Young Writers Society

A/N: I'd love feedback of all kinds. This is a very rough first draft, and I'm not going to be editing/revising hopefully until I finish the first draft *punches inner critic out of the way* Support would also be awesome, as weird as that feels to ask. 

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I trailed a hand along the wall as I walked. Tip-toeing closer and closer to main cell must have been. It was hard to see because the building had been abandoned for a long time, and when someone had re-inhabited it, I guess they only had a use for a small portion of it. All I could hear were the soles of my shoes slapping against the floor, paper crinkling in my pocket, and the distant hum of some sort of motor.

There were several rooms that opened up to my left, my fingers lost for something to touch. So I switched hands and started following the right wall. The fingertips on my left hand were numb anyway, and they felt gritty with dust.

The hum grew louder as I walked down corridor after corridor, and I began to see a slight glow up ahead. At first I thought it was my eyes playing tricks on me, but sure enough the light intensified.

“Susan?”

I spun around and came face to face with a figure that loomed over me, his eye-sockets darkened to the point that it looked like he didn’t have any eyes, and was merely a faceless skull.

“O-oh, no; I’m not who you’re looking for.” I said, heart still pounding from being startled.

He leaned his head closer to me, as if peering to see my face better. “Jeff?” I still couldn’t see his eyes, and it was too dark to even see his lips to tell if he was joking, though I’m not sure anyone could manage to confuse my voice for a man’s voice in reality.

“No I’m no-one you’d know.” I said, letting my palm flatten on the wall as I leaned into it.

The man laughed, “That’s impossible,” he said, “I know everyone down here.” a pungent smell wafted towards me, tangy and sweet. Booze. I sighed. The last thing I wanted was to have a drunk tag-along.

“Do you know how to get to the main cell?” I asked, figuring I’d make some use out of him.

He stumbled forward a bit, nearly falling into me before I could react. “Ma’am,” he said, “of course I know how to get to the main cell.”

Thankfully he’d been heading there himself as well. I could have found it myself, but it probably would have taken longer knowing I’d probably take a wrong turn or two. He didn’t sound particularly drunk, his voice was coherent enough, but as he took the lead in front of me I noticed he swayed as he walked and nearly tripped several times, even after he started steadying himself with the wall. We walked for quite a ways, and at one point he burst into song. It scared the crap out of me, one minute we were just walking in silence the next: TAKE me to the rummy mill, the rummy mill, the rummy mill. Take me to the rummy mill, where milk turns into rummy!

Thankfully he didn’t seem to remember all the words, so I only had to hear him half-heartedly hum for the rest of the trip. Though it didn’t take too long before the machinery sound was louder and much more annoying than this man would every be. It was being produced by a good-sized generator that vibrated away as a massive fan spun around inside it, blowing my hair into my face with a dry warmth that left my skin feeling dusty.

The man ducked and pulled a heavy curtain out of the way, and stepped through. I did the same, the weight of the piece of rubber sitting in as a curtain/door almost pushed me over, but I shoved it back and came out the other side. The rubber mat swung away as I let it go and thwacked the wall beside it, I knew it hit it hard because I could hear it over the deafening hum from the generator. Once the mat was down though, it did block out a considerable amount of noise.

We were now standing in a room that resembled a kitchen. There was an old-fashioned table-- the kind that looked like it was made out of cutting boards. Three young men sat at the table, staring back at us.

“Welcome to Main Cell,” my drunk-companion said, gesturing towards the men. There was an awkward moment where no one said anything, they just continued staring at me. A game of what appeared to be chess with alcohol was on pause as they continued to assess my arrival. I don’t know why, but I thought they would be a little more professional than this here, and it made me a bit uneasy that they weren’t.

I cleared my throat and said “Hi, um, I have a message for Allen Main.”

“Who’s that?” one of them asked, looking around dumbfoundedly.

“She means Ally, you idiot.” another said.

Drunk-skull-man beside me snickered. His laughter intensified until he was having trouble standing again.

“Could someone please tell me where he is or let him know someone’s here to see him so I can get on my way.” I said, ignoring the laughing moron beside me. He started laughing even harder at my words. I needed to get out of this place as quickly as possible. It felt wrong somehow.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I’ll have to apologise,” drunky-man said, “If I’d known you were looking for Allen, I would have told you sooner.”

“Told me what?” I asked- I’ll admit, I was pretty annoyed at this point.

“Well…” The laughter died out as he spoke up again, “I’ll take you to see him, how about that? He’s in his room- or cell, if you want to get technical.”

“That would be fantastic, thank you.” I said, cautiously.

Deep down I longed for one of the other men to take me there, instead of this maniac. But at least he hadn’t tried to hurt me yet, and who knows what the others would have been like. He led me to a room that wasn’t far away from the kitchen, if I had to I could scream and the others could hear me, but that was assuming at least one of the four were decent.

“Here we are,” he said, stopping at a cell door and taking out keys that were attached to one of those accordion-bracelet key-chains. He chuckled a bit to himself as he fit one in the keyhole and swung the door open.

“Ally,” he said, “you have a visitor.”

There was no response. The room was dark like most of the entire place, but I could see someone sitting in a chair, his head resting on the back of it.

“Sir,” I said, “I have a message from my father.”

The drunk snickered again. “She’s kinda cute, Sir. Brunette. Your favourite.”

I shot a look back at him that I hoped told him I’d murder him if he brought up anything to do with hair colour again. He just smirked back at me. There was a really horrible smell, and I tried not to think of what it could be. The room seemed clean so it was hard to tell. I took a few steps towards Allen and tried again. “Sir?” I said.

“Oh please.” The drunk said, walking over passed me to Allen. He put a hand on the back of the man’s chair and spun it around. I gasped. Grey, empty eyes stared back at me.