Bonding moment in solitary confinement

For the second time, not even a month passed, Brianna was once again seated in that dark, cold room with nothing but just a bed, a small window, and the damped, sweaty smell of the room.

She sat silently in the corner, wallowing herself in a pit of existential crisis.

Who is she? What is she made of? How did she come to be? Why is her personality changing day by day, molding her into something unrecognizable, and even becoming similar to someone she just met in that damned place!

Look! She learned to cuss without batting an eyelash!

Brianna sighed. Something was wrong in her, she concluded. It started when she met Bianca, but she couldn't tell what it was.

Tok! Tok!

"Ah!"

Brianna jumped away from the wall she was leaning into. Knocks were coming from inside.

"Oh, no…please, not again…"

She clasped her hands together and prayed. Is it something like the stories she read online? Like there was a dead body trapped inside the walls and now it's knocking on her so she can help its body be found and solve the mystery of its death?

Brianna shook her head, "I'm not a detective…knock somewhere, please…"

The knock became louder. Brianna jumped away. At the same time, a part of the concrete wall cracked and soon the small parts fell and created a small hole. Brianna trembled. She was about to scream when a voice echoed from the hole.

"Heyya~, I knew someone was next to me. I kept hearing a sob, so I thought I was being hunted. So, it's you, little devil? What are the chances of getting us locked up in adjacent isolation cells, heh? It seems we're really fated; don't you think?"

Brianna narrowed her eyes at the hole and saw that familiar obsidian eye. Only Bianca's eye can be seen in the hole, but it was enough for the sound to pass through. Brianna sighed in relief.

She sat back in the corner and rubbed her arm, "I don't swing that way."

A chuckle came from the other room, "Lols, do you think I am? Well, you're quite a charming lady, so maybe I'm a little bit attracted? Tell me what's your type."

Brianna crumpled her face in disgust, "Please stop. I'm having goosebumps."

She rubbed her arms as if to shrug off the awful feeling Bianca made her feel.

"What's this, hm? You've become so brave. Did you finally let it out?" Bianca answered amusingly. There was a hint of laughter in her words. She was enjoying talking with Brianna on the other side.

She thought it was somehow ridiculous, but having someone to talk to inside the isolation cell was quite relieving. When she noticed a small crack in the corner of the wall and heard muffled noises beyond, she got curious and scraped it with her nails until a hole enough for a finger to shoot appeared.

She never expected it to be her cellmate mate who was undeniably crazier than she was.

Brianna wet her dry lips and gulped. The hair on her arms stood upon hearing Bianca's last words. "Let it out? Wha…what do you mean?"

Even with a wall between them, Bianca could imagine the poor girl hugging her arms while looking around, checking for an eyeball plastered on the walls, and looking down at her. She couldn't help but laugh at that thought.

"Oho, so you're scared now? Hahahahaha, I guess your bravery is just a farce."

Brianna froze. The woman's words hit the mark. She hugged her knees and rested her face, facing the wall where the hole was.

She muttered lowly, hesitantly, "I…thought as well. Sometimes, I act differently. So different from how I used to be…"

Her eyes slightly widened. What was she doing opening up to that woman? Why would someone like Bianca listen and care about her problems? She lifted her head and was about to dismiss the topic when Bianca answered before she could.

"Does it feel like something was whispering in your ears? Asking you to do things you shouldn't be doing?" Bianca asked, her voice laced with genuine curiosity.

Brianna felt heard and acknowledged. She parted her lips to respond, but Bianca beat her to it again.

Bianca, "If that's the case, then you're mental! Geez, if you acted that way during your trial, you might have been sent to the mental asylum instead of here. Though you'd be living with lunatics laughing at the dust on the wall or waving at the clouds out the window."

Brianna fumed, "I'm not mental!"

Bianca scoffed, "Don't be so sure about that, little devil. How do you describe what's happening to you then?"

"What's happening to me is none of your business! Don't speak as if you know me!" Brianna yelled back. She slapped the wall wishing it was Bianca's face, but her palm only stung after.

Bianca answered confidently, "Well, I don't need to spend a decade with you just so I can tell, you know? Hear this, you met someone who kept trembling, sobbing, crying in the corner, and whose eyes were so determined to prove her innocence, but all of a sudden, those eyes turned to that of a murderer; the shivering stopped, the stammering ended, and that person suddenly acted more aggressive as though she wasn't whimpering just a moment ago. Can you tell they're different, or can you imagine it's the same person?"

Brianna opened her mouth to answer immediately. But as she did so, the images of what happened that day they first met came back to her. She saw herself crying in the corner, too frightened of even a small attention the inmates would give to her.

Yet, when Bianca appeared, she lost her memory of what happened but was told she pushed away the scariest person in that place.

"You know," Brianna blinked after hearing Bianca again.

She slowly turned to the hole and even though she couldn't see Bianca beyond, she had a feeling she was leaning on the wall while looking up, reminiscing something as well.

"My grandmother was a shaman. She died helping people fight their demons away. Then, I was born, inheriting her power. I thought I'd grow up like her, using that ability to help people, but to me, it became a curse."

Brianna fell into silence. She slowly slumped back on the wall and just listened.

"It became the reason why I was abandoned by my parents, bullied at the orphanage, and no family wanted to take me in because I was weird, peculiar, scary. They said all the demons my grandmother sealed and shooed away came back, resting above my shoulders."

A bitter chuckle was heard from the hole.

"So, all the bad luck poured into me. Whoever I got entangled with, got into an accident or died. They blamed it on my grandmother who I never even met. They blamed it on my fate. Until it just got so exhausting…all those illogical blaming. So, then…"

A long silence.

Brianna waited until she got impatient, so she asked, "Then what?"

However, instead of words, a loud snore answered her.