LOCKED (19 page)

“Hey, you know what that
is?” Danni turned and pointed to a crumbling building. Pillars once held it
high, and their design was inspired by Greek times, just as the prison’s was.
Also much like Greek times, their history was worn and simply a memory now. It
had a triangular roof with a circular window.

“No, what is—
er
, what WAS it?”

“It’s the court where you
were tried.” she replied. I decided to walk up the short steps and take a look
inside the ghost of a place that condemned me. Danni followed me inside.

Dust particles hung heavy
inside, trying to choke any who dared step inside of their graveyard; it was
theirs to own, Father Time rightfully said so. Danni and I were foreign
invaders, just like Miller or the
buala
. We swept
away the cobwebs, shambling the homes of the spiders, just as Miller or the
buala
swept away our own homes…

“It’s kind of scary how much
this place went to hell after the attack, isn’t it…? It really wasn’t all that
long ago.” Danni shuddered as she mused.

“Yeah…It’s like they sucked
the life right out of this place…” I touched the wall and it crumbled under my
hand. It revealed the side of a courtroom that was hastily built fairly
recently, but for what it was worth, it may as well have been ancient at that
point.

A gavel sat unattended. The
rows that used to be filled to the brink were empty. I even saw the seat I once
slid down, helpless. I walked up and down the aisles, trying to pay respect to
the scrutinizing silence.

Danni and I left the room
through the usual door instead of the wall I accidentally smashed down. Out
here was a lobby much like the one in the prison. I made a mental note to go
back there, too.

I cautiously ascended the
stairway that was off to my left. The rail was full of dust, just like the rest
of the city. Danni followed a few steps behind, ready to take action if the
stairs gave out. We got to the top of the stairs without any issue, and looked
outside the round window we saw before. The courthouse stood proudly, high
above most other buildings in the city. We were able to see the roofs of
buildings close by; we could even see the tiny little can we were kicking
around, shining in the little light in the city, calling out for someone to
cure its loneliness.

From our perch, we could see
the massive prison. It still stood strong, but in the way that a once-powerful
fortress was still threatening, yet held power over none.

“Do you
wanna
…?”
I asked Danni, knowing that she knew exactly what I was talking about. She
shrugged, and began the descent back down the stairs before me. I followed her
and increased my pace until I was by her side.

We threw the doors of the
courthouse open. The rotten air flowed in and out. We began walking once again
to find the memory of the prison again. The little soda can still glimmered for
us, but we left it; the gray skies didn’t give it the luster to call with any
measure of strength.

When we reached the prison,
it barely looked like it was affected by the war. The door creaked when I
turned the knob. Light somehow streamed through the glass ceiling on this
cloudy day; perhaps the glass was designed to intensify it? Other than that,
the asylum had something no other place in the city had. It held a secret
closely, it guarded it jealously, and it was embarrassed to find its secret
spilled so soon.

That secret was life.
Vegetation fought against the synthetic materials as it sprouted from the
walls, the desks, the ground, the hinges. Weeds sprouted from the tiles, leaves
proudly hung on the walls, and branches winded through the pipes in the ceiling
and clutched the Greek pillars tightly. Water raced down the staircase from the
library. It glistened in the sunlight with every color known to man, and some
that were not; Tank would be hard pressed to identify THAT with his fancy
everything-in-one vision. I turned to Danni, and she already had a wide grin
spread across her face. Life had overcome decay in our Chernobyl.

I had to see what the
library looked like! I took a strong grip on the rail of the spiral staircase,
and placed a nervous foot as firmly as I could upon the watery steps. It
immediately gave out, and I fell flat on my face into the stream. Danni laughed
at my misfortune, but was quick to help me back onto my feet. Now with both
hands, I gripped the railing tightly. I took one step at a time, the water
pushing against me, as if it was trying to say “Stay back! You’ve seen enough!
You’ve had your fill of seeing our capabilities!” I ignored their calls, and
finally twisted until I was back upstairs.

Up here, the books were all
intact! A sign? The water formed a pool up here, reaching up about six inches.
My shoes and feet were absolutely freezing, but that hardly mattered. This was
all that I needed to see…inspiration. A sign that, no, not everything had been
lost.

Without warning, I felt
myself thrown into the pool, face-first once again! I was on my hands and
knees, coughing all the water out of my lungs and then some. Danni rolled into
the water right next to me, and laughed hysterically.

“YOU SHOULD…YOU SHOULD SEE
YOURSELF WITH YOUR HAIR WET! YOU LOOK LIKE A WET DOG!” she laughed
uncontrollably. I rolled my eyes, and playfully ducked her head under the water
for a moment before taking her glasses.

“Hey! Give those back! I
need ‘
em
!”

“In a minute, I
wanna
see just how badly you need them.” I quipped.

“Ugh! Fine, go on, try
them.” she dared. I hesitated for a moment, put them on, then gave them right
back when my eyes felt like they were about to rupture.

“God, I forgot how blind you
are!” I commented while rubbing my eyes.

“
Hmmph
!
Serves you right!” she declared with a hearty laugh. She rubbed some of the water
off of her glasses, then placed them right back in front of her meadow-green
eyes.

A new thought entered my
head, and I suddenly shot up.

“THE SCI’LYK!” I shoved my
hands in my pockets and patted myself, looking for any sign of them. How could
I forget they were on me?! Danni also flew into a panic, patting herself as
well to see if we had perhaps forgotten that I gave them to her. When she
half-closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh, I knew it was ok.

“Look.” she pointed to
another section of the pool.        

One, two, three, four, five.
They were all there in their little recreational activity. Two swam around, one
was drinking the water, and the other two floated in place, constantly shaking
the water out of their large ears.

The seven of us stayed there
for a few minutes more. The fountain from earlier was the source of the
kaleidoscopic flood. Sometime after the fighting, it became rebellious and made
what was once an asylum of fear bloom into a greenhouse of hope.

“Hey Leo…?” Danni asked, her
head laid back in the water.

“Hey Danni?”

“Well…what do you think of
leaving the
Sci’Lyk
here? We can’t carry them around
forever. This place is huge, after all. It could definitely hold, like, a
hundred generations’ worth of them! And they have plenty of food and water,
temperature is moderate…Plus, it should be safe now that all those monsters are
gone.” she reasoned.

“It’s not a bad idea... We
could come back to them every once in a while too. I’d love to come see these
original five. Then again, it’d be
kinda
hard to tell
them apart if they start to have babies.” I laughed.

“No way!” Danni grinned. She
went over to them, scooped them up in her arms, and came back. She sat Indian
style, now completely drenched from head to toe.

“See? This is Bobby…” she
placed one in the water. He swam around.

“Susan…” Danni placed
another. She shook the water off instantly.

“Spike! See, he’s got big
muscles!” she held the little mouse-like creature right in front of my face
before letting him swim around.

“This is Leo…” she chuckled
and even let a little blush blossom over her cheeks before letting this one
drink the water from the pool.

“And…” she twisted her face
as she held up the final and smallest
Sci’Lyk
.

“Hope!” I named her. Danni
nodded enthusiastically in agreement. She gently placed this one back into the
colorful water. Hope just floated there, staring up at us with huge black eyes,
just like the others.

“You know what, Leo?” Danni
smiled as she kept her eyes glued to the antics of the
Sci’Lyk
.

“Yeah, Danni?”

“You’re not a bad kid.” she
planted a little kiss on my cheek and giggled.

“I can live with that.
You’re not so bad yourself.” I smugly grinned, seeing what kind of response I
could prod for. She arched her eyebrows, inhaled, and closed her eyes. I closed
my own, and leaned in. Our lips met somewhere in the middle. I leaned on one of
my arms so I could cup her face with my dripping-wet right hand. She let out a
little sigh, but didn’t break the kiss. We shared this moment for a few minutes
more, and the only sound for miles was the
Sci’Lyk
splashing.

We threw open the door of
what was once my asylum. We closed it behind us as soon as we left, promising
the new home for the
Sci’Lyk
that we wouldn’t spill
its secret. Now that we were on the outside again, it was startling to see that
the haven we just left could exist in this bleak land. The contrast between the
lively hues of green inside and the grays that had already given up their
dreams was enough to make me realize that things weren’t as perfect as I would
have hoped.

Even though I was glad to
have given the
Sci’Lyk
a good home, depression began
to sink again. I was giving them back to the ruins of my home, just reminding
me how much I’ve lost. I leaned against the wall, and Danni was beside me. I
was about to say something irrelevant, but I couldn’t help keeping my mind on
the matter. I slid down.

“How could he…” my head was
in my hands.

“Huh?” Danni slid down
beside me. Danni held me close, knowing exactly what I was thinking. I was
grateful that she wasn’t upset over my sudden mood shift.

“Eddy had the best
intentions, Leo…”

“You’ve seen that damn
place! He would’ve had NO problem hiding us!”

“You’ve also seen the tech in
there. The second that a piece of dust that doesn’t belong in there falls,
everyone knows…” Danni sighed. I could only imagine just how red my face was
turning. Danni opted to give me a little more consolation.

“We’ll be ok…we’ll be…fine…”
she looked off into the distance; she couldn’t even fool herself. Where would
we sleep? Where would we get clothes? What would we eat or drink?

“We’re never going to see
our parents again! We’re never going to see our friends again! We’re not seeing
ANYONE again! And he just LEFT US!” I tossed a stone off to my side at a
crumbling wall in the distance. I missed.

“God, don’t talk like that!”
Danni pulled me closer and held on tightly. Her breathing was coming in short
gasps, and my throat ached, holding back tears. We both thought about a way out
in vain, the same way that the man on death row plans his escape moments before
imminent execution.

Without warning, Danni
raised her head.

"Photographic. Memory.”
were her only words. Her red, puffy eyes now shone with that passion that never
went out.

“…Can’t believe we didn’t
think of that sooner.” I smiled as she held onto me, and I returned the favor.
As precious as this moment was, there wasn’t a second to lose.

“C’mon, we have something to
go rub in the face of a certain someone.”