Silence Falls

"Bam, I'd like you to meet a few of my good friends.” Cris put an arm around the second shortest young lady who was nervously wringing her fingers, and avoiding eye contact with Bam. “This is Demitria Lovelle. She’s the youngest and was the original newbie before you came along.”

“Uh, hi.” Demi spoke up in a soft gentle voice that could barely be heard, her eyes anxiously darting across the cement floor. The few seconds that her lips were parted revealed that she had a gap between her two front teeth. Raising a curious eyebrow at her, Bam looked her over with uncertainty as he wondered to himself why she seemed so uncomfortable around him.

Cris pressed a friendly kiss to the side of her head as he privately whispered in her ear. “It’s ok, Demi. He’s harmless, trust me.” He then pointed towards his bed. “Why don’t you go take a seat on my bed, okay? I promised I wouldn’t make you talk any more than you had to.”

Demi shakily nodded before she fast-walked to the safety of Cris’s bed and sat herself down with her back pressed up against the wall. Her eyes continued to dark around the floor as she brought her legs up against her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

Next, Cris walked over to the tallest young lady with the tattoos on her arms, and draped his arm around her shoulder. "This here is Alexis Brown.” Alexis gave Bam a simple wave followed by a sweet smile that helped soothe Bam’s discomfort from Demi’s odd behavior. “She's pretty shy herself too at first, but don’t worry, she’ll warm up to you pretty quick.”

“Unless you end up becoming insane like the others did too.” Alexis lightly joked to chase away the tension in the room, but no one else found it all that amusing. Regretting her silly joke, she cleared her throat and rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly, mumbling beneath her breathe. “Yeah, that was probably too soon.”

“Anyway!” Cris continued on cheerfully as he swung his arms to his left to grandly introduce the next contestant. “This is Alexis’s roommate Natasha Kerry. She’s quite uh…different.”

"Nice to meet you.” Natasha nodded to him as she flung her long black braid over her shoulders. Bam noticed that the way she stood made her look like a super model posing in a magazine. Even the way she push her hair aside made her look like she came right out of a commercial that advertised hair products.

"And last, but definitely not the least, is Onika Maraj.” Cris finished off with another dramatic sweep of his arms towards the shortest member.

Onika rolled her eyes at Cris before looking Bam over with a single arched eyebrow. She gave him a second look over before flashing him the fakest smile he had ever seen. "What it do?”

Cris then suddenly jumped over to Bam’s side to introduce him to his friends. "And girls I’d like you all to meet my new roommate Brando- I mean, Bam Margera.”

With her hands now on her hips, Natasha let out a scoff of disappointment as she studied Bam. "So the rumors are true then, huh? They did take Connor away for good this time.” Rolling her eyes in frustration, she crossed her arms over her chest, before sending Cris a glare for behaving so positively at a dire time like this.

Demitria and Alexis both lowered their eyes to the floor, they were just as equally upset about the news of their former friend as everyone else. Failing to keep his own grief to himself, Cris’s arms dropped back down to his hang limply at his sides. His previous excitement had dissipated quickly as he mentally recounted the events that took place just a few days ago before Bam arrived. Lowering his head in defeat, Cris boldly took a seat on Bam’s bed without asking for permission, and laced his fingers together. He let out a long deep sigh before murmuring what they all were waiting for and were also afraid to hear out loud. "Y-Yeah…they uh, they got Connor good this time. In fact…I’m pretty sure they aren’t planning on letting him go.”

"Jesus fucking Christ, you have GOT to be fucking kidding me here!” Onika exploded after finally hearing the confirmation that no one wanted to hear. Her hands curled into two tight fists as she began to pace back and forth from one end of the room to the other to help cool her anger down or else she’d start swinging. When she felt she finally got her temper under control, she stopped in place to face the others again. While she addressed them she purposely ignored the new guy sitting not too far from them that was already listening in on their conversation. “Look, I know that motherfucker was a fucking cannibal and shit, but my ass felt like 100x safer in this fucking hellhole when he was locked up WITH us, not AWAY from us."

Alexis nodded in 100% agreement along with the other girls. Connor was indeed a dangerous person, and definitely had a lot of issues that he needed to deal with, but still, what separated him from all the other insane patients down there with them was the fact that his issues could be controlled. Connor was still capable of being in self-control of his cannibalistic urges, and on top of that he was also an intimidating figure simply because he was the strongest and largest in their group. He had protected them all from harm countless times before, now he was gone, and they were left defenseless without him.

Out of all of the six people in that room, Bam was the only one that didn’t agree with Onika’s statement about Connor, and he wasn’t the least bit afraid to passionately speak out against it either. "Hold on, wait a fucking minute here! How could you possibly feel safe around someone like him? He’s a fucking cannibal! He EATS actual people, he ate NEWBORNS for fuck’s sake!" He cursed several times as he openly retaliated against their beliefs in their friend Connor. Bam was truly starting to believe that these girls were just as insane as Cris was for caring about a guy that consumed actual people.

Natasha and Onika both gave him an equally dark glare that would have intimidate most men in his shoes, but it only managed to make Bam feel even uncomfortable deep down in his stomach. Alexis was the only one out of the group of girls that decided to make the effort to gently explain to Bam a little more about their cannibal friend, and why they had such a strong allegiance with him. She also had a pretty strong feeling that the reason Bam was thrown down there in the facility too was because of his red hot temper. “And you are absolutely right about that, Bam. It’s definitely a well-known fact among us that Connor is a cannibal, and you are correct to think that we shouldn’t concern ourselves with someone as dangerous as him.” She hesitated for a minute to see if his tensed body would relax a bit now that it sounded like someone was on his side. When saw his shoulder slump down an inch, she pushed onward with her speech. “But the thing about Connor is he’s down here with us, instead of up there with them. Down here the staff makes sure to always keep a muzzle on him so he won’t ever be able to harm them, and it can only be removed with one of their keycards that they carry with them at all times. During our stay here, Connor has been the only one, besides Cris, who has defended us women from the various kinds of psychotic rapists that are contained down here with us. He’s one of the main reasons why we haven’t been beaten, raped or had our skulls bashed open against the tile walls in the women’s showers.”

"And who the fuck are you to judge anyway, asshole?!” Onika interrupted as she placed her hands on her hips and glared at him. “How about we take a second to focus on whatever the fuck you did to get thrown down here with us fucking lunatics, cause I know it sure as shit wasn’t for littering!" Bam tensed up immediately at the violent reminder as the blood once again drained completely from his face. His reaction prompted Cris to step in front of Onika and protect him.

"He's not ready to explain his story yet Onika, give hi-” Cris softly pleaded to her before he was interrupted by a red-faced Bam stepping forward to defend himself with same amount of fury.

"Shit, I could say the same for you! Why the hell did your ass wake up in this place, huh? What the fuck did you do?" Bam retorted as his fury was directed completely on Onika, who, unlike him, didn't tense up at his prying questions.

Her narrowed eyes dropped down to the floor instead as she focused on rubbing her hands together to keep them busy from swinging at him. From the corner of her eyes she saw Cris turn around to face Bam to probably stand up for her too, but Onika placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him before he get a word out. “No no no Cris, I can do this. Don’t worry about little old me, I can handle my fucking self.” She assured him, earning a nod in response. She then walked around Cris to face Bam and through narrowed eyes and her arms crossed over her chest, she told him her story. “I honestly have no fucking idea why the hell I’m in here. As far as I know I didn't commit any form of a crime, or intentionally offended anyone even in the slightest. The people that live up in that stupid fucking crazy ass town above us told me they found me on the outskirts of their little dumbass community in a ditch on the side of road. They were under the impression that I must have knocked myself out with some form of heavy drugs or ‘jumped’ my ass out of a moving vehicle to end up there. If I must be honest, I’m willing to bet $100 that the real reason I'm here is because they were offended by WHAT they found me in.”

"What the hell were you found in?” Bam questioned with a frown as he tried to piece together her story. “How could something they found you in be the reason that you were thrown down here, that makes no sense?!"

"I don't fucking know! Those people are fucking stupid in case you haven’t noticed for yourself!” Onicka continued on. “Anyway, when they found me, I was in this short bodycon dress that didn’t really leave much to the imagination. Considering how much those dicks are so fucking in love with their stupid ass bible, I probably looked like a modern day Mary Magdalene to them.”Onika lifted a finger to prevent Bam from interrupting her when he opened his mouth again so that she could hurry up and finish her story. “I kid you not, the second those old ass people saw me they immediately started spinning tales about me being some fucking prostitute, or a junkie, and shit to everybody there! The fucked up part about all this is that I couldn't really defend myself because for all I fucking knew they could’ve been right. By the time I finally woke up in this town, I had absolutely no memory of my life before that moment, and I still don’t. Anyway, nothing I said to them mattered in the end. They wouldn’t listen to a single thing I said, and immediately threw me in here with these other people without hesitation. All they kept fucking saying was some church bullshit that they didn't bother to try and explain to me so I’d at least understand what the fuck got their damn panties so far up their asses for." Nicki picked at the hem of her shirt which was the same exact uniform that Cris was wearing except in a smaller size, she also wore the same white pants, and vans as him too.

Bam’s eyes began to wonder over the people standing before him to not only see that they dressed the same, but that they each also wore a medical paper wristbands around their left wrists. The identical attires and wristbands made him wonder to himself if he was going to get one eventually.