The Dead Don't Speak | Open Novella Contest 2020 | ✔

Chapter 2: The Bad Bathroom Reaction

You might think that after taking note of the Bloody Boy's warning, I spent the rest of my day in pure agony. Eyes darting everywhere as I searched my surroundings in hopes of spotting any threats, sniffing around for clues like a guard dog smelling danger, biting my nails like a nervous wreck.

Nah. I didn't do any of that shit. I went to one of the TV rooms, sat down in an ugly orange chair made of plastic, and wasted a solid two hours of my life watching Escape from Alcatraz.

To be fair, I did bite my nails.

It wasn't that I wanted to watch an old, shitty movie from 1979 starring Clint-fucking-Eastwood. It was simply my only option. A group of Korean girls had claimed the TV room as their territory, and while some shot me looks that implied they wanted scratch my eyeballs right out of their sockets when I entered, they allowed me to stay as long as I lingered in the back of the room with my mouth shut and my eyes on the screen.

Suggesting to watch anything else was out of the question, but I didn't complain. I had the uncomfortable seat I wanted, where I could sit alone and in peace, managing to tune out Korean girls' chattering and could let my mind go blank. With my eyes glued to a movie I had no interest in, I sat back, not thinking about anything, not doing anything. The world around me faded, turned into background noise, and for some blessed moments, I could pretend I was somewhere else. Anywhere was better than here, as long as it smelled like home and served a half-decent meal.

I could have gone out of my way to look further into the Bloody Boy's warning. But I didn't. And why not? I'll tell you why not. Because I didn't believe that to be worth the effort, that's why. Even if I or someone else might be in danger, how out of the ordinary would that even be? I said it before and I'll say it again and again and again: we were in prison, juvie, medium-sec. Danger and risk lingered in the air by default and I had no desire to put more on my plate than I could handle by adding ghosts and warnings to my list of annoying personal issues.

I believed I could avoid the potential threat waiting to suffocate what little peace I still had by ignoring the warning entirely. I truly did. If I kept telling myself I'd get through it all without breaking a sweat and managed to sound convinced, it could become the truth eventually.

So I sat and watched, thinking and not thinking at the same time, until the movie I hadn't been paying attention to showed credits rolling and my new Korean friends up front began bickering over a bag of KitKats one of them had smuggled in. Before their vocal fight could turn into a physical one, I left the TV room with my stay out of trouble-philosophy in mind, the Koreans' voices shrinking further away with each step I took.

When I noticed my eyes drifting around Lonewood's cold grey halls, searching instinctively for a threat I didn't actually want to see, I forced myself to stop and once again shoved the Bloody Boy to the back of my mind, cursing his continuous tugging at my sanity. Desperate to ignore the anxiety pooling in my stomach, I let my imagination run so wild it risked getting out of breath. I began asking myself the real questions, like: why had the Koreans willingly watched a boring, old-as-balls prison movie? The lack of a decent alternative, a strong sense of irony? Or had those chicks started a cult dedicated to Clint Eastwood in secret?

You see? When I said desperate, I meant desperate.

"Hey, nothing better to do than walking around lost in thought? You could be bailing me out right now, but I ain't seeing you make any sweet moves to get that done."

The sudden feeling of a hand on my shoulder startled me. I bit back a shocked yelp as I spun around to face my cellmate, glare searing. "Stop doing that, I swear," I hissed, more hostile than I wanted to be.