Any comments welcome, especially on things that confuse you! This is the second part of my first chapter. Enjoy!
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[EDIT: compleatly re-done]
Friggin heck! I jumped, suddenly contempt on finding out what the band was doing around my wrist. I fought the war to bottle the screams and take a look at the damage. As I moved my arm, the sting subsided. And I finally saw the thing that was causing me pain.
Clasped onto my wrist was a tight bangle, as I had found out earlier. I propped myself up on my left elbow, and held my right as close as I could get it to my face, without blocking all of the light. It wasn’t really a bangle, just a thick strip of stainless steal wound tightly around my arm. Dropping myself carefully, I tore that the trinket, prying it up a couple of millimeters or so, until I could just see the underside of the jewelry. Gasping in terror at what I saw, I reflected on how right it all seemed.
A thin needle was embedded in the bracelet, presently jabbing out a big enough distance to reach my major arteries. Right where the spike would make contact was an open wound that bled surprisingly little. The small amount that had managed to escape my bloodstream didn’t make it much further; the tight presence of the bracelet had acted as a plaster, the blood caking in thin layers in between my skin and the band.
Sick of looking at my own injury, I turned my wrist to examine the other side, where a watch-face would sit. Scratched onto the upturned side was the word “K-13”
K? What does it mean? Is it some clue to my name, my past?
Could ‘K’ be one of my initials? Am I thirteen years old? I thought the phrase over and over, silently shouting them in the deep crevasse that was my mind. I intended on getting an answer, if not, then I didn’t know what I would do, but it wouldn’t be pretty. Despite my tireless outcry, there was no reply, my mysterious hitchhiker was not about to reveal the mysteries of my life, or what I could remember of it anyway.
Tears started to well up in my throat, creating a lump that caused me to gasp for breath in long, childish sobs. After the tears ran out, I returned to my mental list of questions.
The real query that I was faced with now was how to get the band off; I surely couldn’t have it stabbing me again, with who knows what could be on the needle point.
Who would inject themselves on a regular basis, even if the needle had nothing in it? After hours of being stuck on either my stomach or back in a small tube, I was tired, especially after the crawl up the slanted pipe. I was so close to freedom, only to be pounded with more confusing facts; it was unbearable. I was tired of being cramped in a mangy old pipe, I was tired of not knowing who I was, and I was tired of having my mysterious hitchhiker point out instructions, without telling me why.
In one desperate movement, I tore at the band and fought desperately to destroy it. My hard work was to no avail, and I eventually renounced my efforts, after what seemed like an hour.
I flipped onto my front and crawled backwards again till I was ready to drop, and then fought to catch my breath from the arduous climb in the now sweltering heat.
I lay there, basking in the bright light of outside, warring inside myself, asking for answers and picking theories to threads, feeling distraught and drained from my futile attempts at the truth.
I was in what seemed to be a construction site, and my current height was about four meters off the ground, based on what I could see through the narrow porthole. Without room to move around, I had to drop out feet first. Just as my covered feet were reaching open air, I heard her voice again.
‘Wait! Don’t move. Don’t make any noise at all.’
You again? Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my head?‘Shut up and listen!’ I zipped my mouth shut, and strained my ears, doing as my mysterious hitchhiker was asking, knowing that it was for the better, but retaliating as much as I could bear.
Fine, but can you do something for me? You know; something like telling me what the hell is going on?
No reply came, so I concentrated even harder.
No sooner had I started to focus, did the voices appeared, muffled only slightly by the short length of piping.
I listened intently for what could have been either seconds or hours, as I was too pre-occupied by the conversation to be aware of anything else.
Delighted immensely by what I heard, I relaxed my muscles, which were cramping from my long time in such harsh conditions. Just as the voices seemed to fade away, the bracelet injected its hard stinger into me once more.
“Shit,” I mumbled to myself, as I wriggled my hand around to pull the blasted thing out. I cringed once I realized how much noise I was making, and stopped dead. My wincing got worse as the needle stayed in the flesh, and I gasped in terror as it let go, breathing heavily to regain full oxygen flow.
‘Oh no, you've done it now.’
Go away! I thought back, immediately marveling at the way I clenched my teeth, as if speaking out loud. The exchange lasted barely a second, but the time the stinger was in seemed like ages.
“Hey, what was that?” Came a male voice filled with surprise.
My heart started to thud loudly in my chest. I prayed to god that the confused men would not be able to hear its' reverberations through the construction pipe. Nobody took any notice of their friends’ query, and the crunching of footsteps resumed. Not put off by his friends’ insolence, he tried again
“Up there, I thought I heard some banging!” I could almost hear the whistle as his hand pointed up to my hideout.
‘Stay still!’
Nah, I’m just gonna waltz on out there and tell them the whole story! I retorted back, discouraged by the disbelief of her non-existent voice.
No reply.
What is the whole story? What am I? You know… don’t you? I asked, consulting her, sure that they could finally put my questioning at rest.
‘It’s not what you think it is, just shut up, and stop moving around.’
So I’m not a lab rat, or an escaped convict?
Nothing.
“It’s just a raccoon or something, hurry up” I nearly jumped at the reply, but a part of me was still paying attention, and that shrunk the movement down immensely.
Once again the footsteps resumed, and I counted my blessings.
‘Wait for a while and the ease yourself out.’
Getting tired of my internal friend’s instructions, but knowing that there was no use in rebuttal, I silently bide my time, counting down from a hundred, stringing my last threads of patience up on the line.
Can I come out now? I thought through gritted teeth once again, frightened that I might be going mad.
I’ll take your silence as a yes! I continued with a delighted tone.
I wriggled my way out of the passage, hung in mid air for a second, took a deep breath and let go of the metal rim.
‘Roll on impact!’
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