Agency

I was awoken by the smell of cleaning supplies. Still alive... unless that was what heaven smelled like. I figured the smell of hell would be worse. I would find out if I would rather have been dead in a few moments. I pushed the... ah, red again, sheets off of myself and sat up, opening my eyes to a rectangular room. White tiles, grey walls. There were seven other beds lining the perimeter of the room. Each one had its own distinct color. I looked for the light green one. It was right next to me. The chick that shoved the pen through my hand was lying in it. Hopefully she would settle down a bit and realize that I was not the one she should be trying to kill. I then noticed that the beds were set up in pairs. Pen Chick reminded me of my wounds. My hand was bandaged up along with my neck. Caked blood sealed the bandage on my hand. I flexed my hand and the blood cracked. I held it over the edge of the bed and the dried blood chips fluttered to the floor. I checked my neck with my good hand. Yep, still bloody. The dried blood ran from the neck wound to my midsection. I started rubbing the blood off of my neck, and the blood speckled the sheets and disappeared. The one drawback-or advantage I suppose- of having red sheets. A red cord ran from my wrist to a dark red bag hanging up on an IV stand. I must have really lost a lot of blood. They also must know my blood type. They knew my favorite color, too. I figured it might be best to assume that these people knew everything about me. I felt fine, so I detached myself from the IV. I pulled a rag off of the nearby table and pressed it to where the IV needle was. I got up and examined the room again. Who was going to be in the other beds? I wondered if the others were at each other's throats as much as Pen Chick and I were. Blankets rustled in Pen Chick's bed. She did that in a much quieter fashion when she shoved the pen in me. She must be letting her guard down- for now. I turned to face Pen Chick as she got out of bed.

"You got in a couple good ones," I mused.

"You didn't do so bad yourself," she retorted. She winced as she stood up. Oh that's right. I had slammed her into the wall.

"Where'd you find the pen?"

"In the dresser. You didn't look inside of it?"

"No. I wasn't planning on killing my roommate."

She gave a wry smile. She was pretty cute, actually. It was easier to see when she wasn't trying to disembowel you. She had a line of freckles maybe an inch under her eyes going from ear to ear, and she had long, black, braided hair. She had brown eyes.

"Shall we get out of here?" She motioned towards the door at the end of the rectangular room.

"No other way to go."

I started moving towards the door and was halfway to it before I realized that she was nowhere near me. I did a hasty about-face to make sure that she wasn't going to pull a fast on me. Pen Chick was taking one step every five seconds, in visible pain with every movement. I watched her suffer for a few moments more and guessed that she was not faking it. I went over to her and put her arm around my shoulder.

"What hurts?"

"My back."

"Brilliant."

We sauntered towards the door and opened it. The door revealed a room with six other kids my age, all sitting around a small square table. An older man leaned against the wall in the back left corner of the room. Two guys that looked like the ones that I had seen before with the short-barreled rifles stood in opposite corners of the room.

"The feisty ones. Come on in," the old man said as he pushed himself off of the wall. "Take a seat."