Twenty-one

A hand on her shoulder startled her from sobbing. She whirled angrily sparking a torch of blue-green flame in her palm. Her heart didn't want to fight but her temper screamed "who won't let me grieve!?" it was a young officer that shared her expression. The instant she looked at him something inside her paused, he had lost friends today too. That one thought shoved her forward, and she cried into his chest. He wasn't her enemy.

They had once been on opposite sides but for the briefest of moments they weren't soldiers. They were human. They were victims, they were mourners. It didn't take long for more MP's to arrive, clear the scene and slap cuffs on her wrists. Something hard slammed her in the back of the head, and they dragged her, delirious, across the scorched lawn toward the brig. An image emerged from the trees, someone yelling at her.

"Glasses." She thought, "Everyone hates me, what's one more?"

Booking took over an hour her rights were read, and paperwork filled out. She was chained to her chair for the entire process and immediately after the last file slammed shut, they dragged her to a cell.

Once there they continued to ignore her cries and clear agony. Two days had passed before a doctor was buzzed through the gates and steel doors to examine her burns and wounds. The doctor burst into her cell to find amber shuddering in her blood-soaked bed. The doctor stripped her dirty clothes off and examined the infected wounds spread over most of her body. Melted bullets still clung to her skin and neck. Parts of her arms and chest had lost skin leaving open, bleeding wounds. She cried. Every night the guards ignored her whimpers and pained breathing.

She lay shivering and delirious, counting the bricks in her cell, over, and over. Flashes of her imagined monsters clawed at her with a phantom's fury, she would scream and jolt back against the wall, only to remember the hallucinations were merely the infection burning through her mind. In the night she clawed at her blankets, unable to sleep. The monsters and their screams were waiting, with gnawing impatience for her to fall into sleep. Into their domain.

Her hair was shaved, her burns were coated with creams and healing salves. Antibiotics were given to fight the illness burning her. Time ticked through the haze and she was plunged into an unwilling and fitful chemical doze. Days scorched the sky into night, and night chirped back into day, her demons left slowly; angrily. Her nightly screams eventually became occasional mutterings.

Every night there was some shadowy figure that skulked through the doorways, and down the halls moving from shadow to shadow, slipping silently, cautiously past officers and guards. Deft fingers slipped keys from the wall without a sound depositing them into an inside pocket in their cloak. Ambers cell was opened and shut before a cool wet cloth brushed her forehead. The stranger wiped her face moving the cloth down behind her ears and cleansed the sweat and dirt from her neck, chest arms, and legs.

He took special care to thoroughly wash her wounds one by one, nursing her. For weeks this ritual continued, and the hooded man made his way silently out of her cell replacing the keys and slipping outside, undetected.

The fever broke, finally, on the ninth day. But the main problem she was having was the pain. Medications poured through her veins to quell the waves of agony. Sometimes, they actually worked. It was two weeks before the doctors cut back her medication, and the shakes started. Her face itched while her arms, legs, and neck raged. She lay in her cell itching for hours and picking at exposed scabs.

She scratched through her scalp daily. The new pains and brief distractions kept her from screaming her lungs out. She needed these things, the small distractions. Small victories are all you have when you're in prison, severely burned, and fighting addiction. There was only one place that even the addiction and anger would not let her go, the fire.

There was a forest in her mind, the source of her hope, her love, and her pity. After Carlos' death it had burned. The heat of regret and shame consumed her forest, slowly. Every day more was reduced to ashes, more of her was lost. Her mind had become a place where nothing green grew, hope did not exist, and fire was the enemy. Through the few weeks of recovery, she awaited court martial and replayed the inferno in her mind. The pain, the blood, the fear.

"My life sucks." She said to the empty space and sighed as she slumped back painfully onto her mattress.

Though imprisoned and hated, she never felt freer. Some part of her had broken off in the fight. The malignant cancer she had inside her, formed of her own fear and self-loathing, had stopped poisoning her mind. There was a weight that had been lifted from her.

Death, it seemed, would be the sure punishment and her struggle would soon be over. There was no enemy left, and no pain to overcome.

"Inmate," a middle-aged colonel started, "you called for me?"

Amber jumped from her bed and stood at attention inside her cage. "Yes, sir. I wished to express my belief at being fit, sir, to stand trial."

The big man raised an eyebrow. "A little more eager for punishment than our usual inmates."

Amber continued at attention, "I just want it to be over, sir. I'm tired."

"Perhaps you should consult with your legal representative." He suggested suspiciously. "This will be a big case, and I will have it handled 'by the book.'"

"Of course," she acknowledged. "Thank you, sir."