Blend the Light

Mouthwatering Stale Bread

I'm not entirely sure what it is, so I get up and walk over to the opposing wall. My fingers trail across the jagged stone. Up close, the design is much clearer, and I find myself looking at six misshapen triangles painted upon the stone that almost look they were once mimicking a camera's shutter, but had been moved around and curved until they became something new. Each one is colored with a dull green that fades into black, with the black part at the center of the painting. I trace over one of the triangles with a finger. "What is this? What do you think, Rex?" I murmur. He rises to his paws and joins me, standing up on his hind legs to look at the design. Why is it here? It isn't as if someone who was here before me painted this on the wall; the Wasteland guards wouldn't have let them have the paint or let it get to them in the first place, and, even if it was somehow painted here, it would've been taken down long ago. "Whatcha thinkin', Rex?"

"It's Guthrie Harper's symbol." My head snaps to the side to look at the hallway, and I look around. Where was the voice coming from? They really need to invest a bit of time and resources into a better lighting system. "Across from you." There's the voice again. I narrow my eyes as I look at the cell across from mine, and I can just make out a figure standing in the middle. They appear to be a girl, though it looks as though they're halfway transformed into a bird. Black feathers are mixed in with her hair, talons are on her toes instead of toenails, and her arms are partially wings. Long, black feathers hang from her forearms and upper arms. "Guthrie Harper tried to split my Blended form from me, just like he did to you, but it didn't work," she says, almost as if she read my mind. I open my mouth to respond, but I quickly force it shut. You cannot risk slipping up... Again that is.

I watch her as she moves towards the iron bars of her cell. "That symbol on your wall is on every one of these cells. I think it's Guthrie Harper attempting to tell us we can't ever escape from his grasp or something stupid like that. I just ignore it." I nod, eyeing the sharp, slashing curves of the green and black triangles. Why hadn't we ever come up with a symbol? We have a name, a leader, a system of working, a base, our mode of transportation... Sort of as we just have the Slash, and everything else, so why not a symbol? Maybe Adrien didn't want anything like that that could be caught by Guthrie Harper's Wasteland guards? We have the plaid as our unofficial color, though, so it's sort of like a symbol.

"You're from The Loyal Order of Thorny Devils, right?" She says it flatly, not much room for a question. I don't reply, something I've become more and more accustomed to over the past, well, however long it's been. Do I talk to her? She doesn't seem like she's working with Guthrie Harper, but she could be hiding that part of her. And why would she just be talking to me now when I've been here for an awful long time? To talk to her, or not to talk to her, that is the question, indeed it is so. What if I talk to her, and be very careful with what I say? There couldn't be any harm in that, could there? It would be nice to be able to talk to someone who can reply. If I'm extremely careful with what I say, it shouldn't be a problem, right? Couldn't I just talk to her?

"I know you can talk; I've heard you talking with your pet dog. If you don't want to, though, that's alright." I don't reply again. I study the wall, debating as to whether or not I should reply.

"So what's your Blended form?" I suddenly blurt out the question, wincing at how harsh it sounds.

"A condor. Yours?" Her voice is soft when she replies.

"You can see him here, but a dog. His name is Rex. What's your name? You probably already know mine, but it's Hawk." I'm rambling a bit now that I'm talking to someone who will reply. My heart races, and I fiddle with my fingers, waiting for the Wasteland guards to come rushing in or for her to twist my words and figure something out.