Redemption Earth

RAM

The elevator creaks and whines every inch of the way up the modest apartment building's fourth floor and when the doors finally screech open, it's occupants spew into the musty hall. Irena runs down the corridor to the right and ends up back behind them. Sariel strolls to the door, the other two behind him carrying Bob's large suitcases between them, and unlocks the door to their new apartment.

"Welcome to our new home. Well, new to us anyway."

The floors had large white scratches in the linoleum like someone had taken a garden hoe and dragged it behind them all through the apartment. Their space heater was old enough to be from the twentieth century. The windows, and there were many of them, had a permanent misty, drippy coating to them. The curtains had been stained.

Alex puts suitcases down in the middle of the room and checks her phone. Irena approaches the windows and peers down on her view of the air conditioning unit the next building over and a small alleyway. Alex, after a bit of progress on her phone, joins Irena to look at the view.

"I live here."

"Yep," Alex responds.

"I live here."

Irena frowns.

Bob and Sariel start sorting through the medical equipment. Irena studies them. The look of disgust grows on her face at each piece of equipment they pull from the bag. Alex leaves to check out the bedrooms.

"There's a couple of cockroaches in here," Alex calls out.

Feeling claustrophobic already, Irena meanders to the door.

"Great."

Sariel looks up. Irena freezes in the doorway. He comes over and pulls her headscarf over her ears some more. Irena stares at him for a second after then backs into the hallway.

She walks to the elevator and feels across the metal for a way to open it. When that doesn't work, she thinks back to how they had come up and presses the call button. A flew minutes later the doors open. Irena darts inside and scanning the rows of buttons. The Arabic symbols look like gibberish. Irena presses a button. It does nothing. She presses another button. It also does nothing. The doors close on her. Irena's pacing speeds up she presses all the buttons in random fashion. They all do nothing. Irena panics but the doors open. She darts out. Bob hovers outside.

He turns up his volume and blasts a message down the hall, "The creature is not under watch."

From the door way Sariel yells, "She can't go anywhere."

Bob calmly enters. He produces a key fob to unlock it and presses the button for the ground floor. The doors closes and Irena can hear the cage sinking lower and lower. Irena pulls her ears back.

For the next few days as the other three members of their little group freely come and go via the elevator Irena searches for other ways into the world. Each time a member comes back she hides her attempts and practices English instead.

One afternoon Irena stares at the fire escape. She flexed claws touched them to the glass then pulled them back and started rubbing her fingers.

She sniffs the rubber seal around the window getting wafts of fresh air. Unknowingly she rests her hand on the window latch and ends up pushing it open a little. Irena hears the stop of foot steps and pulls it shut again. Behind her Alex rushes out the door oblivious to everything but her phone. Irena smiles. She puts on her khimar, grabs a small back pack, fills it with her synthetic food and water then, hops out the window. She descends the steps like monkey or a gymnast swinging from high beams.

***

It was so familiar it was just like a time when her sister, Hitiki road on her back as she climbed the outside of the nest. The stomping of predators was ever present but always distant and a light drizzle of rain slid down their backs and faces. No one alive had climbed it and because no one had done it, Hitiki, of course, had to.