Jamie wasn’t the first greenhorn that Insie had been tasked with giving a tour of their lovely hell. In fact, Insie was actually the most common tour guide to be found because of how the bosses seemed to enjoy punishing him in such a minute fashion, and everyone noticed it. One nunker had mentioned it in front of an entire crowd once, even called him the cove’s poster boy. The crowd then watched as Insie knocked out two of his teeth before a gaggle of sumnuffs managed to break them up. Jamie stood looking around the small cavern they were in. He probably doesn’t even know how he got here, Insie realized. He looked over at the bony greenhorn taking in his surroundings, then he began to observe them as well. He’d been in this room several times-it comes not only with being the ‘tour guide’ but is also the place that every single greenhorn in The Coves first woke up underground. This is the drop point. The room they stood in is the way that their dear prison-like living situation got its name. The walls looked ancient and hollow, despite Insie knowing that they were fortified by miles of rock behind each smooth curve. The only light that was ever in the room didn’t seem to have any one source, probably because it would be too easy to get rid of that light if there was one. It essentially looked like a hollowed-out cave, lacking stalactites and any kind of interesting rock formations. It looked, to Insie, more like a cavern than anything else, just without the greenery or the water. It was a cove without life, despite the staggering number of children who had awoken there.
Insie started walking with his normal confident gait, irritated once again by the realization that there were no doors in the drop point, suggesting that entry from the outside should be just as impossible as escape, yet that was where every new greenhorn entered The Coves for the first time, and nobody knew how they got inside. Even with the twisted logic one had to employ to understand The Coves, it just didn’t make any sense. From behind him, he could hear Jamie start at the realization that Insie was leaving, then the sound of him tripping over himself more than once in his effort to catch up to the only person he had met so far. Once caught up, Jamie began doing the one thing that Insie loathed every greenhorn for during their first week in The Coves: he started asking questions. If it had been only a few questions about where they were or how they got there, then maybe Insie wouldn’t mind them as much. Unfortunately for him, the usual list was a never-ending bombardment of questions about everything imaginable, from his personal past to when lunch was. He had learned to judge every greenhorn by the first question they asked him once he started walking, and that was when he would make his own prediction of how quickly someone would beat them up or steal their product once they got to general containment. Insie braced himself as he sensed Jamie’s first question coming.
“So,” Jamie began, “how long have you been down here?”. Insie felt his steps lose their natural rhythm, his normally impenetrable confident exterior faltering for half a beat, before recovering so quickly that Jamie didn’t notice any change in him whatsoever.
“About five and a half years,” he said. Insie had tried to be casual about his response and act as if it was something that he got asked by every new arrival. In reality, nobody had ever cared to know how long Insie had been in The Coves, rather just accepted that he had been there before them. After answering, Insie kept one eye carefully focused on the gaunt boy walking at his side to gauge his reaction. He saw Jamie’s steps slow minutely and his eyes flick to Insie’s face before he recovered and was walking at Insie’s side once again.
The pair stopped at what seemed to be a dead-end that Insie knew to contain a hidden door that only opened when entrance was granted. He didn’t know how exactly the system worked, but his best guess was that someone somewhere was controlling the passageway remotely and monitoring it at night in case of an escape attempt. Insie had passed through the doors so many times that he had learned how close he needed to get to the rock before it would open and how close to be to activate the sensors without opening the door immediately. He stopped short of passing through and turned to the young greenhorn behind him with a serious expression. Usually he didn’t warn newbies about the general population, being more fond of just throwing them to the wolves and seeing who would do well and who would struggle and need him to step in, which was how he would judge their character, but given that Jamie happened to be the scrawniest kid he had ever seen and certainly wouldn’t be able to hold his own in a fight if one happened, he decided to at least try to give this one more of a fighting chance.
“Alright kid, listen up,” he began, “through this door is general containment. The people in there are the product of some real’ intense shit that you can’t even imagine, and they won’t go easy on you for anythin’. You’re gonna need to learn how to defend yourself real quick and how to keep your mouth shut even quicker if you wanna survive down here. The most dangerous part of your next two weeks is gonna happen as soon as you walk through here. They all know you’re comin’ and they’re waitin’ for you right on the other side of this wall. People will grab at you and taunt you to try and get you isolated. You can’t let them get you alone no matter what happens. You stick close to me until we get to your cell. If they get you alone, they’re gonna kill you. The only way you can survive is by staying right behind me the whole time. You got all that?” Jamie looked terrified and determined all at the same time, sporting trembling fingers and danger in his eyes. It reminded Insie of a starving animal defending its only source of food. If he did die today, which Insie knew he might, he would be fighting the whole time-albeit weakly. Jamie nodded resolutely and Insie turned around. As hesitant as he was to touch the boy, Insie knew that even with how Jamie was realistically standing right behind him, it would be too easy for him to be jerked to the side with the distance between them, so he grabbed the boy’s wrist and yanked, causing Jamie to jerk forward and fall into him. Insie released his wrist and turned his head to speak to the boy behind him, “If you are any farther away from me than this, I won’t notice if you aren’t behind me anymore, and I won’t be able to come and get you if someone grabs you.” The greenhorn nodded again and, satisfied with that response, Insie stepped forward, Jamie now close in tow.
The doors opened with a sharp hiss and the calamity of the general population rushed into Insie’s ears, then promptly multiplied tenfold. Insie walked through quickly, the boy behind him right on his heels. Insie knew how crucial it was to get through the crowd to the containment chambers quickly, and because of this was walking as speedily as possible without losing the scrawny greenhorn behind him. All around him, Insie could hear the jeers and catcalls of his fellow nunkers surrounding him, and he was tempted to look back and check on Jamie.
He knew he couldn’t; he never looked behind him. It was practically forbidden among the tour guides. If you look back, people start coming after you as much as they come after the person walking behind you. While granted, not many would be brave enough to try and take Insie on without serious support from a fearless group of allies, he felt that this walk was something of a rite of passage for the greenhorns to go through. It’s their chance to prove they can handle a certain extent of life in The Coves, and if he looks back then there is a very likely possibility that whoever walks behind him on that day may become reliant on him to protect them, and he certainly couldn’t have that. As Insie walked through the crowd, he reflected on how a certain level of fear-driven respect was shown through the parting of the mob every time he came through with a greenhorn. They parted for him, then re-swarmed all at once and more compactly than before around anyone that walked behind him. He had lost a few greenhorns on the way to the containment chambers before. Some showed up again alive the next day. Some didn’t. As he walked, Insie felt a pressure on the back of his shoe that indicated someone accidentally stepping on his heel. His mind quickly rushed back to paying attention to his surroundings as he listened for any sounds of distress. He heard more jeering, a faint rush of laughter, and what sounded like the tearing of fabric immediately followed by him noting another step on his heel. He began walking faster, realizing what was happening, and saw the doors to the containment chambers swiftly coming into view. The heat at his back became unrecognizable, the grunting from behind him set off an alarm within his brain, and the glowing of the bright blue lights on the door rapidly getting closer felt nearly blinding. Insie looked down at his feet as he heard nothing but the deafening noise of his blood rushing in his ears and watched as his dirty grey sneakers crossed into the illuminated blue box beneath them. He turned his head so that his neck was clearly on display and the doors opened with a screech. He stepped through those enormous metal doors and waited while he felt his hearing return to him. He stood stock-still as he listened to the doors close with an even louder screech and the shouting desperately fighting its way through the cracks until they were completely concealed with a click. Insie could feel himself being restored as his vision cleared, his hearing came back fully, and the quiet sound of his own breathing invaded his head. Opening his eyes, Insie turned around. There, on his hands and knees, laid a now bloody and panting Jamie.
Insie looked him over and couldn’t decide if he should offer to help the shaking boy up or just let him rest for a moment. His standard issued white t-shirt, which all of them wore, had been torn at the sleeves, stretched out at the neck, and a good portion of the bottom section was missing. As he panted, Insie could see Jamie’s delicately blank skin being revealed as the tattered shirt moved with his breaths. His ribcage was impossible to miss. This kid really is just skin and bones, he thought. Slowly, the younger of the two sat up, showing the rest of his body’s state. Insie nearly let his eyes widen at the boy’s swollen and bloody split lip, his throat adorned with the marks of fingernails, the red staining his shirt as blood from a fresh cut slowly made its way down his left arm, and the way he clutched his side with his right arm so diligently that Insie couldn’t see blood-couldn’t even tell if there was any to begin with. His abyss-colored hair was all in disarray and the boy slowly tried to stand on his own, before making a wounded noise and falling back to his knees. Sighing, Insie walked over to the wounded boy and put the bleeding arm around his neck while placing his own, uninjured arm somewhat gently on the greenhorn’s side, being very careful not to touch wherever the boy had been keeping his own arm. They limped their way through the halls of half rock and half wall, Insie following the path to his cell by muscle memory and trying not to be disgusted at the knowledge that they were leaving a slight trail of blood on their trek there.
Once to Insie’s designated cell, he once again showed his neck to the small panel next to the row of bars that promptly retreated into the wall as they entered. He laid the wounded boy on his bed and silently hoped that the mess of blood wouldn’t completely tarnish his sheets as he dug under his bed to find a small bone, surprisingly unsharpened considering how similar his containment was to a prison cell, that was about the length of a hand. Weidling the bone, Insie felt around on his northwest wall until he found a familiar and smooth patch of rock and then drew back his arm and, as if holding a baseball bat, slammed the dense stick of calcium into the wall. He heard his cot creak loudly as Jamie startled from the sudden noise of the rock splitting and pieces tumbling out. Insie took the bone and used it to pry the remaining pieces of the square patch out of the wall, revealing a secret stash of medical supplies once it was clear. He grabbed some bandages, disinfectant spray, cotton balls, and a small rag, and turned around to face a stunned Jamie. The young boy had his mouth slightly agape yet again, even wider eyes, and seemed speechless at what he had just seen and what it meant. Before he could regain his ability to speak, Insie interrupted anything he may have been planning to say with a stern expression and tone that suggested no possibility of negotiation.
“I’m gonna patch you up just this once, but nobody knows I have any of this stuff so if after this anybody asks me about it or wants me to give ‘em anythin’ then I’ll be the one coming for you, got it? And the only reason I’m even helpin’ you now is ‘cause if I’d just left you there you would’ve bled out before anybody would have come to get you since they don’t have anythin’ to lose if they don’t come at all.” He said. Jamie finally closed his mouth, hiding his slightly crooked teeth once again. The boy nodded dumbly for the umpteenth-time, clearly not knowing how to respond.
Insie helped him sit up with minimal pain and began tending to his wounds. First, he examined Jamie’s face. He noticed that since they began walking to Insie’s cell the greenhorn’s eye had begun to swell. He had Jamie follow his finger with his eyes to and fro, which he did without question. After about ten seconds of Insie moving his finger this way and that, he determined that based on the size of his eye and the amount of time that had passed, the swelling shouldn’t get much worse and wouldn’t impede the boy’s vision too much. In order to clean up his bursting lip, Insie had to make sure Jamie didn’t move his head. His first instinct was to do it himself since not many people liked being told what to do in The Coves, so, without thinking, he thrust his hand out and locked his fingers into the scrawny nunker’s dark hair to hold his head securely in place, and was taken by surprise when the boy make a strangled noise of fear and nearly jumped off of the bed, reminding him of the pain in his side. At first, Insie didn’t understand what had caused the greenhorn to react so dramatically to his touch, but then he realized just how long the boy’s hair actually was. Long enough to pull, he thought, coming to the conclusion that his hair must have been used not only as a way to torture the poor teen, but also as a literal handle to move his head however his captors wanted while he was being transported to The Coves. Slowly, Insie had put the hand back in his hair, making sure not to startle the greenhorn again. Insie didn’t realize it, but while he thought he had started absent-mindedly untangling the mussed locks with his fingers until the boy relaxed again and he could go back to tending to his wounds. Confident his patient wouldn’t react as dramatically again, Insie gently cleaned the blood from his face and held a cotton ball to his mouth in an attempt to stop the bleeding. After holding it in place for a few moments, he instructed Jamie to hold it where it was, which he dutifully did. Insie tipped the boy’s head up to look at the scratches lining his throat and felt the boy tense up as his fingers touched the lines trailing diagonally across the length of his neck. He tried not to think about the amount of trust that was being invested in him right then as his fingers traced the scratches on the neck of someone he could easily suffocate or kill with minimal effort right then and there. The scratches weren’t deep or bleeding, but they were an angry red and Insie questioned how deep they would need to be for the risk of infection. Nothing in The Coves was clean, especially the people. He decided to spray them with the disinfectant just to be safe, to which Jamie winced only slightly. After having addressed the boy’s head and neck, Insie moved on to the boy’s bleeding arm. He moved the remnants of a sleeve up to his shoulder and frowned at the gash he saw below it. The only way anyone could’ve given him a cut that deep is if they’d used a shank or other self-fashioned weapon concealed on their person when the two made the walk to the containment chambers, which was definitely not a sterile blade. The risk of infection after being cut by a Cove weapon was almost 100%. Insie was glad that he had gotten a rag a while ago and stashed it on impulse; they would certainly need it now. He handed it to the greenhorn and instructed him to bite down on it, in response to which the boy’s fingers twitched, but he did as he was told and put the rag in his mouth. Insie took a quick unnoticeable breath as he grabbed the spray and held his grip on the boy’s wrist firm as he applied the disinfectant. Jamie’s arm tensed in protest and he groaned a pained noise while clamping down on the rag between his teeth. This disinfectant was particularly painful, but it was the best thing they had underground; the sumnuffs wanted them to stay alive, but they didn’t care about how painful it was as long as nothing got infected, which is why they didn’t bother finding a less painful way to disinfect their wounds. That was only for them and their bosses. After he finished spraying the still bleeding arm, Insie wrapped it tightly in the bandages and gauze and gave the boy a moment to recover from the pain it had caused him. Once Jamie’s breathing had steadied again and he had removed the rag from his mouth, Insie finally addressed the only injury that worried him more than just for its blood.
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The boy had kept his arm devotedly against his injured side the entire time. After some gentle coaxing, Insie got the boy to move his arm some so he could see if there was any blood. He had been hoping there was, but Jamie’s shirt was still alarmingly white. He reached for the tattered hem of the shirt, only to be stopped by a hand grabbing his wrist and a resolute “Don’t.” coming from his current company. Insie needed to look at the site of injury, so he tried to use reason to his advantage.
“Kid,” he began, “if you don’t let me take your shirt off, then I can’t look at where you’ve been holding your side this whole time. You don’t wanna die, do you? Because if you don’t, then you gotta let me look at it.”.
The only response he got was a defiant “No.” from Jamie.
He could feel his left eye twitch once; people didn’t tell him no; nobody told him no.
“The hell you mean no? You could have internal bleedin’ or somethin’ and you’re tellin’ me no? Take it off,” Insie growled. The dark-haired boy shook his head. Insie could feel his blood boil. “Alright listen here, either you get over whatever the hell is makin’ you so stubborn that you would rather die than just take your shirt off in front of one person just one time, or you can limp your way to your own damn cell and go get your blood stains all over your own damn bed and then have people raid your dead body and end up losin’ your shirt then. Now, what’s it gonna be? Are you gonna let me help you, or do you just feel like internal bleedin’ is a good way to die today? Because if it’s the second option then I really wish you would’ve told me that before I wasted my supplies on your sorry ass and actually tried to keep you alive.” Insie could understand pride, he could understand privacy, he could even understand insecurity to a degree, but being willing to die over being shirtless? He wouldn’t even have to take his pants off and he was willing to die because he didn’t feel like removing one article of clothing.
“Fine.” the boy spoke up. Finally, Insie raged. With no small measure of annoyance, Insie grabbed the remaining hem of the thin boy’s shirt and, only partially minding his injured arm, rucked it up and over his head and threw it somewhere behind him before looking to the equally irritated nunker before him. As soon as Insie looked at the boy’s chest, he understood what the boy had to be so stubborn about.
As he looked at the scars littering the young teen’s chest, he felt an ancient ache in a part of him that had died long ago in a distant part of his mind. All down the length of his torso ran wounds ranging from years old to only recently healed tainting fair porcelain skin. Some looked like tiny cuts long healed from a joyful and adventurous childhood, some like larger scrapes, the result of a difficult adolescence, and some more recent scars were in the shapes of unmistakable crosses appearing as burn scars, forever marring the once blank flesh there. Looking back up to meet raging purple eyes, Insie felt his own take on a stubborn irritation at the “Well?” he was met with and pulled his own shirt over his head and watched as the flame within the livid orbs was almost immediately snuffed out and replaced with a now familiar astounded look. He stared contemptuously at the speechless frail boy, knowing exactly what was the cause of his astonishment. The greenhorn wasn’t the only one with scars. Both his rage and the ancient unnamed emotion sufficiently quelled, Insie inspected the large bruise decorating his shirtless companion’s rib cage. He instructed Jamie to stretch as much as he could bear so he could see the bruise better and, to his credit, Jamie went as far as he could manage, which was far enough. The bruise was purple and large, but there were no spots of a lighter or darker color and it wasn’t red-indicating blood at the surface of the boy’s skin-so Insie felt confident in saying that there wasn’t internal bleeding based on what he knew of the overall appearance. This wasn’t very much, but it was more than they had been able to say before, which was certainly an improvement. He quickly wrapped a bandage around Jamie’s midsection in an attempt to help it heal as quickly and painlessly as possible until he was confident it was secure, then stepped away from the bed to look over the no longer bleeding boy he had tended to. Satisfied with his work, Insie packed up the supplies and put the pieces of the rock he had smashed back in their respective places before stashing the dull bone back under his bed.
Above them, a sound more familiar to Insie than the sight of the rising sun echoed through all of the cells, the halls, the cafeteria, and every other area in The Coves. The noise, sounding astonishingly like a prison bell system, lasted for five seconds and then abruptly stopped. Insie cursed quietly under his breath. Jamie looked up inquisitively.
“That’s the return bell;” he informed, “it means we have ten minutes to be in our cells before the dogs are unleashed.” Jamie’s eyes were full of dread at the mention of dogs and he frowned from the anticipation.
“Let me guess,” he began, “the dogs are yet another thing that wants to kill me?” Insie smirked and patted his shoulder.
“Now you’re getting it,” He said, only partially joking. “At the final tone, the sumnuffs release the dogs. Anybody who isn’t in a cell by that time...well...they usually don’t come out in one piece, and by usually, I mean ever.” Jamie gulped, his hand twitched again, and he looked wearily through the doorway that would be closing in ten minutes. “Let me see your neck,” Insie said, trying to sound like that was a normal thing to say to someone you hardly know. He watched with slight amusement as Jamie started and quickly covered his neck with the palm of his hand while eyeing him suspiciously.
“Why?” He asked with narrowed eyes and a skeptical frown. Insie tried not to chuckle at the sudden distrust and batted the hand away so he could examine the boy’s neck. He located the new tattoo that he was sure Jamie knew nothing about with the tips of his fingers and once again cursed under his breath, this time right into Jamie’s ear. As he pulled back, Insie noticed that the greenhorn wore a confused yet somewhat embarrassed expression, the slight blush adorning his cheeks contrasting with his eyebrows pinched together tightly, causing lines to form on his forehead, and his mouth turned into a concerned frown.
“What’s wrong?” He asked, still unaware of the identification on his skin.
Insie gave his concise explanation quickly and with practiced ease. “When you were unconscious the bosses gave you an identification mark on the side of your neck. It tells where your designated cell is, your full name, your age, physical attributes, and the date of your abduction. It’s invisible to the naked eye, but if you know what to look for, then you can feel the marking and read the information on your skin.”
Jamie’s hand came up to touch the side of his neck that he had felt Insie examining, and Insie was sure that he could feel the strange markings that Insie spoke of as he continued.
“Your cell is in 25C, Cell 78. My cell that we’re in now is in 38I, Cell 13. Your cell is about a 15-minute walk from here at a normal pace, 30-minutes at a slow limp. You won’t get back to your cell in time no matter how slow the dogs are.” As Insie spoke, Jamie’s eyebrows slowly climbed their way to his hairline and his hand twitched in quick succession while panic danced in his lavender eyes. “You can stay here tonight,” Insie quickly soothed, “but we’ll have to hide you from the dogs or they’ll do an inspection.” Jamie looked slightly comforted, the panic gone from his eyes, but his hand twitched once more at the word “inspection”, and he inquired, “What happens if they do an inspection?”. It twitched twice when the only response Insie gave was, “You don’t wanna know.”
Seconds after Insie had finished his sentence, the final tone sounded and every nunker began rushing down the halls from all directions to their designated cell. Insie could feel the blood rushing through his veins again, the beating of his heart rapidly increasing.
“Get under the bed.” he ordered. Jamie immediately looked twice as panicked as before and began stuttering for the second time.
“I-I-I can’t!” He cried, looking like he wanted nothing more than to just be invisible at the moment. Insie realized that there was no other way he could hide the boy in his cell than under his bed, so he decided that if he couldn’t get under there himself, Insie would have to help him get there. The lights were beginning to go dim and people had begun to sprint outside of his cell and Insie picked up the small boy before him with a very average amount of exertion considering the task, eliciting a small squeak of surprise from him, and gently laid him on the ground next to his bed. Jamie scooted his body underneath the cot and looked ready to stutter his way through an entire novel if asked any questions, his panicked eyes flicking back and forth, always coming to rest again on Insie, who was rapidly dashing around the tiny 6x6 cell, grabbing pillows and blankets and other inconspicuous items to toss in front of the opening under his bed. His thoughts were nothing more than a string of curse words at this point, words so obscene that the grandmother of any human being would be ashamed and instantly disown their favorite grandchild for even having known. As he grabbed the final pillow and prepared to put it over the remaining opening, Insie’s eyes locked with Jamie’s terror-filled ones and he gave very simple yet crucial instructions as the lights were going out.
“Don’t move. Don’t make any sounds. If you hear footsteps or growling hold your breath until it stops. Don’t say a word unless I say something to you first. If you hear a cell door open, say nothing, do nothing, think nothing. If you hear my cell door open, do all of that twice as hard. Got that?” Jamie nodded right before the lights went completely dark.
The bars slammed shut in the opening of the cell as Insie leaped on top of his bed right after covering the final hole with his pillow. He positioned himself to make it look like he was already asleep, with one pillow partially below his head but mostly falling off of his cot and a single leg and arm strewn over the edge. He tried to regulate his breathing as much as possible despite the adrenaline coursing through his veins. He heard the deafening screech of a door he feared opening painfully slowly, and the sudden rush of paws and footsteps leaping out of the entryway and through the halls. Please don’t be Scoper. Please don’t be Scoper. Please, please, please be any one of the three except Scoper, he begged as he heard sniffing rapidly approaching. Oh, God, he panicked. The sound of nails scraping against the ground as a dog walked closer and closer to the cell containing a stowaway made Insie dizzy. Finally, the dog stood right in front of the cell and stopped. He could hear it sniffing at the bars, growling, scraping its nails against the ground as it inched ever closer to the cell where both occupants, legal and hidden, held their breath for dear life. The growling got louder when suddenly a blood-curdling scream that was almost enough to make Insie shudder involuntarily erupted from many cells down and the dog sprinted away barking to the location of the noise, whatever it had smelled before now completely forgotten.
The dog didn’t seem to figure out where the scream had come from, luckily for whoever had made the terrifying sound, and instead moved on to the next hall. Both Insie and Jamie let out a quiet breath, neither of them brave enough to do more than that for a while. Finally, the door could be heard screeching shut again, and the scratching and sniffing were gone. Insie rose from his place on the cot and uncovered the bottom of his bed, signaling to Jamie that he could move now. He offered his hand to the greenhorn and pulled him out from under the cot. Then, picking him up yet again so as to avoid further injuring the boy’s side, Insie laid him on the bed and sighed. There was only enough light throughout the halls for someone to see their way to the toilet in their room should they have to go to the restroom at any point in the night, which meant that Insie couldn’t make out the boy’s face, but he had no doubt that if he could he would see confusion etched into his features. “You’re hurt, and sleepin’ on the floor is somehow slightly less comfortable than sleeping on this “bed” that I’m pretty sure is made entirely of stone on the inside, so you can have the cot tonight. If it wasn’t for you having multiple bruised ribs, your ass would be on the floor, so be grateful for this or you will be on the floor and with an extra bruised rib.” Insie didn’t give the no-doubt stunned boy a chance to respond, opting instead to grab a pillow and a blanket and lay down on his bed for the night to hopefully sleep soon before quietly adding the last thing Jamie heard before he passed out from exhaustion.
“Welcome to The Coves, Jagger.”