I appreciate your comment very much - thanks.
I'm not too keen on this chapter, because it didn't get as far as I'd like. I didn't want to make it too long, so Chapter Three will have to include some Chapter Two material. Too much dialogue, I guess. Anyway;
C h a p t e r T w o
Unwanted Treasure
The gun sits before me, immobile, vacant, nothing. My mind slowly begins to breach the subjects of the why and how. Why did the slig drop its gun? Why did it abandon the room? I crouch down, adrenaline coursing through my muscles. After briefly prodding the gun, I look away.
I can’t have a gun.
They’d kill me.
I better hide it.
I don’t hide it, though. I stand, looking around the room and trying to focus on something else. The bedroom I, Ian and Tom share is a boxy, almost square-like room. Perhaps it would be square if various pipes and ventilation shafts didn’t jut out of every available area.
There’s one bed against each of the three sides where there is no door. Each bed is rusted, crooked and mine has somehow lost a leg and thus tilts annoyingly downwards. Inches above each bed are separate pipes that round up and go through the low ceiling. I sometimes wonder if it was purposely designed like this, so we would have to squash ourselves between bed and pipe when trying to sleep. There are other pipes as well, such as the one I tend to choose as my point of comfort. The floor is flat, coppery orange and covered in everything dirty. Blood, mud, rust, dust and miscellaneous scraps of wood are just a few of the things that lay strewn around.
The ceiling is a mere half a foot higher than my own head, and from it dangles a weak orange light bulb, continually turned on. In the far corner, above Tom’s bed is a strange security camera which often emits odd noises.
I have no doubt that it can easily penetrate the many pipes that would otherwise obscure its vision of the room.
‘What to do, what to do…’
Before I can contemplate any further, I hear the unmistakable slapping of feet outside the room. Tom suddenly appears stricken in the doorway as I quickly and instinctively grab the gun to hide it behind my back.
‘What are you doing?’ he asks, taken aback at me crouched oddly at the floor.
‘Nothing. Uh, are you okay?’ I’m particularly thankful Ian isn’t here right now; the middle of Tom’s face is wrapped in yellowed and untidy bandaging. A lot of blood is splattered across the rest of his face and his usual lush green colour has paled.
‘Of course I’m not okay! Look at me! What’s happened to the door?’ his voice lowering immediately.
‘Well, there was a little disturbance…’ The door flat on the ground, sticking into the dark corridor beyond the room; it was obvious it has been forced that way.
‘Go ahead.’ Tom’s voice is forceful; suspicious, ‘I suppose it was Ian?’
The gun in my hands feels cold, oily, and surprisingly heavy. I keep my arms behind me,
‘Oh, no, no. There was this slig. For some reason, he came in, and broke the door.’ I say, but then add, for Tom looked suddenly scared, ‘Don’t worry, it didn’t do anything. In fact, it went pretty quickly. I guess it was just trying to find out why you and Ian had just left.’
‘Ian left? Where is he?’
‘Oh, he broke his hand. Not used to punching people, that boy. Anyway, he went down to the healer, didn’t you see him?
‘No… I didn’t go directly… well, I got distracted. He wasn’t there when I got there, anyway.’
After a moment, in which my arms begin to strain under the gun, he adds, ‘Is he okay?’
‘Yeah, as I say, just broke his hand; looked pretty shocked. Well, you can imagine. He’s not one for violence, our Ian. The day must have really took it out of him.’
‘I suppose…’ and I see that Tom doesn’t want to press the subject.
I edge backwards and sit on the bed, carefully avoiding the thick piping, and letting the gun rest on the hard mattress.
‘What’s that?’ says Tom quickly; suddenly aware I am hiding something.
Damn. I think of trying to push it behind my bed onto the floor, but know the clatter of metal on metal will only rouse him more.
My hands begin sweating, but I keep them on the oily gun and say, ‘Well, that slig that came in, he kind of left something behind…’
‘Something? What something? What
is that?’ The nozzle has protruded from behind my scrawny frame.
‘Well,’ I say, bringing the gun round into full view, ‘it left its weapon. A gun.’
Tom doesn’t react quite like I think. Rather than fear or repulsion, he simply says, ‘Does it work?’
‘What?’
‘Well, does it? Why would it leave it behind?’
‘How the hell should I know?! What do you think we should do with it?’
‘We? There’s no “we” here. You’ve got the gun, it’s yours. I don’t know.’ Tom suddenly appears flustered, and he begins pacing in much the same manner as Ian did previously. ‘I think we could use it. You know, these things are powerful. We could get out of here!’
‘Umm, no. We need to show some of the others. Hop will know what to do.’
‘Hop wouldn’t see us; he doesn’t even know who we are!’
‘All the same, he needs to know about this. Should we wait until Ian comes back?’ I ask.
‘Nah, we wouldn’t want to force him into more inconvenience… Where is he anyway?’ says Tom.
‘You know I don’t know, I thought he went to the healer. You check if there are any guards nearby. We can’t be caught.’
Before I can even stand up, Tom says, ‘Well, there’s none on this floor. We would hear them with no door. Rowdy bunch.’
‘Oh… right. Okay, let’s go.’
I lift the gun and try to discretely cover it as we both edge out of the room, fumbling over the fallen door, and into the near pitch black of the outside corridor.