Who: X-23, Sabretooth, OTA When: Monday, July 20th; mid-morning Where: Red Block What: Laura checks out her new neighbors.
The Red Block was getting crowded. Laura had been given a cell in the corner, surrounded by empty ones, where she could even wander around in the mornings without bothering anyone. Now, as people walked by, each with a different colored color, peering curiously into her cell, she found herself curled up in the corner, hiding behind her bed for some privacy. These people were loud; their giggles at night were like car alarms. She had moved her cell around, putting the mattress against the door to muffle the noise, but the guards didn’t like that very much and demanded she put everything back in its place. She didn’t know that was against the rules.
She hadn’t healed as well as she was used to. Something about being in a calm, clean environment helped her relax after a murder, but after her first death match, she had been sent back into a dirty, loud cell. She was still sore, but all of her visible scratches and bruises had healed up. She had made sure to pick out all of the blood underneath her fingernails and mottled in her hair; she wanted to think she wasn’t a killer. Without blood as a reminder, it was so much easier to forget – not that she ever did.
One morning, she woke up early from a nightmare, and when she pulled up her sheets to her chin, she found silence. She kept still, as if moving a muscle would send the noise crashing back down, but all she heard were soft breaths and the occasional footstep of a guard on patrol. For a few hours, she stayed like this, breathing against silence and enjoying the feeling of being underground again. Some people had woken up, showered and wandered out, but they moved out of the block quickly, leaving the rest to their slumber.
Slowly, she stood up, pushing her sheets off of her. Still in her pajamas and barefoot, she pushed open the unlocked door of her cell. She stepped out, tentatively at first, taking careful steps and peering around the corner before she walked. She wanted to see who was staying here, who her neighbors were, and especially, who was being loud at night. Stopping in the middle of the hallway as a guard walked past, she avoided looking at him until he had completely rounded a corner. She wasn’t sure if this was against the rules, either.