Page 13 of Misted

Hawk

I was ready for it all to end until you came along like warmth in a long freezing winter.

Past,

I’m done.

It’s over.

I can’t take this anymore. Tonight I’ll put an end to all this.

My breathing is shallow and strangled. I try to keep my eyes open, but the brightness surrounding me causes my vision to double, triple, and blur into nothingness.

I shake my head. Once. Twice. The bright white walls surrounding me come into focus. Ten other kids huddle on the freezing tiles in the room. Some weep. Others whimper. One of them throws blows at the wall, over and over, until his knuckles burst open and the white tiles are painted in smudges of red. The look on his face is haunted like he isn’t feeling what he’s doing.

He probably doesn’t. I sure don’t when I’m at that phase. I’ve been here for… months? I don’t know how long exactly. I barely remember I’m thirteen or… is it fourteen?

I run a hand on my face. The skin burns. Right. I busted my lip in a sparring match earlier. I don’t even remember it. My opponent’s face and the man who injected me with the drug are like an unreachable fog.

It’s… nothingness.

Some of the kids here are barely ten, and yet all of us were forced to take at least one life already. I took three — or four. I don’t remember them or their faces or what the fuck they are. I just recall the need to kill and that’s it.

The other kids around me whisper to each other or to themselves.

Their names.

They keep carving and repeating their names, hoping they’ll remember it. I already forgot mine. They call me Hawk here and that’s all.

I forgot Mum and Dad’s faces, too. Their names. Everything. I recall an accident then I was here and that’s… it.

Now I’m done.

I feel nothing anymore. One of the boys cries, the other howls, another vomits all over the room. But all I feel is frost. Icy, solid frost.

The moment I killed that third – or fourth man, I decided I’m done. I managed to steal a blade from training today. I need to do this before the guards take us to our separate cells and do the obligatory body check.

My gaze slowly trails to the corners. There are cameras, though. The other day, one of the girls tried to kill herself with a fork she stole from the canteen, the guards came in no time and took her. We never saw her again. We don’t see many again.

Last week we woke up to find a boy drowning in his own vomit mixed with blood and mucus. Omega drug’s side effects. I hoped those would hit me and finish me, too, but they never did.

I finger my knife hidden at the waistband of my trousers. Killing myself with a knife is harder than with a gun. If I stab myself, I’ll bleed out, but won’t be able to die immediately. If I attempt to slice my own throat, I can miss the artery. I’ll torture myself and not die. The guards will find me and take me to a worse place where that girl went.

My best bet is to pretend I’m vomiting against the wall, use the hard surface to fix the knife and then stab myself in the heart. The force will certainly end me.

The door swings open. I tense but drop my hand to my side. They couldn’t have caught a glimpse of the knife when I’ve been hiding it so well.

A guard shoves a girl inside and she falls on all fours. Her wild mane of deep red hair camouflages her face. Small, pale hands clutch the floor for balance. A short red dress covers her slim shape and is torn at the bottom.

A new addition.

They’re the ones who die first.

Those of us who have been here for some time developed resistance to Omega. The new ones are barely touched with the drug before their already frail bodies fail them.

My gaze strays to the guard, and thankfully, he doesn’t seem to be here for me. I’m about to release a sigh of relief when I make out who brought the new girl.

A scar runs diagonally along his military cut head to the side of his ear. His piercing, brown eyes scan the space with unrestrained malice.