The Forest's Kids

Chapter Six: Boredom

The girl laid the shirt out on the floor. Without a second thought, she then turned it around and carefully bit open the seam that connected the middle piece to the left sleeve.

"He is so going to hate me", the girl laughed quietly, as she carefully pulled the thread out that was holding the two different parts of the shirt together.

Just a few minutes later, she had removed both sleeves and was left with a messy looking tank top. After she had put the top back on, she decided to put the sleeves to use too. As she started to tear them into long and thin pieces of fabric, she could hear people talking and footsteps coming down the hall.

Confused but excited, the girl stood up and stepped up to the door, looking outside. She now knew why it had been so quiet around here: All the other people that were held here hadn't been in their cells. And now they came back. The girl watched curiously, as a bunch of different people were brought into the cells. The only thing all of them had in common, was their clothing.

As a guard approached Ali's door, holding a tray of food, the girl quickly jumped back a bit.

"Are you- Alistor?", the woman asked in confusion. As the girl nodded, she continued:"I had expected a boy?"

Ali sighed and pointed to her empty wrist. "Oliv wouldn't let me take my hair tie along", she complained.

The woman only now seemed to notice what the girl had done with her shirt, and asked:"How did you do that?"

"My teeth and my hands?", Alistor asked back, as she watched the guard unlocking the door.

The woman shook her head as she handed the girl the tray, which had a plastic cup filled with water, a wooden plate with something that appeared to be trying to be mac'n'cheese, and a wooden spoon.

"This looks awful", the girl remarked, as the woman locked the door again.

"Deal with it", the guard hissed back and left.

Ali shook her head in confusion, as she quietly pushed:"The people here never are too nice, are they?"

The girl played around with the food for a while. She didn't need it anyways, and since she neither liked the smell, look or consistency of the noodles, she decided to not try them.

The mass was firm enough to build something like a sandcastle with it, and as Ali now was playing with the goo like with slime, the last few hours until lights out went by quickly. At eight pm, another guard came and took the tray away again, making sure that everything was on it again.

About two boring hours later, the nightguard started his rounds. Ali had just been sitting on the floor up until that point, her back was leaning against the bed. As the man came by, she just barely looked up. But of course, he noticed her.

"Get to sleep", he hissed at her, his eyes got caught at the girls light hair.

"I don't need to", Ali whispered back.

"Of course you do, everyone needs to!", the man replied angrily.

"I'm not going to do anything, you know?", the girl asked. She sounded sad, there was so much distrust around here.

"You might wake someone else up", the guard replied sour.

"I think that risk is higher when I try to sleep", Alistor replied, her voice was cold now.

The guard stepped a bit closer towards the door, trying to get a better look at the strange girl through the bars, as he asked:"How come?"

"I'm getting Nightmares and don't have my plushy to stay calm", the girl replied with a hurt smile. She missed Tae, who was usually holding her when she decided to sleep too. She knew that she wouldn't fall asleep without them anymore.

"How old are you, ten?", the man growled and let out a dry laugh.

Ali rolled her eyes and replied:"I'm pretty sure I'm older than you." Her voice was cold but hurt, she sounded completely serious.

"Forget it", the man laughed," you're probably sixteen or seventeen!"

"I've been sixteen for the past seventy-eight years", Ali replied, stressing the word 'sixteen' in a sarcastic voice.

The man just laughed again and replied:"You're clearly very tired. Go to sleep, be glad if I don't tell anyone that you still were up!"

Alistor sighed and stood up, then she sat down on the bed again. The guard scoffed, his back cracked as he started his round again. The girl thought about asking him about that, in case he came through a second time. The man didn't sound old, maybe his spine was bend incorrectly. Maybe he had been sitting around for too long.

The girl sighed and put her head into her palms. She really must be bored, if she's starting to think about random, and rude, strangers. Weren't there any nice officers in this whole building, she wondered, everyone seemed to always be on edge.

The hours went by slowly, to Ali's pity the man didn't come through again. The girl sat on her bed all night, wondering what her friends were doing. Probably sleeping, but they must have done something during the day, and probably were planning something stupid. Alistor smiled at that thought, they probably were up to something in the next few days, like the last time she was here.

That Taime had shown up, wasn't a coincidence. What was unfortunate, was that he hadn't managed to stay out of trouble, like Ali had told him a dozen times. But those were her friends, if you asked them something, you could be sure that they would do it their way, no matter the risk. And that was what worried the girl: Tae alone had seemed very angry, and both Taime and Ryth were more dangerous if they went quiet.

As morning came and Padlock came to get her just a few minutes past six, the girl was hoping that her friends were smart enough to, for once, stay out of trouble.