Crooked Halos

The smile is so very different.

The way he looks at me with that secret smile, like we did something we weren’t supposed to.

Everything looks different when you look at it from this angle.

I feel light and fuzzy almost, it’s so bizarre, like being on some sort of drug, some sort of fantastic, amazing –

Screaming.

I’m jerked out of my early morning reverie, and even Shannon straightens up from where he was bending over trying to find his school shirt.

Brendon runs in, breathless and pink-cheeked.

“You guys have to come and see this.”

We arrived just in time to see the bodies being taken away, covered in bedsheets from a nearby dorm, crimson bleeding into the white cotton… it’s like a slap in the face.

Nothing’s warm, nothing’s fuzzy because this is so solid even if it feels like a bad dream – a nightmare.

“Thirteen.” Ryan whispers, pale face drawn into an expression that’s halfway between fear and complete and utter disgust.

“Who died?” Gerard frowns at one of the guys in front of us.

He shrugs. “Dunno. They’re gonna pin a notice up in the hallway after they identify everyone.”

One of the wardens clears his throat, pushing a couple of girls back where they’re trying to peak under the corner of one of the sheets.

“Everyone return to your lessons, please.”

The fact that several of them have guns drawn and are pushing the front rows further back gets the message across loud and clear.

We leave before we even give them a chance or an excuse to fire.

***

The water is warm, running over my skin and it clears my head.

I sigh, everyone else is back in the rooms or in the library – or being burnt in the incinerator.

I turn the jet of water off firmly, cursing the dripping that continues somewhere in the background. Whichever idiot didn’t turn their shower off properly, I hate them.

Groping around on the damp tiles for a threadbare towel that (knowing my luck) will be damp too, my fingers close over the cotton quickly and I pull it up, wrapping it sharply around my waist, trying to retain some measure of dignity in this place and I freeze.

Giggling.

Someone’s fucking laughing.

The very sound sends a shock down my spine, chilling me to my core and I have a sudden vision of the bloody, mangled bodies… thirteen exactly…

I stumble out and something hits me in the face, I reel back in shock, touching the crimson left on my cheek where it hit me and I stare at the thing swinging from the light, waiting for my vision to come back into focus.

A bird, throat slit, hanging from the light… fuck.

A magpie.

I stagger away from it, slipping in a puddle and landing nose-first onto the tile with a gruesome snapping sound and there’s more crimson, spouting from my busted nose and more on the floor next to me, all curved into letters, words…

One for sorrow.

I crawl away, scabbing my knees, shaking my head and trying to keep from throwing up – this is not real, this is just a bad dream, a nightmare… this is not real… but there’s blood, so much blood and I can’t see what was me and what was the fucking bird. Shit.

Shit, shit, shit, shit.

I stand up, slipping once and landing back on the floor, back in the crimson pool, and I can only imagine what I must look like, backing away, shaking my head like a madman…

“What the fuck?”

I spin around, eyes half-mad, and I slip, saving my face with my hands, standing up shakily, gazing at the person, a stranger in my eyes although his face stirs up some distant memory.

“Will?”

I back away, my bare foot skidding in the pool on the floor, my arms flailing to keep my balance and my towel hitting the floor.

I duck down quickly, grapping at it, the white fibres stained crimson… oh god…

I scream.

***

Scattered, fading in and out of consciousness.

The strangers face, pleading with me, crystal tears, the burn in the back of my throat, screaming, so much screaming, more people, more memories stirred, I’m supposed to know them but no names fall from my lips, they throw me in a shower, destroying the scene, taking my towel, finding another, flooding the floor…

Crimson swirling around the drain, the bird thrown out of some window, but still the same, raspy screaming, a hideous sound, like the demons being drawn up from hell, murdering angels, slaughtering anything that stands in their way…

Clean clothes and the stranger is crying even harder, whispering over and over again, a name, I don’t know if it’s mine or someone else’s, everyone in the room with steel bunks looks so pale, so scared, they say something about a list.

A raspy choking sound and I don’t know if it was me or the stranger quietly sobbing into my shoulder, begging me to come back, begging me to talk so I curl, closing my eyes, shutting it all out… falling…

***

Isolation.

White walls, white floor, white door, white shirt, white skin, white plastic plate with some sort of food stuff on it, whatever it is, it smells disgusting.

I find flaws everywhere, eyes zeroing in on faults, trying to see spots of crimson that don’t even exist.

A chip in the paint on the walls, black ink staining the cuff of the shirt, angry purple bruises on white skin, a crack in white plastic and steam rising in spirals from the food stuff.

The scrap of metal on metal as a hatch is drawn back, blue eyes staring for a second. I stare back calmly. Then they’re gone, quiet muttering piercing the silence, scraping of metal, the hatch closed and the door opening.

A nurse, blond-haired, blue-eyed but not in any way pretty. Thickset, no sign of any feminine curves under the boxy uniform with rounded cheeks, a square jaw and eyes too small to balance her features out properly.

Probably the scariest thing would definitely have to be the needle she’s carrying. A little syringe filled with a clear liquid.

“You’re finally conscious then, William. I must say, you gave us quite a turn, I haven’t heard anyone screaming like that since they found those children yesterday morning.”

I blink dumbly at her as she comes over and takes a hold of my arm, turning it over and running calloused fingers over the pale skin, sliding the needle into one of the veins.

I shut my eyes, willing myself into oblivion.

The pressure’s gone and I hear dull, heavy footsteps and tutting.

“You didn’t touch your food again. You need to eat, William.”

Scraping and then more silence.

I open my eyes.

Alone again.