Down for the Count

Day 1

Note: If you feel like you've missed something I added a bit to the end of the last part, so you may want to go check that out before starting here.

I hadn't been out of the kit since I went in the first time. Out the usually locked doors it was bright. We were outside. For years I had had no idea where I was, now I guess I sort of knew. From the outside it looked like an abandoned aircraft hangar. It was a large building, old and rusty. Parked behind it under a patch work plexiglass awning were around fifteen very out of place looking, expensive cars. Many of them were quickly backing out and speeding away with complete disregard for any human who may be in their path. What now? I was still leaning on Mikey. The other fighters and various kit workers were dispersing into the field of dry grass around the back of the place. I suggested we go around to the front.

About 10 yards away from the front of the building there was a freeway. We stopped at the edge of it and sat, too overwhelmed to talk. Compared to the panic inside, outside it was eerily quiet. Then I heard someone breathing rapidly. Crawling towards us was Matt. I made an effort to go to him but I was hardly able to hold myself in a sitting position. Matt looked bad, worse than I remembered him looking when we saw him on the stretcher right before we escaped. His left eye was bruised and there was a large cut below it that was bleeding alot. Mikey ran over and picked him up, cradling the kid in his strong arms. Mike sat back down next me squeezing Matt tight into his chest. Neither me nor Mikey had ever properly talked to the kid but we had both noticed him. Now the three of us were sitting on the side of a road. We were free. It was strange and shocking. I had believed so ademately that I would never get out of that place and now I was. We were. But what now? Would somebody drive by and stop to help us? Would Mr. Dayport stumble out here and gun us all down? Or would Mrs. D come to recapture her slaves? Or maybe both of them would shoot themselves and the rest of us would die of starvation and this whole operation would become food for worms and fading, sick fantasies in the back of  our client's minds. 

I listened for a car but all I could hear was the rusting of dry leaves from some dying trees across the road and Matt sniffling and whimpering into Mikey's blood sained tee shirt. Then suddenly, a car was approaching us and then it was driving away. The moment didn't mean a thing. None of us had hearts or souls or spirits whole enough to hope. Maybe Mikey did but it's easy to have hope for the future. What happens when it looks as if today is the day you've been hoping for? I'll tell you what happens, hope disappears. It's like looking at a thin hair, when it's in front of you you can focus on it, but when it's close up you're forced to see the big picture.

Mikey broke the scilence, "Chase I don't think we should stay here."

"I agree."

"We should probably start walking." Mikey said still staring straight ahead. He stood without saying another words and reached his free hand down to me. I grabbed it and hoisted myself up. It hurt but life hurts. I shouldn't have been walking. I don't even know how I did it, how we did it. Steroids and painkillers ran through our veins where blood should have been and we had more scars than clear skin. Nevertheless, day 1 of our freedom we walked slowly down the side of a road we couldn't name in a direction we couldn't label. The only thing that drove us forward was the solid knowledge that the longer we walked for the further away from hell we would be. Mikey was still cradling Matt in one arm, the kid had cried himself to sleep, and Matt's other arm was around me holing up my unthinking, unfeeling corpse as the first direct sunlight we'd seen in what seemed like a lifetime faded into nightime.