When The Clock Strikes Twelve

Chapter 6

A knife, glinting in the low light. The cold metal pressing on her waist. The hot tears blurring everything. And then the press of the knife, and a long, hard fall into darkness.

Jaye gasped awake, feeling hungry. The peaches from last night had dissolved into nothing. She sat up in the bed, ducking instinctively. The memories flooded her mind and she recalled that she was no longer in a bunk bed. She looked around at the room she had slept in, not used to having this much space. The last time she had even slept in a bed this big... well it had been a while. She looked down at the pillow, and sure enough it was spotted with small damp circles. She raised a hand to her face and felt the dried tear tracks running across her face. She hastily wiped them away and flipped the pillow over. It was probably just because she was hungry and tired.

Jaye glanced out the window, trying to estimate the time. A clock on the wall said it was 4:17, but the clock probably hadn't worked for at least 50 years. All she could tell was that it was early, so early that the sun wasn't even visible, meaning that nothing else was visible.

Jaye groaned in frustration. She hadn't enjoyed being trapped in the underground bunker, but at least they had electricity there. Jaye determined that without the light, it was too much of a risk to try and make her way out of the bedroom, despite her hunger.

So that really left her only one choice.

Normally, Jaye worked out after breakfast, but this situation wasn't normal and she didn't know if she would have time later. She rolled out of the bed and onto the floor. It was covered in a rug that had probably once been fluffy, but now lay limply on the wood. She knew that the others in her unit thought that she was crazy because she exercised basically all the time, but it was hard to explain to them.

When she worked out, everything else disappeared. She could focus on working through the burn and ignore the nightmares trying to invade her mind. She did so now, pushing away the nightmare that had plagued her that night.

Before long, the sun began to rise in the distance, giving Jaye enough light to fumble her way out of the door and into the kitchen. With a glance to Zaria's room, she opened another can for breakfast as the kitchen slowly became brighter. She estimated that it had been 10 minutes after the sun had risen fully when Zaria emerged from her own room, looking far more refreshed than Jaye felt.

Zaria chirped a greeting, which Jaye grunted to in response, working on savoring the sweet juice of the peaches, though they did very little to sate her hunger. Zaria opened her own peaches and began to eat them, the only sound in the kitchen the gentle clink of forks on the metal can.

After a while, Zaria tried to engage Jaye in conversation again.

"So..." she started. "did you sleep well?"

"Yes." lied Jaye

Zaria nodded "Right. Me too."

She seemed to be on the verge of saying something else, but she dropped her gaze back down to her food and continued to eat.

After eating, Jaye turned back to her room. The thought felt foregin in her mind. She'd never had an entire room to herself, even before coming to the rebellion. She slipped out of her nightclothes and donned a pair of jeans that were slightly too long and a t-shirt advertising a band she didn't know. When she came back out, Zaria was changed too and gazing out the window into the ruins of the city below her. Jaye checked the sun, guessing that it was about the right time to leave.

"We should go." she told Zaria, snapping her out of her trance.

The girl glanced down at her wrist, but seemed to realize that there was nothing there. She remembered that Zaria had given a watch to Zander yesterday, probably her own.