Chapter 4

There is no easy way out.

......

No wounds can fully heal. It always leaves us with marks. Scars are the reminders of our past that no matter how deep we bury them, there will still be a glimmer that makes us remember.

Drip. Drip. Drip. I stared at the blood on my hands as it dripped on the whites of my shoes, staining them. I was tainted, and no one could change that I had killed someone. They turned me into a killer. I wished to turn the clock back, but there was no way. Again I had no choice: it was my only way to survive.

A thug on my shirt pulled me out from my melancholia.

At the same time, my ears were attacked by angry shouting from the crowd. The masked monsters cursed for their loss.

Fucking fight! 

It was just a fluke, beginner's fucking luck!

Give my fucking money back! 

A fucking joke! 

A fucking waste of money!

A big guy with bulging muscles dragged the limped body of the girl I killed-- blood danced on the floor, tracing her. I wanted to stop looking, but I could not do it. My eyes were fixated at the scene like I was, magnetized to her dead body.

A hand grabbed my hand, snatching my eyes away from the dead girl. Craig ushered me down the arena and out the same hall I came in. He was static, grinning like a manic dog. "Dame will be so proud!" he exclaimed.

I was too tired, too out of myself to question him about the Dame person. Sanity was slowly getting stolen away from me. I badly wanted to slump on the floor and cry my heart out, but I pushed away my hysterics to save for closed doors. Being weak in front of them would do me more danger.

I saw Nick as we walked into the hall. He nodded as I passed him. Then at that moment, apprehension was exchanged between us. He understood that I did what I did for survival, and I chose to live a day of another nightmare. I owed my life to him, but at the same time, a part of me blamed him for being cursed with a killer's hands.

Craig and I stopped without my knowledge; my head was too preoccupied with many unwanted emotions.

"Bathe her," Craig hollered to a girl and pushed me inside the shower. The girl caught me before my face connected on the hard floor. "I'll wait for her outside."

Without a word, the girl took me under a shower and skinned me out of my clothes. A searing pain shot through my system as soap and water run down my body. I stifled my crying; I didn't deserve to cry in the girl's presence. I didn't deserve anyone's pity. It was my undoing, and every pain I received was my punishment. It was my fault, my own hands, who killed her.

No amount of water could wash off the blood in my hands; they will forever be red in my eyes. And they will always be scarred by the girl's blood.

......

That night I didn't sleep. Red-eyed monsters roamed my head. I tried closing my eyes only to be haunted, with dozen pairs of eyes staring at me, the eyes of the dead girl I killed giving me that awful sweet smile. 

That night I didn't eat. The stale bread that they gave me tasted blood--rust and iron. Everything my hand touched tasted blood. 

Hours passed as I stared at the white ceiling, trying to bore a hole in it. I was trying to imagine ways on how to get out of my horrid prison cell.

A rustle came as the metal door opened, giving way to a man. "Up!" he shouted. It was again a different man, not Craig nor Marshall. 

I submit to the guy without a fight. I couldn't make sense of what good resistance would do to me so, I followed like a good dog without a single word of defiance.

He led me to a series of doors, not the same way to the training room. The place was huge that I couldn't imagine how it was staying hidden. 

We stopped in front of a heavily tainted glass door. The man inched at the side and typed a code on a keypad mounted on the bricked wall. It beeped. The door opened. He pushed me inside and whispered something to the guard stationed on the door. Then he left, a familiar beeping sound came after him.

The place looked like my old high school cafeteria. There were white tables, and on each, four monoblock chairs spewed randomly to occupy the same number of persons as the chair. There were two buffet bars on opposite sides of the room. Surprisingly, it wasn't only bread on the line up of their food.

About fifteen or so girls sat randomly, but none three sat together. And on every corner of the room, a guard was stationed. Each one of them was holding a gun with hype alertness. It seemed they were ready to shoot us at any given moment.

It was like a high-end prison facility. And the only difference it got was that the bad guys were tacting as the cops, and the innocent ones were in cuffs.

A tap in my back startled me out of my thoughts. I couldn't stop being jumpy; the place scares me to my bone.

I spun around and saw a girl. I could tell that she was Asian: black hair, black eyes, yellowish skin, and chinky black eyes. 

"Are you Red?" she asked with hesitations as if someone just forced her to do to approach me.

I nodded to her in confirmation.

The girl pointed her chin to a table near the center then left without another word. The said table occupied a girl eating alone.

I contemplated going over to the girl though my brain was telling me otherwise, but I buried the thought and dismissed it with a shake of my head. It took me a long time to learn that I should always listen to my instinct-- danger always comes with a feeling.

My stomach grumbled. I haven't eaten, and the fight mixed with endlessly worrying had taken away all my energy. 

I walked to the left counter for food then headed my way over to the girl's table. I sat in front of her.

"What took you so long?" The girl was the typical image of an American girl: long platinum blonde hair, blue eyes, thin red lips, and tanned skin-- a spitting image of a barbie doll.

I shrugged at her. I tried to swallow the tuna sandwich I got. It kept lodging on my throat that I quenched every bite with a drink of orange juice.

"I heard you had a great fight last night." The girl said, bemused with her statement. My eyes widen in shock. How could she know about the fight? 

"Don't worry. Words travel. Even here," the girl answered as if reading my thoughts.

"What do you want?" I muster to ask between my bites of the sandwich. She needed something: why else would she summon me? I faced her with a seriousness, wanting a definite answer, and none of the dilly-dallying she was giving me.

"Talk."

"About what? What do you want from me?" I pressed on. She sure was hiding behind a facade, but I still couldn't read her. 

I fiddled with my hands and traveled my gaze to the guards, frightened of the guns in their hands, but they seemed oblivious of our small conversation.

"I need you on my side." She finished her juice in a gulp.

"I..I..why would you need me? Why me of all the girls?" I round my eyes inside the room. There were more fitting girls other than me. "Tell me what you want." There was something more behind the girl's intention.

"You don't have a choice. I don't need you. You need me. You killed Machine. Soon, other prisoners will go after you," she stated.

My heart started beating abnormally fast. I felt nauseous at the back of my throat, and the sandwich I was eating wanted to travel back where it entered. I didn't want to talk anymore.

"I don't have a choice. Machine would have killed me if I didn't kill her first." I reasoned out though I knew it wouldn't matter to her, none of my explanations would.

"That's why you need my protection. You need me at your back," she convinced me further.

I was taken aback by her reasoning.

I was not getting it; If there was some alliance formed inside. If the prisoners could do that with all the security, then why not just escape? Why bother with all the effort? Why waste precious energy on going against each other.

"Why bother and not just escape." 

"Stop scratching your neck," she said, dismissing my question.

I glared at her. I wasn't scratching. What was she talking about anyway? 

"I don.." I was about to say that I was not scratching when I noticed my right hand hovered to my neck and started scratching, mindlessly as if having its mind. I put it down. But the urge was too much that I couldn't stop my hand.

"It'll stop soon. It's a tracker."

Another tenfold of fear added to my file. They were tracking us, my every movement, and I didn't even know when they put it in-- inside my own body. I was sure I got no scar in there, and I felt no pain. I palmed my neck, and there was a bump.

"Don't people here just give up and...kill themself?" I saw no reason that they wouldn't; no one in their right mind would agree to such things as killing. The girls around us seemed so normal and innocent. What made us different to be their target?

The girl eyed me across the table, analyzing my movements. "They hold collaterals."

Collaterals. I don't even own anything worthy! But then, with a flash of a wide-toothed smile, deep-set green eyes, and curly auburn hair. I remembered the person I left outside-- my mom.

"So are you at my side?" she asked as if I got other choices and as if the mom I left forcibly outside got another choice too.

I nodded. "Okay, I'm on your side."

"Good." 

Out of my peripheral, a guard started to approach us.

"Remember Red. Even a tiny itsy bitsy little ant has something it cares for. There's no way out," she added before the guard could take her, a serious look written all over her face.

"Up," the guard said as he grabbed the girl's arm. I wanted to stop the guard from taking her, I still needed to talk to her but the gun on the guard's arm made me think otherwise so instead I watched helplessly as her back disappeared to the same door I entered. I got a lot of questions running amok in my head. She left me hanging like a balloon freely floating in the air. 

I started to feel goosebumps travel my back as dozen pairs of eyes tried to bore holes on me; questioning looks, were exchanged and I wanted to dig a hole and bury myself. I couldn't swallow anymore, it was too much pressure. I stood up, casting my eyes down as I got my guard to usher me back to my cell.

Hundreds of questions were barging in and out of my head, making me frantic that I kept checking the empty hallways as we walk. I couldn't stop myself from imagining that someone would pop in front of us out of thin air to kill me. That girl said someone was out to get me. I was beginning to get paranoid.

The guard pushed me inside my cell then shut it as soon as I almost fell face-first on the mattress.

I paced inside my cell.

I didn't want to sleep but my eyes were closing on their own, the place was getting its toll on me. 

I was about to lie down when I saw a piece of torn paper lying alone on my mattress. It was a note; three words written in it. Three simple words that made my body shook in utter fear, sleep was washed away from my system. 

I never had a choice, they made me do it. I knew it was a mistake and I was the one going to be indebted to it.

'You will pay'