64 Hours

42 h0urs

THIS TOOK FOREVER TO BE MADE. If you were waiting, thank you for being patient! I'm so glad for all the votes and wonderful comments so many of you give this story. 

~the forty-second hour~

"When seconds count between living or dying, the police are only minutes away." -Unknown.

"I'm going to ask you one more time, Mr. Browning. Did you kill an innocent being?" The police officer asked for the umpteenth time, peering at me maliciously under his khaki cap from behind the bars of the isolated dark cell. 

I barely heard the sixty year old man. Here I was, sitting in a prison cell, with time ticking away faster than the speed of light. My face was buried in between my palms, and I sank into a mist of darkness and stars as I every so often rubbed my eyes. I felt so restless and exhausted at the same time; a few minutes ago I was pacing the room like a lunatic, then collapsed on the cell floor only seconds later. 

"Browning!"

"What part of 'no' do you not understand? I answered twenty-million of your goddamn questions. I have to be somewhere." Suddenly I panicked. "I can't be here. No, I need to complete the list. What if... what if he striked again? I can't be in here!" I was on my feet before I or the policeman could stop myself.

"Get me out of here!" I screamed, my hands thrusting against the bars. The prison itself only rattled, then stilled against my rapid touch. I was only inches away from the policeman, the cell the only thing  separating us from me lunging at him.

The policeman wasn't reacting my violence. "Browning, you need to calm-" 

"Don't call me that, don't call me anything, just shut the hell up and get me out of here," I snarled, getting nothing out of the old man. I gave a final slam against the bars then swung around, clawing my hair with both hands, trying to grab ideas to get out of this place from my brain. 

"The more you fight against your entrapment the longer you stay." 

"Bullshit!" I roared, but stayed where I was. I aimed a fist at the bleak gray wall of the cell, then moaned in pain. Anguish shot up my fist, leaving me swearing while clenching it with my other hand. 

"Congrats," said the policeman sardonically. 

I retreated back on the floor, my rear sliding down against the wall until I was a pile of guilt and anger on the ground. I hated this. I hated Unknown. I just wanted to have a normal life - maybe in those two days I could've actually achieved something, got a proper job. Instead I felt like a forgotten object left to rot alone, suffocating under layers of thick dust and smoke. 

It was quiet for a while. The policeman did nothing, except wait patiently from the other side of the bars in the exact position he was since he came. I was no closer to getting out than I was an hour ago. I've been in this stank, ugly prison cell for an hour. 

The only thing they told me was that I was arrested for having a gun in my house, which was apparently found right next to my sink. 

I hid it before they came. I hid it about three hours ago, and I remember it like it was only a minute ago. It was that imbecile, Unknown, that obviously has intentions to make this all harder for me. He doesn't want me dead - it was proven well enough when he saved me after getting stabbed in the shoulder. 

The second reason I was here was because I was a prime suspect for the fire. My black hoodie, the oil packet, and my guilty expression was enough for them to send me marching into this pathetic police station.

"When will I get out?" My voice came out the way grime drifts away with the wind on a breezy day. 

"Speak up, kid. What did you ask?" 

"I asked for when I would get a pony. No, I obviously asked when I would get out of this shithole." I snapped bitterly, allowing my wounded fist to rest on my knees. In dumbfound stupidity, I stared at it.

"Kindly don't use that tone on me, Browning. It doesn't look like you're getting out until we have solid proof that..." 

I didn't bother to focus on what the policeman said next. Once they looked at my phone and checked all my contacts and conversations, it was over. 

The old policeman was cut short from his speech when someone opened the door behind him. "He's free." 

"What?" 

The female policewoman from behind the door jerked her head towards me, then slammed the door shut again. 

"Don't go anywhere," the policeman told me. 

"Ha ha. Funny!" I called after him, but he was already out the door mid-sentence. Moment later the policeman appeared again, but this time someone else joined in. 

The orderly man made an entrance with his dazzling appearance. He seemed so out of place in this wretched place. I blinked at the awakening of his presence. 

He was wearing a clearly expensive suit, the deepest shade of all colors, black. It was so clean that if a small droplet of water happened to splat onto the cloth, it would ruin the whole mojo. His hair was a dark russet, slightly lighter than mine, with a set of icy blue eyes that seemingly pierced my ash-covered skin. 

I took a long, cold stare at this intruder. He looked filthy rich, like he just came out of an important meeting. I didn't like the way he gave me a small smile with his shark-like teeth, or the way his shaded eyes wrinkled as the corners of his mouth crawled up. It was all too familiar. Even though he looked twenty years older than me, there was something about him that I couldn't pinpoint. 

"Oh my God," the strange man said, the words gliding over his thick accent like blood through his teeth. As soon as he spoke, I finally recognized the snake-like features of this man. 

Oh my God indeed.