Prisoner 0004C

Just After the Fight

Using my last skerrick of strength I seize the brutish boy's outstretched hands as I slip downwards and drag him with me. He screams in shock and plummets like a stone past me. The crook of my arm catches around the edge of the Category A floor and I scream as my shoulder dislocates.

Then, Finn is there. He leaps forwards and grabs my wrist just before I slip off the floor to my certain death. Grunting in exertion he pulls me up, over the edge of the floor and onto safety.

We lay side by side, panting.

Loud footsteps echo throughout the Hull. I hear the bespectacled boy coded 0014B eagerly explaining.

"- and they were fighting and he grabbed Aliyah and was dragging her off, and when I tried to fight him off he threatened to kill her unless I left and I pleaded with him to take me, to kill me but..." he trails off. They have obviously caught sight of Finn and me.

Hallie rushes over to us. She turns to Finn first, "Are you okay? What happened?" but he just waves her away and stumbles to his feet.

Hallie and Finn help me up, much to my protest. I hate being this weak and I immediately push myself out of their arms. Hallie sniffs irritably but Finn remains silent. I can feel his piercing deep brown eyes drilling into the back of my neck though.

The rest of the prisoners are staring in shock at us. My eye catches a glimpse of the bespectacled boy and I glare at him. He looks away sheepishly. I haven't forgiven him for leaving me to die at that brute's hands, and the fresh ringing of his lies of what happened are still sounding in my ears.

The blond girl rushes up to the edge and peers down.

The brute is spread eagle-like on the ground of the Category C floor, his body broken and still. I can just make out the sickening angle his neck is bent at from my vantage point.

"Ha!" the girl laughs triumphantly. "Ha!"

She turns to us, blue eyes gleaming and wicked. "Who killed him?" she asks us like it is a huge achievement, taking that boys life. I glare at her coldly and she shrugs, peering over the edge again and smiling like her birthday's come early.

"What happened?" a scared looking Category A girl asks her eyes wide.

"He attacked Aliyah," Finn croaks out quietly, his usual smirking expression gone.

The blond girl leans forward in excitement. "You killed him?" she asks Finn, her eyes hopeful.

Finn glances at me out of the corner of his eye but doesn't respond to the girl's query. It is nauseating to see her so excited over prisoner 0003C's death. Sure, he was a disgusting, brainless idiot but he was a person all the same. He didn't deserve to die.

I suddenly feel faint, my dislocated shoulder almost consuming me in its painful rage. I know what I have to do. Gritting my teeth, I suddenly jolt my arm upwards and feel, with painful pressure, my shoulder relocate back into place. The pain shines brighter than ever for a moment, before dying down to a steady ache.

The other prisoners are talking worriedly amongst themselves, many leaning close up to the ledge to get a glimpse of the dead boy on the ground.

I stomp off and the crowd instantly forms a clear path for me to get through. They back away, scared of the infamous 0004C who, in the course of the last 24 hours, has stopped the Exterminations, got sent a cryptic message via Watcher and now killed a boy. I am starting to seriously wonder what this all has to do with me. At first, I thought the fact that my prisoner code was in the announcements was a strange coincidence. Maybe the alarms just blurted out my code and shut off before they could mention Hallie's or the wolfish boy's. Then the Watcher came. That still concerns me. Who is coming for me? What the hell do they want from me? Maybe they want to kill me, I think grimly to myself as I make my way down a corridor towards the Mess Hall. Yes, that's probably right. Whenever people warn you that they are coming, its probably very likely you are going to die. At least it is in the world I live in, under the Organisations harsh laws.