Perspective

Chapter One

Finley Younger hit the alarm as soon as it started chiming. It hadn't woken her up, however, for she had been awake for almost the entire night. In fact, she had barely slept for years.

She had been far too anxious to sleep. She had been trying to decide something, something which could possibly change her entire life, for a very long time now.

The hundreds of sticky notes on her desk were proof of her indecision. Her laptop was open to a news article from two years and eight months ago and her phone sat in low power mode on the bedside table.

The cream walls showed off cobwebs hidden all over the room.

Letters were organised in haphazard piles on Finley's untouched bed. A few with coffee stains in the corners and crumbs spread over them. All of them were signed either with her own name or the initials S.G.

The ones signed S.G were much shorter in length, some with only a few words to two or three sentences.

Last night Finley had let the weight lift from her shoulders, because she had made the decision that had been tormenting her for years now. The decision which had kept her from sleep and had her far behind on work. The decision which she had tossed up over for so long now.

She was going to go talk to her son's murderer.

* * *

Sage Greenwood was one of the worst of the worst. She was one of the people that others petitioned torture for. She was one of the ones, who even if she somehow escaped her fate, would never be able to assimilate back into society.

People like Sage fantasised about the phone ringing just in time, scrambled to appeal as often as they could, just to keep their own lives.

Sage was on death row, and she knew she was never getting off of it, as she was convicted of the murder of four people.

Sage had decided that she wasn't going to bother appealing, because she didn't particularly care if she was released anymore. She was fully aware that even if she did try, her sentence would not be changed because of the pure depravity she had shown in trial, interviews and interrogations.

She'd been housed in a correctional facility for two years now. Six months of that had been spent in solitary confinement after continuous unprovoked attacks on other inmates.

During the previous years of interviews and interrogations, Sage had point-blank refused to ever admit guilt nor deny it. She had chosen only to speak the words, "No comment," in any official questioning, and she knew the public was outraged over it.

"People are grieving," they say, "They just want closure!"

And Sage would always reply with a swift, "No comment."

"Greenwood. Food." Sage looked up as food was dumped onto her tray. She didn't really know what it was, but she knew it was most likely something edible. Maybe not for humans, but edible for something in this world.

She picked up her plastic utensils and moved out of the line to a table.

Sage had completely written off joining a family unit like most women did, or even trying to find a group to share face with. Family units were when a group of women set each other as "the mother" and "the father" and "the daughter" and almost roleplayed as a little family.

It technically was more dangerous to live without one, as you were seen as someone easy to manipulate into giving over food and commissary. However, Sage was not just a lifer, she was on death row, so people didn't try to mess with her as much.