Part 2

I rounded the corner, hands behind my back in a uniform position. My face was not my own, it was a mask, hardened and stoic. A mask made to conceal emotion, pain. Physical and emotional. Four months is enough time to turn a weak child, into a machine. A machine for what? I had yet to come to a conclusion.

My knee ached as my steps thumped down the cement floor. The walls were a similar shade of cool grey. It was not something I've cared for, nor had I ever cared for it.

There's a frantic yelling, that echoed down the T'd hallway to my left. The slapping and thumping of boots on the grey floor. Moving at a brisk pace, I felt a familiar wind; although the air was stale. It felt like there was rough wind, the kind that would blow pebbles over and off at a roof. But the air was still, and my mind had to wander away as to why it suddenly felt as if there were a cyclone present.

Someone was calling for attention, it was distant. As though my conscious had been tucked away and locked up inside a room. They had opened up the door and exposed a bright white doorway.

It was the General. While I knew he had learned whom he was dealing with and understood how to feel emotions, I still feel resentment at any point that his black beady eyes grazed over me.

He was red in the face, hair wildly disheveled. He heaved and cackled for breath, I could almost hear his gas tainted and smoke saturated lungs contract. Neither of us commented as I stood statue like, and the general remained his bearings.

"He's here."

Everything froze. The hallway grew radio silent to me before a dull ringing started in my ears. It reminded me of the echo of a gunshot, long and fading, then loud and reiterated. Despite watching the elder, balding, dark spotted man lean against the wall corner for support, he still froze. The entire world ceased its spinning, the general stopped moving, and I stopped breathing.

Then like the snap of a rubber band, things were in motion again.  The general was back to hacking and shifting his weight to stand, "In the east wing. In his old room. He's here."

As soon as the words spit past his lips, I was gone. Sprinting, slowing down to go past mindless patrons wandering through the compound.

Fast as I was moving, all I could think of was worry. It made sense, it was the last of anything that had been in my conscious when he left. It was a sickening acid in the pit of my stomach that seemed to low through my veins as well.

At his hallway, I stopped. I felt the way I had when he walked away too, that same heaviness pressing down on my chest. I walked down the hall like I was afraid, timidly and cautious. I halted at his door, like a scared child. But I'm not a child anymore.

Grabbing the door handle, I yanked it open, stepping in rather harshly.