Ordinary World

A long shiver runs down Taylor’s spine. Despite the fact that it’s hardly cold, each fine hair on her arms is standing on end. It’s the atmosphere, not the temperature causing this.

The tension aboard the bus is thick enough to cut with a knife, no one daring to talk or even make eye contact with each other. The fear is palpable in the air and completely infectious. Other than the stern, matronly woman staring down the bus at the teenagers, the only passenger seeming to be at ease is Lizzy.

She's sitting next to Taylor, as always, and staring vacantly out the window. A small smile's gracing her dark lips as she stares out the grimy window, though what she's finding so pleasing, Taylor can't tell. The dark forest is the same that Matt had found so oppressive the previous day, and if the two teens were to meet, Taylor would understand completely the terror he'd felt as the bus trundled along the dirt track.

Taylor's pale hand tightens reflexively around Lizzy's, and the older girl turns her brown eyes away from the mouldy pane. She doesn't speak, just smiles as reassuringly as possible, then turns away again. Somehow, it doesn’t put the younger girl’s fears to rest, just riles them up further.

It’s disconcerting how at ease with the situation her girlfriend is. It’s seems to her that ever since the two had been arrested, Lizzy’s been filled with a cool sense of purpose. A calm that somehow implies she knows exactly what she’s doing. And that terrifies Taylor.

Not allowing herself to get carried away with her thoughts, Taylor leans back into her seat and closes her eyes. There’s no way she can sleep, not whilst she’s this tense, but she can concentrate on her breathing and relax a bit. After all, panicking won’t help the situation in the slightest.

The journey seems to go on forever, each tight turn seeming to lead on to another bland stretch of road and ever-thicker growing forest. When at last they do arrive, the scene is hardly more welcoming.

Ramshackle wooden buildings, with plants creeping up the side of each wall. The only colours are the brown and green of wood and foliage, and the grey of the mist surrounding them. The realisation that she’s condemned to spend the next few months of her life here, has Taylor wanting to break down and cry.

She refuses to though, instead holding her hard, icy exterior around her like a shield. She grips Lizzy’s hand all through the ‘welcoming’ speech given to them, tuning out the words and only processing what she has to.

It is in this detached state, that she somehow finds the dorm she’s been assigned.

She had hoped to be sharing with Lizzy, but it quickly became apparent this would not be the case. The rooms may all be in the same building, but they may as well be a mile away from each other. Instead of her girlfriend, she has a short, butch girl by the name of Rachel, another tall, pretty one named Sharon and a third curvy red-head named Katy. She introduces herself in a daze and then ignores the rest of their conversations. They may all seem nice enough, but she can’t trust them.

The meagre dinner and roll-call in the diner go by in a blur. They’re allowed to sit where they wish, so Taylor presses herself against Lizzy’s side throughout the meal. She has no appetite, and it’s only at the older girl’s insistence that she eats anything at all.

After that, they’re lined up against the wall and have various piercings and jewellery removed from them. Some part of Taylor begins to panic at that point. She has in the beautiful diamond studs her parents got her for her sixteenth birthday and to have them confiscated and never returned would be unbearable. They’re one of the few keepsakes she has from her parents, and no matter how damaged their relationship may be, she can’t bring herself to part with this token of their love for her.

When the broad faced woman who had welcomed them to the camp and oversaw their meal stops in front of her, Taylor feels sick. The woman indicates the earrings.

“N-n…” The word dies on her lips and Taylor feels her arms lift of their own accord. Her fingers fiddle with the clasps and the next thing she knows, she’s handing over the glittering studs. The woman moves on, oblivious to the churning of Taylor’s insides.

She remains staring fixatedly at the ground in front of her for the next few minutes, completely unaware of her surrounds. If a full scale riot spontaneously burst in to being, it’s unlikely she would register it.

Suddenly, the weight of a warm arm around her shoulders wrenches her back into reality. It’s Lizzy – of course it is – but the sight of her girlfriend does little to calm the teen.

“Th-They c-c-can’t take-” The words stutter out, her tongue feeling heavy as lead.

“Shhhh,” Lizzy hushes her as she pulls her into a hug. “You’ll get them back, I promise.”

“H-how? How can you promise that?”

“Because I’ll steal them back if I have to. You’ll be fine, ok? We’ll be fine.” Lizzy regretfully pulls out of the embrace and stares down at the blonde. “We have to move now, though. They want us back in the dorms.”

Taylor nods and allows herself to be towed out. All the while, she doesn’t release her vice-like grip on Lizzy’s waist.

“What are we doing here?” She whispers, more to herself than Lizzy. “What did we do?”

The older girl answers anyway. “You know what.” She whispers, gently. “I’m not saying it’s fair, or that it’s right but I shouldn’t have done what I did. And, of course, you’re guilty by association.” Bitterness seeps into her voice as she speaks. “Now, I promise it won’t be for long and we’re going to get out of here in one piece. You trust me don’t you?”

Taylor nods, dumbly, her blonde hair swishing past her ears. The thing is, she doesn’t know if it’s true. Before now, Lizzy had been the only person she could trust, but now… Now there’s something just not quite right about the older girl. Her confidence in this place, for one.

“It’ll all be fine. Believe me.” Lizzy smiles. They’re back in the dormitory building now, and the two depart into their separate rooms.

As Taylor climbs into bed, she can’t help but think about those earrings again. What they represented.

Her relationship with her parents was starting to decline before she’d even met Lizzy. Her grades were dropping, she had stopped coming home every night, and worst of all, she was slowly but surely sinking into the underground scene. She had loved it there – the freedom, the liberating behaviour, the wild people. Her parents didn’t understand, but the teen has assumed it was just their differences in opinion. She’d never considered it would be enough to tear her family apart for good.

Soon, she’d become immersed in a world of drugs, booze and music, and it was only by occupying the deepest dead-end clubs that she could access these vices.

It had been in one of these establishments that she had first met Lizzy. She had been performing there, singing sultry songs about sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. Taylor had fallen head-over-heels in lust that night, and Lizzy had been incredibly accepting to her drunken advances.

Recently, both had admitted that they don’t remember much of that night, but something must have passed between them as they had kept in contact.

It soon became a pre-arranged weekly hook up, then progressed to several times a week, then to almost every day. Only a month later, Lizzy had confessed to a delighted Taylor that the relationship had surpassed the boundary of casual sex, or even ‘friends with benefits’. They were a couple.

It was during this time, that Taylor’s connection to her parents had crumbled. They fought every other day – it would have been more often if the teen had been home more often. The three had grown apart so rapidly it was terrifying. Taylor couldn’t understand her parents, and they couldn’t understand her.

So, she had left.

With her most treasured possessions, enough clothes to keep her going and an anger burning within her, Taylor had arrived at Lizzy’s door and asked that she be allowed to stay. Lizzy hadn’t hesitated to accommodate her.

And so, when the police had come to arrest Lizzy for her black-market occupation, they had caught not only the big fish herself, but her newest acolyte.

The two had been determined guilty before they’d even entered the courtroom. All through the farcical trial, Taylor could feel the eyes of her parents on the back of her neck from where they sat in the stands. They left before she had a chance to say a word to them every time, though what Taylor would have said she doesn’t know. That she was sorry. That they were right about Lizzy, yet Taylor still couldn’t bring herself to regret their relationship.

Now, lying on the hard mattress beneath the scratchy sheets, the small girl feels her eyes fill with the bitter salt of tears. She can’t deal with this – it’s not what she wants, what she had ever wanted.

And yet, here she is.

With that, she inhales deeply and focuses on breathing in and out. In. Hold. Out. Hold. In. Hold. Out.

It calms her quickly enough, even if her mind is still racing without her permission. With conscious effort, she turns her thoughts to happier considerations.

Despite everything, she still believes that Lizzy will look after her.

It’s hard to fall asleep without the older girl’s arms around her, and the scent of that thick brown hair lingering in her dreams, but sooner or later, Taylor manages it. It’s restless and uneasy, but still better than this hellish reality.

It's the middle of the night when Matt wakes again.

With no way of telling the time, it could be only an hour later but his groggy head and heavy lids suggest he's been woken from a long, deep slumber. The final grips of a nightmare cling to him in the last moments of sleep, and he gasps as his eyes fly open to peer fearfully into the depths of the pitch room.

There's a sound coming from across the room - a harsh squeaking along with the rattle of a bed frame. His mind wildly processes the possibilities until he realises that it's only Jay, flipping around in the bunk on the other side. In the dead quiet of a room which is looking more and more like a cell with every passing second, the moaning of the metal bed is deafening, but that's not what grabs Matt's attention. It's the pained whines of the boy.

Matt hesitates for a moment, then pulls himself out from between the warm sheets and pads barefoot over the frigid floor to where Jay's muttering unhappily.

"Come on man," he says, reaching out to shake the other boy's shoulder.

It takes a bit of coaxing to wrench him from his nightmare but when he wakes, it's a sudden jolt into conscious. With no warning, Jay's dark eyes fly open and stare blankly forward, still seeped in the horror of whatever he'd been enduring in his sleep.

"Are you ok?" Matt murmurs, withdrawing his hand. The other boy's eyes lock on him and a tense silence fills the air before they suddenly cloud over with tears.

Matt can't help but start as Jay begins sobbing gently. It's hardly a dramatic show of tears, but it's the raw emotion that takes the older boy by surprise.

"Hey, hey, hey, don't cry." He finds himself climbing into the bunk next to the distraught teen and wrappings his arms around him. "Come on, man. It's ok."

Thankfully the crying doesn't last long - only a minute later, Jay's wiping at his eyes.

It's obvious that he's embarrassed.

"Sorry about that." He mutters. His fingers are working at the frayed end of his blankets and his gaze is locked firmly on the slowly tearing material.

"It's ok." Matt replies. He still has his arm around the younger boy, but it's not awkward. In any other place, at any other time, he wouldn't have offered that comfort the first place, but here, all bets are off. "I had a nightmare myself."

Jay nods. "This place is horrible, isn't it?"

"I already hate it," Matt agrees. "Our room feels like a cell."

"Well, any older and I suppose half the boys in here would be in prison."

"Yeah," he shivers. It's hardly a comforting thought.

The two sit in silence for a few minutes, both lost in their own thoughts. The only sound is the heavy breathing of the four teens.

"Hey Matt?" The smaller boy asks eventually.

"Yeah?"

"What got you in here?"

Matt winces. He's embarrassed more than anything else at his own stupid behaviour.

"You don't have to tell. I was just wondering cos... You seem ok. Not like a murderer or anything like some guys here probably are."

Matt laughs harshly. "I didn't kill anyone..." He hesitates. "I was just in wrong place at the wrong time, I guess. You know those underground gigs that people will throw in the city?"

Jay nods.

"Well, me and my friends used to go to them. I know it's stupid and they're illegal and all, but they were just so much fun." He sighs deeply. Of those friends he used to go with, only one other got caught. "Anyway, I don't know exactly what happened, but we were at a gig and the police came. Most people got out, but I was in the toilets... Well, I wasn't paying any attention to what was going on and no one came in to tell us to get out. Long story short, here I am."

The smaller boy nodded, apparently contemplating this information.

"I just..." Matt carries on, unable to stand the feeling of being judged. "It's so ridiculous and I never thought we would get in so much trouble. It was irresponsible though, I know, and it was stupid, but-"

"It's ok, Matt, really." Jay sounds pitying. "It's mad that you got put in here for that. It's not like you hurt anyone."

Matt bites back everything he's been told - how reckless he was, and how he was a menace to society and how he has to pay for his actions. He's heard that enough times that he believes it.

"It's better than what I did at least..." Jay continues. "I was a complete idiot. These guys, they were a rough lot - liked to break into things and just stir shit up wherever and whenever they could. They liked me to tag along. It was only when we got caught breaking into a warehouse that I realised I was just there as a scape goat. I was fucking stupid."

To that, Matt has nothing to say. But he doesn't think it's fair that Jay is here. It should be the other boys in his place, and he doesn't have to guess that they got away with it.

"Oh well, we have six months of this," He says, "and then we're out."

"If we last that long." Jay mutters.

Matt pretends not to hear.

They sit in the quiet for a few minutes, just staring out at the room and listening to the deep breathing of the other two boys. The place somehow looks less ominous at night, the soft trickle of light entering hiding the cracks in the walls and rust on the bed frames.

"What do you think the other two got in for?" Jay asks softly.

"Alexi killed someone." Matt replies, keeping his face straight. The other teen looks at him in shock for a few seconds then laughs, realising he's not being serious.

"Sure." He cackles.

"Tell me he doesn't seem the type."

"Hmm, maybe." Jay shrugs. "What about Corey?"

"Him I don't know. Whatever it was though, his mate Jim was clearly involved."

"Yeah." He pauses and in the dim light, Matt sees him bite his lower lip. "Do you think them two are fucking?"

Matt shrugs. "I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me."

"Neither." Sighs Jay. "I guess we should get some sleep. Seven o'clock starts have never agreed with me."

"No, this is gonna be hell if we have to do it every morning." Matt grimaces. "Well goodnight." He untangles his arm from where it's still wrapped around Jay and climbs out of his bed.

"Yeah, goodnight Matt. And thank you. For waking me up I mean."

"It's cool, man. Glad I could help."

Matt gets back in to bed, settling once more on the rock hard mattress. Sleep doesn't come as easily this time though - the conversation had brought back memories of his arrest. That night runs through Matt's head for hours on end, and it's one experience he only wishes to forget. The terror of not knowing what would happen to him was the worst part. Although that question may now have been answered, the sick fear in his belly still hasn't subsided. After all, he still has no idea what the following months have in store for him.

How different things would have been if he’d turned down the cute boy that night. If he hadn’t blindly followed him into the toilets. If someone had thought to poke their head in and warn the two of the police raiding the building. Matt doesn’t know where he’d be if any of that had transpired, but it wouldn’t be this rock solid bed, away from everyone he knows. Those ten minutes of fumbling, drunken passion where not worth this.

After what seems like an entire night's worth of tossing and turning, sleep finally takes the teen.

Of course, it seems as though it is only seconds later that he's wrenched back awake by the ring of a piercing bell.

He squints wearily around the room, tearing his sleep encrusted eyes apart slowly. He feels stiff all over, and completely exhausted. What he wouldn’t give to be able to just flop over and falls back asleep.

But the incessant bell doesn't end and the Soldier's warning that they have half an hour to wash and be in the mess hall is still clear in Matt's mind. Instead of allowing himself to flop back over, Matt finds himself wearily sitting up.

Across from him, Jay's doing the same, rubbing his eyes and yawning. Alexi still appears to be asleep, curled up under the covers with his slim back facing the room. The creaking of mattress above him is indication that Corey's awake.

"Argh, I hate this place already," the American moans. The entire bed groans and tilts slightly, and all of a sudden, Corey lands in a heap on the floor. The thump makes Matt jump, and he instantly feels more awake.

"Are you ok?" He asks slowly, looking at the teen. He's still wrapped in his duvet and his hair is sprawled out wildly around him.

"Just dandy," Corey sits up. For some bizarre reason, he's smiling. "Well, that woke me up."

Matt finds himself laughing. "I'll bet. Do you usually fling yourself from heights in the morning?"

"All the time!" Corey grins. "Gives people heart attacks on a regular basis. What's even more fun is when you land on them."

"If you do that to me, I'm gonna kill you." Matt warns, but he's still laughing.

"If you can catch me." The American smirks. "Morning, Jay!" He turns across the room to greet the other boy.

"Mornin'," The word is punctuated by a yawn. "For the record, I second what Matt said about landing on me." He pauses and frowns. "Although I'd be impressed if you managed to fly across the room."

"I'll get practising on that," promises Corey. "So, now what?"

"The Soldier said we had to shower and go back to the mess hall for breakfast." Matt replies.

"Cool. Any idea where the showers are?"

"No..."

Matt sighs. "Well, we should probably make a move to go and find out."

"Should we wake Alexi up?" Jay asks softly, leaning out to peer up at the bunk above him.

"And deal with hormonal blond first thing in the morning?" Corey scoffs. "No, thank you!"

"I'm awake, you cretins." A sharp voice comes from the mound of duvet and long back that is all they see of the teen. "I couldn't not be, with the racket you are making."

"Fuck you, man." Matt snaps. This is bad enough, without a jumped up twat insulting them at every possibility. Besides, he remembers how upset Jay had been last night, and something inside him instantly feels protective. "If you want us to let you sleep through breakfast in future, fine, but don't whine when the Soldier reams your arse."

Corey chuckles, and Jay smiles. Alexi's back has gone incredibly stiff, but he makes no response.

Matt immediately regrets his sharp words, but doesn't take them back. Giving in now would only make the other boy harsher in the future. Wordlessly, the three of them start pulling clothes on and Corey finds towels stored in one of the worn cupboards. It's only when they leave and Matt turns back to close the door that he sees Alexi slide from his bunk.

Outside, there's already a steady trickle of boys making their way along the corridor. Once again, Matt employs the tactic of just following someone who seems to know where they're heading. Along the bright peeling hall, the second right (the first lead outside) and down a flight of stairs that could only lead underground. The temperatures drops as they descend.

At the bottom, is a locker room. It's your regular high school changing room. It's a waist high wall between that and the shower room - a big, open rectangle with head squirting water over the boys beneath it. They're completely naked and there's no hint of privacy.

The camp has never looked so much like a prison as it does now.

It's easy to tell who has been here the longest - the cocky boys joking in the middle - whilst the newer teens cringe at the edges, trying to avoid any attention. Matt tries his hardest to keep his eyes to himself, and internally prays that no one notices him.

Whilst he doubts that any prison-rape situations are going to occur, the gaggle of teens in the centre are clearly unopposed to making a scene, and in this place, that could only mean trouble. Matt doesn’t want to know what punishments will involve here.

Showering is every bit as awkward as Matt expects, but the ordeal is over quickly. He keeps his eyes down and his mouth shut, and soon enough is back out in the changing room, pulling his clothes back on. Jay, Corey and Jim join him quickly and they make their way back up the stairs to the mess hall.

No one speaks, but the silence is punctuated by Corey’s continuous yawns.

The mess hall is as silent as it was the previous night, with the Soldier once again overlooking the proceedings. The blond suddenly finds it in himself to be quiet.

They’re soon joined at their table by the chubby kid from yesterday’s meal. Jim greets him with a smile, which is not returned. The boy just remains blank, his expression so neutral it’s discomforting. The rest of the spaces are filled up with boys Matt hasn’t seen before. They ignore each other for the most part.

Breakfast is as much as a none-event as last night’s dinner had been.

The food is handed out in silence, eaten in silence and collected back in, in silence. The Soldier was the only one to speak – the single word being that of permission for the boys to start eating.
When the food is done, the Soldier stands again. “Those of you who know today’s tasks may commence them. Those who are new come forward and you will be assigned to a group.”

All remains still for a moment, then the boys stand, as one. Most filter out the hall, and into the dreary morning’s drizzle. Matt joins the group shuffling forward, trepidation building in his chest. He doesn’t want to know what he’s going to have to do – there is no way it’ll be enjoyable, or even pleasant. Mind-numbingly boring is the most he can hope for.

However, he has no choice but to stand with the rabble, and wait with dread for his name to be called.