eyes saw beautiful overgrown ruins. She was deep in a rainforest. She spotted a jaguar and focused on it so she could get a closer look. As she watched the Jaguar, she heard heavy footfalls in the hall. Her bedroom door...more like cell door...swung open after someone unlocked it.

"On your feet!" A gruff voice snapped at her.

Cora focused on her surroundings, the jungle and jaguar faded from view and she looked down at her room. She could see herself lying on her tattered cot her expression blank. The plain white dress she'd been issued only fell to her knees revealing her bruised up legs. Her skin was pale and littered with bruises and other scabbed over scrapes and cuts. There was a guard just inside the door with a baton in hand ready to hit her if she disobeyed him. Slowly, she sat up from the cot and swung her thin legs over the edge. A chill ran down her spine as her bare feet touched the cold stone floor.

The guard was watching her carefully. People didn't understand her, her eyes freaked them out. "Come with me." His voice came out in a growl.

Cora followed him in silence. Since the day her father had been gunned down, two small strips of her hair framing her face had turned a ghastly white. The few doctors that worked at the orphanage said it was probably due to a great trauma. She knew it was from seeing her father's corpse, he'd tried to protect her from that too, but she had to look back, she had to see him one last time.

"Hurry up!" The guard snapped and smacked his baton against the wall with a loud crack in hopes to frighten the girl and get her to move quicker.