||02|| Unfamiliar Inside Jokes

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But the wolf...
The wolf only needs the luck
To find you once.

The wolf only needs the luckTo find you once

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Chapter Two
"Unfamiliar Inside Jokes"

Scarlett's POV:

The scratching noise repeats every hour.

Whoever's in the pillared roof either doesn't see me as a threat, or pity's me enough to leave me alone. They're telling me the time. I'm not sure if that's useful or not, but at least I know how long I've been in this God-forsaken cell.

Three days.

Three days of passing in and out of consciousness. Three days of my mouth and throat being as dry as a dead man's corpse. Three days of hunger pains and blood crusting on my skin. Three days of worrying Kylie's hurt and I can't do anything about it.

The ceiling gives another scratch; noon.

I groan, resting my head back against the wall. It's hard and uncomfortable, but the only thing keeping me awake. I tried to stand up a day ago and couldn't even steady myself before my knees buckled beneath me and I fainted.

I hug my knees to my chest, wishing the nausea would fade. A headache thumps behind my eyes and the constant desire to drift into a sleep burns at the back of my mouth. They're all signs of dehydration and malnutrition.

Without water, I give myself a day before I kick the bucket. I wonder if that's Colonel Tolkien's aim. To let me rot in here. No mess, no fuss. Just a body to drag out and bury. Or did he want something bloodier? Something that would hurt.

The blood stains surrounding me suggest the latter.

Harsh, quick footsteps echo loudly in my silence and I twist towards the sound. No one has approached this part of the hallway for three days. I open my eyes, having not realised I closed them in the first place, and rest my hands against the wall, ready to push off. This could be my only chance at escaping.

They haven't come to let me out. They've come to see if I'm dead.

They won't expect me to be alive, and that's the only advantage I have. The cell door creaks as it opens, and a sliver of light shines over my leg. I snap my head away, the brightness burning its way into my eyes. It gets worse as the light gets stronger, but I force myself to be exposed to it.

Escaping when I can't see won't have a high chance of success. 

"Holy shit, she's alive. Sir! Sir!"

The woman from a few days ago, the one with the machete strapped to her leg, hollers, voice fading as she runs from my cell. I presume she's gone to get Tolkien, but she's also left the door open; unguarded.

I whimper as I push myself from the wall, crawling to the open door. The metallic taste of blood and sweat sit on the tip of my tongue, the scrapes on my hands and knees opening at my ill-dignified travelling method.

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