Copyright 2014 All Rights Reserved
Detention By Claire Chilton
Chapter Two | Solitary
Carla winced at the harsh electric lighting as she slowly forced her eyes to open, fighting to wake up.
Oh crap, where am I?
She quickly sat up as her memories returned, gripping the bedframe for support when a bout of dizziness hit her. What the hell did they shoot me with? She waited until her eyes refocused before exploring her environment.
Glancing around, she found herself in a cell with uniformly cream walls and a floor covered by industrial gray linoleum. Her eyes rested on a tiny barred window. She wistfully stared at the dark night sky on the other side of the bars. I've gotta get out of here.
She shifted uncomfortably on the bed. It was small and hard, equipped with pillows like rocks and annoyingly itchy gray blankets.
"Home, sweet home," she muttered while she scanned the room.
No sink, no toilet and no shower. Great, what do I do if I need to pee?
She shook her head, and her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she still hadn't eaten anything since lunch.
She pondered her options as she glanced at the bulky metal door. She frowned at the lock, which looked as if it had been built to last a million years. After standing up and walking over to the door, she tried to open it, but it was firmly locked. There was a small grille at face-level looking out into a cream corridor. She peered through it.
"Hello?" she called out. Nothing happened.
"Is anyone there?" she said. Her voice echoed down the corridor, but there was no reply.
She rattled the door handle, trying to get out. This is inane! Why am I locked up? After realizing that the immovable door was not going to open, she walked back over to the bed and sank onto the mattress with a sigh. How do you get attention in a crazy prison?
An idea popped into her head, and she grinned. "Any chance of some food in this bloody place?" she shouted.
Alarm bells blared loudly. Red lights flashed in the corridor, and the sound of stamping feet echoed down the hall toward her door.
She rested her hands behind her head and leaned back against the wall, feeling mildly smug. Profanity was like a call to room service.
The door shuddered when a massive bolt was drawn back. It opened, and a flashing red light glowed into the room from the corridor. Standing in the haze of a red glow was an extremely short Derobmi.
He strolled into the room, stopping beside her bed and peering down at her with narrowed eyes. He had patchy lime-green skin, which was mostly marred with acne around his chin and forehead. Small round glasses with thick black frames sat on his pointed nose, and his dirty-blond hair was wiry and slicked down with grease or something equally slimy.
His hair obviously annoyed him because he impatiently tugged on it as if making it flatter would be an improvement.
He looks like a rat.
"You have flouted our rules before you've even heard them," rat boy said. "But you will learn to understand them over time." He puffed out his chest with pompous indignation.
She narrowed her eyes at him. She had a feeling they weren't going to get on. "But I'm only here for two weeks."
"Oh, are you?" A nasty smile spread across his face.
"Yep." She offered a cheerful smile.
"We'll see about that. If I choose to, I can legally keep you within these walls forever. You're in my world now." He ominously polished his cuff link, shooting her a dark glance.
She looked him up and down before loudly yawning. Why are people like this allowed to work near other human beings? Anal-retentive morons on a quest to make everyone else on the planet have a bad day just because some idiot gave them a bit of power over innocent lives. This world definitely needs some changes in it.
She looked him straight in the eye. "Well, I'll just have to change the world then, won't I?" She smiled sweetly, trying to fight her natural instinct to rebel. She'd promised her mother that she'd be good, but her natural instinct was to fight back.
"I'm Nicholas Rancy, and I am the head officer for your assigned cellblock," he said, ignoring her statement. "You may call me Mr. Rancy or Nick."
Rancid prick, she thought.
"You will stay here in the detention block tonight, and tomorrow you will be taken to the girls' dormitory to be instructed further on the rules of conduct at C.R.A.P." He walked to the door, and then turned and glanced back over his shoulder at her. "I'm turning off your alarm. Make as much noise as you like. It won't make any difference." He switched off the light, walked out and slammed the door behind him.
She listened to the hollow sound of the lock slamming into place, followed by footsteps echoing away until all that remained was silence.
She solemnly stared at the door, feeling as if she'd lost some battle of wills. For all of her bravado, she had ended up locked in a cell. What if there was a fire? What if everyone forgot she was here? What if... She paused and eyed the bars up on the window. They didn't look so tough.
She inspected the room under the dim glow of moonlight through the small window, searching for faults and mischief-causing materials. After a moment, she shook her head. She'd made a promise to her mother that she wouldn't be rebellious. Maybe if she just played by the rules, it would all be okay. She jumped up and ran to the door, peering out through the tiny peephole. "Hey, what about my phone call?"
The corridor was silent.
"I get to call my mom, right?" she added.
"Shut up. You'll get us all in trouble." A low voice hissed back from a nearby cell.
"But, we're allowed to call our parents, aren't we?" Carla asked in a quieter voice, trying to guess which cell the voice had come from.
"We don't have parents anymore. We belong to the state," the voice said.
Carla shook her head. "No, that's not true."
"They left you here, didn't they?"
Unsure of herself, Carla stepped away from the door. "Y-yeah..." she muttered.
"Once you're in here, there's no way out."
The voice caused a shiver of fear to tremble down her spine. She was only twelve. She was too young to rot in prison forever. Someone would come to get her out. They just had to.
She frowned as she sank onto the bed. They're just trying to scare me, but what if I never get out? She shook her head. No, I just need to do my two weeks. If I'm good, I'll get to go home.
She narrowed her eyes. I just need to survive for two weeks and get out of this cell. She sat back on the bed, trying to ignore the very real fear that she could be stuck in here forever.
She lay down and closed her eyes while contemplating the explosive properties of bleach. I'll get out of here one way or another.
***
At six a.m. the next morning-too bright and too early for Carla's liking-she was led to the girls' dormitory by Mr. Rancy.
She yawned repeatedly while she walked through the drab corridors to a large room that contained approximately thirty beds and twenty-five girls.
The girls stood uniformly to attention at the ends of their beds. Each dressed in matching gray smocks with matching blank expressions on their young faces. One gasped when Carla walked in. Obviously, purple was a new color around here.
Mr. Rancy glanced sharply at the girl who'd gasped, and her blank expression quickly returned.
Carla much preferred the shocked expression. It had contained more character. She dutifully followed the angry little guard to her new bed.
The bed looked just as uncomfortable as her last one. As if to add insult to injury, this one also came equipped with an itchy gray blanket. There was a gray smock neatly folded up on it.
She turned to Mr. Rancy and raised an eyebrow.
He ignored the gesture. "Get changed into your uniform, make your bed, and then go to breakfast with the other girls. You will have an induction later today." He walked away stiffly.
"Oh, goody," Carla muttered under her breath.
She rolled her eyes and plonked herself down onto the bed. She scanned the room, exploring her new environment.
Why, there are lots of things to break here!
She glanced at the other girls, all of whom were green-skinned in varying shades and looked drab and lost. There was emptiness in their expressions, a lack of hope in their eyes.
A short girl was the first to approach Carla. She was incredibly pretty and slightly plump. Judging by her face, Carla estimated she was a few years younger than herself, maybe ten or eleven.
Carla smiled at her as she picked up the shapeless smock on her bed. It was an awful thing and probably made to be soul-destroying on purpose. What girl could wear this and feel like a girl?
The short girl reached Carla and cautiously peered at her. "H-hi," she said.
Carla glanced up, flashing a bright smile. "Hiya, what do you do around here for fun?"
"Oh, we don't have that! It's banned." The girl's eyes widened. "How come you're purple?"
"How does someone ban fun?" Carla asked. She waved away the second question with her hand. "If only I knew." This was her standard response after years of being asked about her color. The color of her skin was just another mystery in her already unusual life.
"I don't know how they ban it. I just know that it's banned." The girl frowned.
Carla raised her eyebrow again. "Well, what happens if you get caught breaking the rules?"
The girl thought for a few seconds. "I don't know," she said eventually. "No one has ever broken the rules."
A huge smile spread across Carla's face. "Well, in that case," she said, taking the smock off the bed and a pair of scissors out of her rucksack. "I plan to have some fun." She cut the top of the smock off.
The younger girl sat on the bed, curiously watching Carla while she cut the smock up into pieces.
"I'm Lilly," the girl said. "What are you doing?"
"I'm Carla, and I'm making this thing look wearable." She held up the triangular piece of gray cloth she had cut from the smock's top and tied it around her back and her neck, which instantly transformed it into a backless halter top. She then cut a strip off the remaining tube shape and made a belt for the skirt, which the leftover material had formed. She picked up the fallen sleeves and examined them.
"They won't make anything useful," she said, throwing them in the nearby garbage can.
Lilly looked overjoyed at the sight of interesting clothes. They were still gray, but they were now a girly-gray, not a drab shapeless lump of cloth.
"That's fantastic," Lilly cried. "Make me one!" She dashed to her bedside, pulling out a spare smock. Then she ran back to Carla and handed it to her.
"You'll get into trouble!" a voice cried.
Carla glanced up to see tall, thin girl with an immensely frightened expression on her face, gaping at them from the bed opposite.
"Why?" Carla winked at her. "If there's nothing in the rule book banning creativity, what can they do?" She knowingly smiled.