Survive, if you can // John Murphy

//01// Arrangement

WARNINGS: swearing, dirty talk, sexual tension.

I'm fucking done. My life has been a series of punches to the groin and I want freedom. After almost eighteen years of disappointment, I want to be out of here. I'm sitting against the wall because my ass is tired of that lumpy mattress. My hands are cradling my head and I'm replaying my only happy memory over and over. Then again, it's still a terrified one but it's the only one I have.

I'm with my mother. We're sitting in the corner of our room and she's holding me tightly. Her hands are around me, running down my hair at times when it's worse. She shushes me, knowing if the guardsmen heard, they'd rush right in here and my mother can't have that. She hums quietly, nothing recognizable but something soft and sweet. My sweating eventually stops, breath slowing along with my heart rate.

When I have an episode, I think of this. It calms me down somehow. It makes me feel safe to have her arms around me. Well, they aren't really around me. I can only imagine they are.

When I was sixteen, I was definitely not the best child. I'd sneak out late and meet up with guys that were definitely not good children either. I'd drink. My mother tried to get me on the right path again but I wouldn't listen. The guardsmen said she was stealing a book from the library when they caught her. They let me see her before she was floated and she gave me the book. It has a green velvet cover and the pages are fraying at the edges. I haven't had the courage to read it yet.

My head snaps up as I hear the rusty metal of my door moving. It's opening, light filling the fucking cube I live in. A soldier walks in, a soldier that I know. Hansen walks toward me with something shiny in his fist. He isn't much to look at. Brown hair, blue eyes, thin face, long nose, hollow cheeks, lanky. He isn't ugly but he isn't attractive either. I force myself to flirt with him for extra portions on the more...tiring days.

"Are you finally gonna kill me?" I ask, tilting my head to the side.

He frowns. "Cam-"

"No, it's fine. Put me out of my fucking misery," I say, standing and walking closer to him.

His eyebrows raise a bit as he looks down my frame. "Cam-"

"I'm not afraid of death. Death should fear me," I say.

"Jesus, Cami. I'm not here to kill you," he says, shaking his head.

"Then why are you here?" I ask quickly, shifting my stance.

"You're leaving. You're going to the ground."

"What?" is the only thing I'm capable of saying.

"You're going to the ground," he repeats.

"It isn't safe. They said-"

"Well, you're going," he says, twisting the silver thing in his hand.

My eyes drop down to it and I focus harder to make it out. A metal wristband. He has to knock me out. I'm in solitary so he has to knock me out. No way am I letting myself be unconscious around him. Around anyone. I will not allow it. My hand goes to his free one, squeezing tightly.

"Hansen, don't do this-"

"Don't you understand? I have to. They need to know that you aren't a threat," he says, shaking his head.

"Fine, fine," I say quickly, faking a smile. "Just pretend like you sedated me. Carry me out and I won't move a fucking inch." He shakes his head, avoiding my eyes to look at the wall. I reach up to his cheek, pulling his eyes back to me. "Please, Hansen. I won't let you put that thing on me, you know that."