Intertwine

52 - It's Spiderman

And then I heard it. A muffled whisper. "I'm outside the 10th floor."

I looked around to see if anyone else had heard it. Cog was glued to a computer screen, the other girls were in a world of their own. I slammed my head back against the wall as hard as I could. 

Cog looked up. "Don't do that." She went back to her work.

I slammed my head again, my ears still ringing from the previous attempt, and then again. I was feeling really dizzy by this point but I didn't care. I leant forward and slammed my head back against the wall with everything I had.

"I said don't do that!" Cog stood up and walked over to me. "I don't care if you don't want to be awake right now, I'm analysing you all, so I need you to be conscious." 

I tried to speak but all that come through the gag was a series of muffled sounds. Cog pulled the gag down. 

"If you want us to be conscious, why did you sedate us?" I asked, louder than I needed to be.

"To stop you from trying anything, you stupid child. The serum works best when you're not trying to work against it." She hissed at me, before pulling my gag back up. 

As she walked away, I tried to lift my legs to kick her. She only tripped a little, but as she turned back to me the look of anger on her face was enough to turn my stomach. She came very close to my face, crouching down to see me, her brown eyes nearly black in the light. And then I was facing the other way, my cheek stinging from where she had slapped me. Without another word she went back to her computer. I'd got the message.

Listening hard, my heart in my throat, I pressed my head back against the wall. The pattering had stopped. Very lightly I tapped my head against the wall three times. 

I waited.

Tap, tap, tap. Someone was replying from outside, mirroring my taps.

Racking my brain for a way to communicate I grasped something from the back of my mind. My father, sitting me on his lap, showing me all his gear from his old job out on the field. He'd been a journalist in war zones, and sometimes if it was too dangerous to speak on the phone they used  morse code, but with a code on top of it of course. While I hadn't learnt the coded messages, he had taught me some morse.

Tap, tap, tap. I hit the back of my head against the wall. Then I made three more taps, this time with a gap between each one. Then three short taps again. SOS. 

I held my breath, waiting. Then a long tap, a short tap, pause. Short tap, long tap, pause. Two long taps. Then a short one. It spelled name.

Racking my brain for what my father had taught me, I hastily spelled out my first name, and then did the SOS again.

After a second the knocks came again. I couldn't quite make out every letter but from what I picked up the person on the other side of the wall was asking who else was in there with me.

Girls 5, I replied. Then I tried to do 'one woman bad' but I wasn't sure how many letters I got right. 

My head was incredibly sore and I felt a bit sick. I wanted to sleep, but I wasn't going to let myself. The reply was faint but I heard the knocks again, this time spelling out 'help' and 'coming'. Then the pattering started again, this time faster, moving up the wall behind me until I couldn't hear it anymore. 

I tried to nudge Miriam with my foot again, but she wasn't waking up. I looked around, my heart thudding hard against my rib cage, my fingers tingling with adrenaline. My mouth was dry, but I wasn't sure if that was fear or dehydration.