Nightingale

Chapter One: Annabelle

Chapter One: Annabelle

She was beautiful. Her lips were round and a fleshy red, perfect natural lips that never needed a touch of make up to be distracting as her soft voice spoke. Her speech was intelligently articulated through white walled, perfectly straight teeth that seemed to shine into the world like a striations of sunlight breaking into the dawn. Her skin was pale and lightly freckled across a perfectly proportional nose that came to a rounded tip neither too short or too long. Her hair hung in waves of soft gold like silk to those who were blessed enough to touch it, and her eyes were hued with a verdant green ringed by a thin layer of bronze around her pupil. Her breasts were ample, requiring no tight shirt or blouse for her shape to be flattered and to draw eyes and slack jaws. Her shape at her seat was also plentiful and any man would be hard pressed to not stare as her hips swayed when she walked.

Her husband was a lucky man, knew it every time he lay eyes upon her, every subtle kiss or hard passionately placed one. In a world that would have otherwise seem bleak, his body lit up like heaven in sensuality every time she submitted to his dominant touch (that she craved) and made noisy love into the late, then more in the morning and afternoon. Love making was as abundant as oxygen between these two.

He always felt so isolated being on watch or patrol into the long winter darks. The stars or moon held no glimmer to her as he peered into a dim, Candle lit picture of her broad smile on a warm summer evening. She was capable of instilling a feeling of warmth through these winter solstice-like nights that no fire could.

Through breaths that formed in massive puffs fading into the air like apparitions, he kissed it gently and carefully, making sure no moisture hung on his lips to damage it. Cameras were a rare thing now, actual pictures made of more than flimsy printer paper were gems. "My Annabelle," he whispered softly. The sound echoed lightly across the concrete walls he stood within, hauntingly so.

He felt a rush of anxiety realizing how quiet it stood. So little sound lingered that the wax bubbling within the wall-hung candles was audible. He habitually always kept a grip on his Beretta sidearm inside his ample coat pocket, tensing his fingers up further in his slight fear,never knew when threats could pounce, an air duct that a Nightingale could slip through that wasn't properly sealed, a window that ruptured without anyone noticing.

Yet it had been a fort night since danger last spurred inside this town. So much had gone into clearing the area with the dream of being able to live opening in a house safely one day.

He slipped the picture of Annie back into the inner pocket of his old navy trench coat that was once his grand father's. He then walked along, with a light smile over his face and his hands inside his deep pockets for both warmth and to have his right hand near his sidearm, giving him a feeling of security in the lonesome, orange flickering dark.

This prison would have once been the envy of no one, walls to keep those away from freedom who were deemed unfit to have it, unfit to trek amongst the "civilized". And yet, now it was the only place where safety could be considered a mild possibility. It was built fifty seven miles north of Seattle in 2019 as the largest prison in history, forty stories of reinforced concrete, bullet proof glass and steel doors. It was built like a futuristic castle lined with shooting ports in the unlikely event of a mass escape. The Quadrilateral shape of the structure was nearly half a kilometer in any direction from the central courtyard that served as the community gathering square now. It had been retrofitted with generators, solar panels, wind mills. Fortified with new doors and heavier fencing to keep danger out rather than in.

Four hundred and ninety seven rested here. Every night, one hundred and seventy five of them watched just as Killian did now with a rifle or pistol and a pack of pills and drinks to keep them awake into the fridged winter evenings. People were selected at random by lottery every month to be on guard, and could only refuse if they had previously been on guard shift or in the case of unhealth that hindered them, in which case a new ticket was drawn. Only those (like Annie) who were in the medical core were exempt from being on watch as their skills were valuable during the day and so few nurses and doctors existed now.