No Escape

Chapter 8

The four men in all black who had been standing behind them detached their hands from behind the wooden chairs and had them stand up. Ellie Maisie, Ariana, Mo, and Nanette nervously walked towards the metal door. Keres opened the metal doors and walked with his head high, while the rest of them shamefully lowered their heads. When he opened the steel doors, all that was visible was a long corridor with velvet carpeted halls and white walls.
"Where are we?" Ellie Maisie asked in whispers.
"Heaven," Keres sighed.
"More like hell," Mo scoffed.
"I'd keep my mouth shut Miss Cristofaro," Keres said chipperly.

"I'm not threatened by you," Mo retaliated.
"Don't worry, we'll change that."
They walked to the end of the corridor until they reached another steel door, behind that door was another, giant corridor, except this time, instead of walls, there were prison bars and small rooms with bunk beds. Some rooms were empty, some had depressed women lying on their beds or the floor. Ariana and Nanette recognized them as presidents or important people. They reached two empty cages and opened the doors.
"Alright, Miss Martinez, Miss Cristofaro, share a room. Miss Rosenthal, Miss Weeks, share the other," one of the men in black said.

They all reluctantly did as told and settled in. Ellie Maisie made her way to the bars and put her newly freed hands tightly around them.
"Why am I here, Keres?" she asked, "I'm not a leader, I'm not important. I'm a defense attorney. That's all there is."
"You have power, Miss Rosenthal," Keres explained, "More power than you should have or can handle. I'm doing the world a favor."
Keres walked away with a smile on his face and disappeared behind the steel doors, continuing his path on that narrow hallway. Ellie Maisie turned her back to the bars. Only now had she the time to appreciate the circumstances and examine all around her. She was wearing a

sleeveless pastel blue shirt and white jeans, both stained with a mixture of blood and mud. She wasn't wearing this the night before and all of a sudden had no idea how she had changed, but the more she thought about it, the more dreadful she felt. She looked at Ariana, Nanette, and Mo's clothing that seemed to be the same raggedy, bloody aesthetic. These quarters were prisons. They all had narrow bunk beds with uncomfortable mattresses and paper-thin blankets with a wooden board for pillows. The floor was hard, rocky, and especially harmful since they were all barefoot. Ellie Maisie observed Ariana, who had a sad smile on her face. Her hair was turning brown from all the dirt, and her head sunk into her lumpy mattress.

"This is so... I've never experienced anything like this," Ellie Maisie said.
"Right," Mo sighed angrily, "So what is this?"
"What do you mean?" Ariana asked.
"What are we doing here?" she replied, even angrier.
"We're being taught to be 'proper women', whatever that means, and he's a man, what does he know?" Nanette growled.
"I thought we were over this!" Mo scowled, "I thought that Equal Rights Act, Equal Pay Act and The Banning of Sexual Harassment Act and the damn Education For All program did something generations ago, but it's the same crap!"

"It's like the Handmaid's Tale," Ellie Maisie said.
"The what?" Mo asked.
"The Handmaid's Tale, one of my favorite novels. It's a twisted demonstration of dystopian literature in which women are taken from their jobs and homes and forced to live under an oppressive regime where they must obey men," Ellie explained.
"Sounds like a barrel of laughs," Nanette scoffed sarcastically.
"It can be if you look at it from a purely psychotic angle."
"This is a disgrace," Ariana said abruptly after a few seconds of silence, "Diplomats, politicians, good people, all locked up behind

bars. Stripped of their dignity and left aimlessly roaming. It is outrageous that we should have to be forced into a barred, caged existence, just because a man with inane thoughts and an urge to impose a totalitarian regime says so!"
"Nice speech Malcolm X," a man mocked.
They all turned their heads to see another one of those men in all black standing outside of their cages. He wielded a large assault rifle and he smiled widely.
"That's insulting," Nanette sighed.
"No, I mean it," he laughed, "You were so motivational. There was a flaw though, it's not one man, it's an alliance of like-minded, free thinkers."

"Freethinkers? Is that what you call yourselves? You're psychopaths!" Ellie snapped.
"We are an organization with people from all over the world. It's a beautiful connection, don't you think," the man said, "We have men from Australia, South America, Africa, all the way to our very own White House. That was a bit of a shock, wasn't it Miss Weeks."
Ariana chose to ignore the man's taunts and sat there peacefully.
"Who are you, anyway?" Mo snarled, "What are you doing here?"
"I'm a guard," he cheered, "Meaning I get to sit here and chat with Miss Weeks about her failed parenting."

"Shut up!" the voice of another man said.
"What did you say to me?" the guard said angrily.
A man appeared from the corridors. He was also wearing all black. He had dark brown hair and brown eyes. His skin was of a pale complexion and he was wearing a black hoodie and black gloves. As soon as he saw the other guard's anger, his confidence shrunk and he lowered his head.
"I mean, whatever, you can just leave them alone or something," he whispered shyly.
"Careful Lawson, we didn't bring them here to leave them alone!" the guard retaliated, "You're such a girl. If you like these women so

much, why don't you guard this corner and get to know their personalities? You can wear makeup and dresses."
The guard threw him his rifle and walked away angrily.
"Great," the guy sighed. He turned to Ellie Maisie, Nanette, Mo, and Ariana. They all stared at him.
"I'm not a girl," he said quietly.
"Sexism isn't so great when it happens to you, is it?" Nanette smirked.
"Yeah, because you know so much about being discriminated against," the man said sarcastically, he pulled out of his pocket a bag filled with bread slices, "Anyways, I'm supposed to give you guys dinner, so here, bread slices."

"Don't waste your time on another one of these fools, talking about their life philosophies" Mo flared.
Mo, Nanette, and Ariana made their way to their beds and tried to lie down and sleep while Ellie Maisie remained sitting on the floor, looking at the mysterious gentlemen turning his back to her.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"You want to talk with me?" he said, "Seriously?"
"Stockholm syndrome?" she replied sarcastically.
"I'm Dominic," he said.
"Lawson I'm guessing is your last name?"
"You've guessed correctly"

"Did you know from a young age that you wanted to lock up women?"
"Yeah, totally."
"I guess everyone has their dreams, even if they're horrifying."
"I guess"
"Why this?"
"It's an organization, anyone can join"
"I'm just saying, you seem like an okay person, you shouldn't be confining women in cages for achieving equal rights"
"Yeah, well I have my reasons"
"What reasons?"
"I probably shouldn't talk about it"

"Well, it doesn't seem like the other people here like you, so I'm probably the only person you can talk to. You know, let out your feelings."
"Around here we're more about burying our feelings until they eat us alive and we kill ourselves or someone kills us"
"What time is it?"
"I'm not supposed to let you have any contact with anything pertaining to the outside world," he said.
"Oh, ok," Ellie Maisie sighed disappointedly.
"It's 7:30 pm," he whispered discreetly.
"Then, I guess I should go to sleep," she said.

"Good night," Dominic said softly.
"I'm Ellie Maisie, by the way."
"Nice to meet you, Ellie Maisie."
He stood up and walked to the corner where he held his rifle. Ellie directed herself to the top bunk bed, her feet wobbling and trying to fall from this tall, narrow bed. As she fantasized about the thought of falling asleep and forgetting all that had happened that day. She remembered that her pillow was a wooden board as she sunk her head into it, expecting to be met with a fluffy pillow but instead was smacked in the face by mahogany.