Playing with Fire

3

Everything seems so echo-y as I run down the corridors of what looked like the lab; which I was in a few months ago. I can hear cries... calling out something which I cannot pick up on properly. The twists and turns leave me nauseous. I try to figure out who the voices were from but I could not recognise them - which frustrated me. 

I wanted to go back and help them - if they were real. I wanted to use my brute strength to open the cell doors for them (as I could do it with mine - every night, I would sneak out to find an exit. I managed to steal a map of the place but it took me forever to understand it). I remember seeing a specific woman in there, all shrunken into her uniform, blonde hair dangling over her eyes. Her innocent eyes screamed with fear every time we both met.

She'd say to me, "Phoenix. You. Phoenix."

I had no clue as to what that meant. I am not a phoenix. I am a human named Lawrence Holloway.

But she would say that to me every goddamn time we bumped into each other.

To be honest, I would do anything to meet her again. And help her.

"Lawrence..."

My eyes open ajar, mouth gasping for air.

An unknown force gets pressed onto my chest and instantly, I see Nat by my side, her phone on the concrete, right hand interlocked in the joints of her left hand, rapidly beating it against the middle of my ribs.

"What the-? Nat!" I get up and all I can do is just stare at her.

"I thought you were dead!" she scooped me into her arms and cradled me. "Fucking hell, what happened?"

"I know- well- I don't know what happened other than I fell over and- I must have knocked myself out," I say. "Did you call the paramedics?"

Silence.

"No...?"

"Good."

"Why?"

I quickly catch a glance at the strangers around us two, staring at us uneasily.

I cannot simply say, "Oh, just in case some people would abduct me again and continue testing on me with these serums! And I have no clue what these serums do but I believe they will not help me in the future whatsoever!" so instead I shake my head.

"Never mind."

I rest an uneasy hand on her shoulder.

"Did you buy thedress?"

Nat raised an eyebrow at me. "Sorry, what?"

"The dress? The one you wanted?" I say slowly.

She shook her head slowly. "It was too big for me."

"Oh, okay. At least it was worth checking." I smile. I take my hand off her shoulder and I stand up, pulling up Nat by grasping her hand. "Knew it."

"You should head home," she tells me.

"No, I'm fi-"

"NO! I am taking you home and you are not gonna stop me!" she grasps hold of my shirt and pulls me within her direction.

*

Nat dumps me in front of my house. I would call it a 'home'. Others would call it 'an abandoned shed'.

"You promise you'll be okay?" she rests a hand upon one hip.

I nod with certification. "Yeah- well. Hopefully."

Nat hugs me. "Picked this up before doing CPR on you." she held a weird thing in her hand. Oh wait- it was my earring.

I smirk at her but she smiles. Not the same snarky way I did but a calm one and the way to signalise "I love you but I got to go".

She walks off, leaving me sitting on my "doorstep". Alone.

I get up and push the steel door away and I look around me. It looks all grey and battered inside, a sloped shelf stood in the small shack. Books which I've drawn in are stacked on my handmade bookshelf which is made with both wood and metal - mostly steel, a mattress with a thin quilt lies in the corner of the shack.

It seems all garbage but this is it.

This is my home.

I grab a scrapbook and a pencil, sit down and I scrawl onto the paper, sketching the vision which I experienced in town. The woman. The voices. Everything.

Everything seems to fit nicely among my first sheet of paper in my fresh book - among dozens which I have filled with text.

I stop and place my book onto the floor to leave it to dry. I lay down on my mattress and I don't bother wiping a tear from my cheek as the thought of my parents and loneliness bothers me and I wait for the day to turn tonight, hoping for the next day to arrive - if I can make it without food. Just for one night.

One more night.