BLEED/HAVEN

FOUR

The road was rough and there was no caution as the vehicle lumbered along, hitting every bump and crack it could find. There were two men driving, their voices calling over the sounds of the vehicle as they talked about their bills, homes, children, and whatever else was on their minds. It was a light hearted conversation to be having despite the austerity of the situation. However, who could blame them? Their job was grim in nature, but it was still just a job. Whatever happened afterward had nothing to do with them. They would still get paid and put food on the table. That was all that ever mattered, taking care of one's own.

Taking care of this group was at the bottom of anyone's cares at this point, and it was prevalent through their conditions. The seats were hard and cold, nowhere near comfortable for their aching bones after so much prior travel and processing. Then there was the air conditioning that blew at seldom, leaving the temperature warm, and the small holding space refrained from offering any other sense of cooling. The group was stuffed into the space like a can of rancid-smelling sardines. The smell being a virulent mixture of hours of nervous sweat seeping through the grey, tattered jumpsuits they called clothes, along with the smell of fumes from the vehicle.

They were pressed close together, knees touching as they were sitting parallel from one another in two rows on either side of the truck. Each bump of the road squeezed them closer to one another, knocking their pressed shoulders and thighs against one another in a subtle back and forth motion. A black chain link gate separated the group from a storage compartment that had black duffel bags stacked atop one another. What they held was as good as anyone's guess, weapons, cargo, whatever their escorts needed. Then there was another grey, metal wall that separated everything from the two drivers sitting in the front. The small, face-sized sliding window was shut, but they could still hear the fairly loud conversation.

There were windows behind their heads on either side of where the group sat that appeared fragile enough to break, he could tell just by looking at the small cracks that formed along the edges. Possibly from previous escape attempts. Most would think that Roakon would have the most immaculate facilities, but it appeared that a good kick would be sufficient to open the path to escape, to freedom. Then again, it would be a fruitless gambit to take, being that they were in the center of a convoy and also weighing on the fact that they were in a remote area. For the past few minutes, hours, who knew, there had been the same thing, trees, bushes, trees, bushes. No landmarks, no points of interest. No real reason to even care to look out the window. No one did.

A young voice broke the monotonous lull of the humming vehicle, the faint conversation from the drivers, and the constant silence of the group who had known each other ever since they were sentenced. Which at this point, was immeasurable. There had been so much initial movement and no real time to sit and think until now, none had seen real sunlight beyond a medium since they had been sentenced, they could have been traveling for realistically up to three days, or even one night. They were all tired, hadn't showered or changed since the last facility they had been forced into. But one man out of the four men and three women had the energy to speak after all of that,

"Hey, Th-Thirty-Two."

Dark, tired circles surrounded the very light colored hazel eyes of the man who slowly peeled his gaze from the muddy, black, metal floor and up to meet the grey eyes of who called his number. The capture number, three and two was marked on the back of the man's hands, a bit faded, and sewn into the center of his ragged, dark grey, long sleeved torso top. There were wet patches here and there from sweat but they seemed to be drying despite the heat of the room.

The lighting was less than desirable, dim and faint, but with enough focus, Thirty-Two could make out the face that called him. The one with grey eyes looked average. He had wild, thick, brown hair with strange streaks of blonde and a younger face. Thirty-Two scanned him over quickly, he looked skinny from how the clothes he wore fit loosely on his body, and he was nervously massaging his hands over and over. He looked at his chest for a few moments, making out his numbers amidst the rocking of the vehicle, Seven-seven. The man refrained from speaking, but made it obvious that Seventy-Seven held his attention.