Black Branches

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

I soon realise I’ve been looking at myself in the mirror for almost half an hour. I shake my head about to bring myself out of the past, and finish undressing out of my dirty clothes.

I pull my pistol out of its holster and hit the magazine release button on the grip, then pulled the slide back to check to see if anything is chambered then put the gun and magazine in my footlocker along with my boots.

I still have my bag on my back… it’s no wonder I’m so sore. I quickly swing it off my shoulder and throw it across the room on to my bunk, watching it land with a dull thud against the flowery duvet cover.

I stretch and twist my back, hoping to possibly crack the joints that ache but this time I was not lucky, but Jesus did that feel good.

I check the pockets on my chest rig for anything loose then pull it off my body, and let it drop to the floor.

That’s what I love about how I live…. I raided an army surplus store a few weeks ago and scavenged a lot of fresh clothes, and that rather nifty rig, something that would have cost me over £200 before.

I’m stealing, but I’m doing it to survive.

After removing my trousers and shirt, I grab my dressing gown and wash bag from my bunk and head towards the door.

As I poke my head into the hallway I keep an ear out for noise coming from Jim’s room… nothing.

I guess he did his usual trick of fuck them and chuck them;

I walked down the hallway towards the back of the shop and hooked a right at the staircase to upstairs.

This part of this building used to be the stock room for the shop below, and with that was blessed with a toilet and for some reason a shower, I don’t know why but I’m not going to complain.

It was in surprisingly good condition but for the last few days we hadn’t had any hot water. I didn’t mind this because I was the kind of sadist who actually enjoyed a freezing cold shower.

The stock room wasn’t very big, it’s mainly where we’d set up beds if we had people passing through and set up the work benches when we needed to fix something.

There were no windows up here, and there was very little in the way of proper ventilation which made it stuffy and dry.

I had often thought about putting some sort of window or hatch in the back wall but I hadn’t got around to it yet. To be honest, once I was here I was fairly lazy.

I got into the shower room, grabbed a bottle of shower gel from the cupboard above the sink and closed the door behind me.

After a while in the shower, I decided I was clean enough for the time being. I quickly shampooed and rinsed my beard then stepped from the shower.

I dried myself off, wrapped a towel around my body, grabbed the dirty clothes I had entered with and headed back to my room.

As soon as I was back to my room I put the dirty clothes in the pile in the corner, and then headed to the makeshift wardrobe I’d made across the room.

Here is where all my plunder was found, I had everything from Dolce and Gabanna suits to cheap t shirts, like I said before, I plundered to survive.

I guess you could technically call me a pirate?

I grabbed some tracksuit bottoms and a jumper and shuffled over to my chair, the towel wrapped around me falling to the ground as I did so.

I put the jumper on the chair and pulled on the tracksuit and turned to look once more into the mirror.