The Anarchist

14. The Second Truth

[Contents retrieved from cell 012b. Date Unknown.]

[Note: Multiple entries referencing a similar period have been collated into this group.]

Entry 1:

I received, at last, another visit from the whelp Samantha, recently. I have been wondering if she had not been moved to another facility, so long has her absence been. At one time, recently, I almost believed she was dead. I would be lying if I said that I was happy to see her, but I did feel some form of anticipation for a new conversation, at the very least. I could not have known, however, that this was not to be the sort of conversation to which I had grown accustomed. In all honesty, I am not sure what to make of it.

She awoke me in the middle of the night, tearful - as if she had any other state of being.

"Annie, Annie, please, I need to tell you something," she said. "Wake up, wake up."

When I roused myself from my slumber, she began her verbal diarrhoea.

"Annie, you have to leave now. Please. Please go. She's going to hurt you, I know she is."

"What are you talking about? Who is?"

"Truth. She's going to make you go away. I don't want anything to happen to you, Annie. You've been such a good friend and I don't want you to go away. I want you to stay here."

It was at this moment that I realised that something was strange about her voice. It sounded higher-pitched, more meek than usual. As I had heretofore been uninterested in actually looking her way, I did so and noticed the oddest thing: she was smaller than before; the size of a small child. She appeared to be clutching something to her chest, too. Something tiny and dark that I could not quite see. I gawked at her, but she clearly did not notice. She just kept talking, ignoring every question I asked. It was as if I did not exist.

"I talked to Mrs McCready-"

"Mrs McCready? Who's that?"

"- and she said that it's just the way things are, that sometimes our friends can't stay together with us forever, but that doesn't make any sense to me. If people are best friends, then they should be able to stay together-"

"That's not even close to how things work-"

"-so why can't we? That's why I'm just gonna to go with you. I'm gonna tell them and they can't say no. Because I said so. The grown-ups always say that so I'm gonna say it, and then they have to listen to me. That's how it works. I'm just scared, Sarry-"

"What did you call me?"

This stopped her for a second, and she registered I was there for the first time since she awoke me.

"Annie. It's your name, remember?"

"That's not what you called me."

"Well if you're too much of a dumb-dumb to listen properly, then that's not my fault. Anyways, I'm real scared, because it's like Mrs McCready said-"

"Who is this woman you keep talking about?" I demanded from her, but she had returned to ignoring me.

"- you're real sad and easy to break, like that flower pot she has on the window. I don't want anybody to hurt you and I don't trust anybody else not to hurt you-"

"Samantha, you are not making any sense! I'm not your friend and never have been, now shut up and listen to me!" I bellowed at her.

This time she listened, but she had a look on her face I'd never seen before: defiance.