Lazaretto (Camren)

O N E

"Birds born in a cage think flying is a weakness"- Alejandro Jodorosky

I was woken up by the sound of the alarms. Red lights were flashing throughout my room riotously, the alarms loud and earsplitting. I instinctively covered them with my petite hands, half asleep, hoping I wouldn't suffer another busted eardrum like I had previously when I heard the alarms for the first time. The purpose of the loudness was to warn the people in the nearby city as well, the sound echoing off of every skyscraper and every home window. The alarms meant one thing and one thing only: someone had escaped.

Jumping out of my twin sized bed, I tossed the covers aside with my hands still clamped over my ears. The white tiled floor was cold against my feet as I scurried over to the granite window sill, looking out the barred window that overlooked the city just in time to see a dark figure run across the yard below. The full moon was the only light guiding the figure through the gloomy night. The Jauregui facility didn't bother with a fence because once you decided to run, you were as good as dead.

Out of nowhere I heard a bang, and my heart shivered. Leaning closer to the window to see the figure on the ground grabbing at their leg, that's when I felt it: a shockwave of electrocution coursing through my veins. My bones hummed, and my body tensed. I stood paralyzed, unable to utter a single word because of the excruciating pain. Gripping onto the window sill to keep myself from falling over, I closed my eyes tightly and gritted my teeth as the shockwaves continued in intervals of ten seconds. Somehow managing to open my eyes just enough to look out the window once again, to my surprise, the figure got back up and continued running despite the electric volts trying to subdue them and with the obvious leg wound.

After about five rounds of the shock treatments, they stopped. I instantly fell to my knees trying to catch the breath that I had been holding, my muscles twitching and spasming with every move I made. As I was regaining my strength on the cold tiled floor, I heard a few more rounds of gunshots being fired like fireworks in the sky, fearing the inevitable. I sighed and shook my blonde-haired head. It was pointless to run.

My mind started racing putting faces with numbers hoping it wasn't 5007, the boy with dark blond hair and blue eyes. I absentmindedly touched the crescent moon scar on the curve of my left elbow, remembering the last time I heard the alarms.

It happened two years ago during my seventeenth year at the facility while working in the library where it was my job to put the books away. As I was placing a book on the shelf, the alarms sounded. It startled me and I jerked back, cutting my elbow on a screw that jutted out from the book cart. I instinctively grabbed my elbow and winced in pain as blood dripped through my fingers, staining the tan carpet of the facility library with crimson droplets. The unfamiliar warmth and slickness made my stomach twist, and the distinct smell of iron made me nauseous. The alarms wailed as the library was dancing with red light, the combination of the flashing lights and the quick loss of blood had my head spinning.

Shock treatments soon followed, and I inevitably found myself on the carpeted floor, my body as stiff as a board, slightly jerking as the electric current flowed through me like a battery. I closed my eyes trying to rid the pain of the electrocution, the stinging in my elbow long forgotten. Lying there for what seemed like hours before I heard a door open and the shuffling of feet across the ground, I then felt a warm hand on my shoulder.

"Are you okay?" she asked, her voice muffled by the alarms and my clouded ears that felt like they were stuffed with cotton. I looked up to see a brown headed guard with piercing green eyes and instantly recognized her as she had woken me up every morning for the past year.

I shook my head and said, "No, ma'am" but I knew she probably hadn't heard me since it came out as a whisper. It took every ounce of remaining strength I had to pull my arm out from underneath me and turn slightly to show her my bloodied elbow hoping she would understand. Thankfully she nodded and carefully helped me back onto my feet and led me out of the library down the hall.

As we were walking the lights were still flashing and the alarms were still sounding, but everything seemed muted like I had suddenly gone deaf. I could hardly hear them anymore.

We were almost to the infirmary when I stopped, feeling like I had just stepped off of a spinning tire swing. I placed my weak and bloodied hand against one of the white washed walls of the facility, noticing the other kids were lined up in the hallway side by side with their heads between their knees, protocol for when the alarms sounded. Feeling queasy, my vision started to blur. It was like I was looking through a kaleidoscope that never ended, every image blurring into one. My surroundings soon turned completely white, and I looked up just in time to see the brown headed guard running over to me and catching me before I hit the ground. She carried my limp, twitching body the rest of the way to infirmary and carefully lied me down on one of the beds. I was starting to come to when I heard her talking to one of the nurses about my injury, and I barely heard something of a promise to return as she walked out the door before closing my eyes once more and surrendering to the darkness.

The memory was interrupted by a knock on my door. Shakily standing up from the ground and walking over to the frame, I opened the heavy metal door to find the brown headed guard with green eyes. She looked me up and down quickly before opening her mouth.

"Are you okay?" she shouted over the alarms. Her voice was huskier than I remembered.

"Yes, ma'am," I shouted back. She nodded slightly before walking away.

Rule #1: Thou shall treat guards and professors with respect by calling them "sir" or "ma'am" considerably.

I closed the door and walked back into my small, rectangular room, hoisting myself on top of the granite window sill. The chill of the stone caused goose bumps to rise on my tawny skin, and as I looked back out the barred window at the glowing city, the figure was nowhere in sight.

A/N: here. we. go.