Washing The Past Away
Marcus followed Baird’s directions to the letter: out the door, turn to the right, down the hall, second door to the left. It made it easier to know which door to enter, as the first door he encountered had the words ‘Women’s Locker Room’ etched in the center.
What kind of place is this where the tech guys need locker rooms? They can’t just show up to work in their lab coats? There’s got to be more to this place than Baird’s told me, since there’s a guy who can stop metal by looking at it calling the shots!
The grunt gripped the handle to the men’s locker room, opened the door and slowly stepped inside. He made it three feet before the halogen bulbs in the ceiling automatically turned on and gave light to the wide, open space. Marcus was taken aback; it was a locker room, but it was so… clean. Almost sterile, as if it never saw any use.
The thud from his boots echoed off the walls with every step. Eventually, his stood in front of shelves holding stacks of terry cloth towels as white as the floor tiles, and next to them were rows upon rows of folded clothes and shoes in black and navy blue – both of which were arranged by size and in plentiful amount. Curiously, Marcus reached for a shirt, unfolded it and lifted his eye brows when he read the small print stenciled within the circular, citrus colored insignia embroidered on the right side of the chest.
“ ‘X-Men’? So it’s a team of some kind? Or a company? Wonder what the ‘X’ stands for…”
As he poorly tried to re-fold the garment and find one in his size, a thought struck him:
“Some of these shirt sizes are big even on me; there are guys here who can actually wear these?! Keep your guard up, Fenix...They might not be as nice to see a stranger’s face like the guy in the red getup was.”
Once he grabbed a towel, clothes and a pair of shoes that fit him, Marcus searched for the showers. They were easy to spot, seeing as he noticed the glint of sterling silver shower heads in the back corner of the room earlier. However, as Marcus walked towards them and passed through rows of chrome colored, body length lockers along with pine wood benches, he caught a glimpse of himself in a wide, full body mirror.
He stared at his reflection as he slowly stripped off what little bits of armor he had on, and peeled all of the dirty rags of clothing off of his body until nothing but his C.O.G. tags remained around his neck. Scars as gnarly and hideous as the one on his face covered Marcus’ skin like graffiti and spoke volumes of the years of combat he’d manage to survive through. Save Dom’s combat knife - which he stacked atop his greaves, gauntlets and boots - the only other traces of Sera the sergeant had on him was the sour stink of Locust blood and his own sweat that he didn’t have the luxury to wash off until now.
Once I get in the water, all of its gone… If I can’t get back…and if they can’t win…a world that only one other person here knows about won’t exist anymore…
And yet, Marcus slowly shuffled his feet towards the open showers. He let himself stand beneath the closest one, and turned the handle until the perfectly tempered hot water sprayed over him. He’d forgotten how long it’d been since he had the luxury of allowing such a valued survival resource rain by the gallon. Ever since E-Day, he didn’t dare to waste water like this.