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Chapter 12: Fence

Chapter 12: Fence

-H A R R Y-

My limbs feel heavy. Numb. My senses feel dull. But the smell of apples and the feeling of my feet pushing against the ground are clear. I’m breathing hard and my heart is thumping against my ribs. I feel like I’m going so slow. I know I can go faster.

I can see her bright orange uniform weaving in and out of the trees. Her platinum blonde hair swings on her shoulders. Her feet kick up the soil as she sprints. She’s going so fast.

“671!” I call out to her. “The consequences of disobeying or fleeing from a Corrector are–“ I lose my breath before I can finish the sentence. It’s useless anyway, her pace is relentless and so much faster than mine. The distance between us expands rapidly. “Stop!” I bark, my last attempt.

I don’t even remember making the choice. Suddenly my gun is in my hand and my eye is closed and I’m aiming… I’m aiming at the back of her head and I’m breathing hard and I can’t feel my fingers but I know my index is on the trigger and the feeling rushes from my feet into my hands and I can feel the cold metal on my palm and I know if I squeeze it the gun will kick back and the bullet will fly from the barrel and there will be a noise so loud and the lead will lodge itself into the back of her scull…

But in the next second she stops.

My vision seems to jump cut, my feet stop of their own. She stands there, leaning against the tree to catch her breath. My teeth bite down on the inside of my cheek, I taste blood. I can feel my organs churning in my abdomen. 

Without thinking my arm shoots forward. My fingers grasp at her scalp, her hair bound tightly around my fingers. I yank my arm back in hopes of capturing her but her head does not follow. Instead, her hair is ripped from her head.

I look down at my hand in horror, a chunk of bloody platinum blonde hair suffocates my hand. The skin came with the hair, the thick blood staining my wrist and my palm. The sweet smell of apples and sting of blood mixes together, creating an intoxicating, metallic, fruity, and stomach wrenching stench.

I watch the thin strands fall from my fingers and onto the ground, strangely mesmerized by it.

My vision jump cuts again, 671 has fallen to her knees. A gaping, bloody hole is in the back of her head. Thick rivers of red run down her neck, spreading slowly through her orange uniform. As the blood floods down her back my throat becomes more and more dry. 

Another jump cut. 1930. She stands at the end of the line in front of the shed. Bloody hands. Like mine. Her jaw is dropped. She’s gasping. She looks away. She struggles to breathe. My throat feels like it is closing in on itself. 

I’m in solitary confinement. A purely metal room. No windows. Dark. But I know I’m here. I can smell the General. His scent drenched in blood and women– buried in cologne, nicotine pills, and copper.

“This is punishment,” is all he says. I remember him saying it. I must have been sixteen when they started building Knox. He shut the door and left me there for five hours. He asked me if I was hungry when he came back.

I can hear him shut the door. The darkness chokes me. The silence is deafening. I close my eyes and pretend that if I opened them it would make a difference. I pretend the black surrounding me is of my own accord. I try to breathe. 

My feet shuffle slightly and the noise that it creates startles me. Sloshing. Like I am standing in water. The thick liquid rises to my ankles, soaking through my clothes and sliding along my skin. I am unable to move. My muscles feel frozen but my skin seems to vibrate, heating and sweating. I don’t remember this part.