Fifty-nine: Cold water

I swam through layers and shades of blue. Reaching back up to the clear sky where all was white.

White?

Yep.

White.

The sky was a ceiling, the blue was nonexistent.

"These are some of the worst cases of malnutrition and abuse of basic human rights that I have ever seen. I thought this kind of stuff only existed in the dark ages or in the historical wars. I never thought anyone in today's day and age would be so stupid or inhumane as to do any of this to their fellow human beings."

Doctors and nurses. Blah, blah, blah.

Government agents. Yack, yack, yack.

"Their mental health is so poor, I'm not surprised if this woman cracked under having to bury that many people and keep that many secrets. She has a persistent chest infection and bronchitis, amidst her myriad of other problems. She and her fellows are very lucky to be alive at all. It looks like they were given forced heavy labour under minimal diet. I'm surprised not more of them got seriously ill and died or cracked. Interesting thing is that most of the solitaries, as they call them, were the toughest of the lot. Most of them that were there from the beginning are still alive."

"Jean? Jean, you're awake."

I pulled my attention away from the distant conversation happening in another room, to look at the balding man sitting beside me. Mr Raring. I was no longer in the toilet block nor was I in the Compound anymore. It was safe to talk. I think. I hoped.

I pulled myself up into sitting with his help. He lifted the bed head up.

"We need to talk."

"Correction," I whispered. "You need to talk. I'm just going to listen, because when it comes down to it, it's not anything about what I want. You want me to do something. I have to decide whether I want to die or not and whether I have any choice, in which case, I don't really. I never did. Probably never will."

"Fine," Mr Raring gave a wry smile, chuckling a little at my tirade. "I can understand why you don't trust us very much, but let me explain why we went to get you in the first place. The Boskies kept feeding us information about the circumstances in the Compound. We thought it was just propaganda until we started receiving specific news about specific people in the Compound. Including you. Especially about you. We figured your Bosky soldier was trying to send us a message and did a bit of investigating and digging. When we found out the information was real, we got moving to get you out. If I hadn't seen everything with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it all either. We have treated both you and our POW Boskies poorly. For that, I am truly sorry and am doing everything in my power to ensure it doesn't happen again."

"Can you repeat that all again?"

Mr Raring took a breath and opened his mouth before he caught sight of my facial expression. He poked my cheek, making me giggle.

"Cheeky girl," he smiled and something about him relaxed. "I didn't think you still had it in you to have a sense of humour. Actually, I don't think I've ever heard you laugh before."

My cheer failed and now tears spangled my vision and he looked a little confused and dismayed at the sudden change. I hadn't wanted to get comfortable around him. I didn't even like him. At least, I didn't think I liked him. And then, it felt wrong to have laughed and smiled again. Like someone might want to punish me for it.

"What? What's wrong?" Mr Raring asked.

"Everything," I wailed, tears pouring down my cheeks with pain in my chest. "Everything."

Mr Raring rubbed my back at the sudden rainstorm, seeming to sort of understand me. He weathered it and my angry tirade that followed that I don't particularly remember, but went something along the lines of where were they when the war began? Why I had needed to be left in the Compound? Why couldn't they have dealt with the Boskies earlier or why someone couldn't have just killed me to put me out of my misery? Et cetera. I doubt I had been very coherent with my whisper of a voice.

When I finished, I was exhausted, but Mr Raring continued rubbing my back and I drooped into him. Tired of everything. Glad I was falling asleep again.

"Your Bosky soldier wants to see you again and we need to meet him to find a way to bring peace. He's been leading a lot of the charge and the only way to get him to agree, was to agree to take you out of the Compound to reassure him that we haven't killed you yet. He was adamant that we had to do something about the Compound. After seeing everything, I'm glad we did," Mr Raring said, still rubbing my back. "He's not going to be very pleased when he sees you, I think. He seems to know more about us and what we are doing than we do about him. We still know very little about him or those with him. For that, we need your help."

Remembering back to the days when I used to be able to leave the Compound, before I had become a prisoner, I felt like it had been another lifetime. Another me. I wasn't the same person anymore. Probably never would be. I had lost too much sense of self.

"What do you need me to do?"

He told me their plan and I told him of the old, nearly faded memory of Kiran and of his friends. I doubted they were still using the same disguises now though. I hadn't told him all the details I had noticed about them before. Last time had mostly focused on Kiran.

It was like I had given up on living and on dying. Like I was surrendering my soul in asking what they wanted me to do.

I reported on everything that had happened in the Compound since I had last seen him. As best as I could, anyway. My memory was very vague after I had started digging graves.

Mr Raring carefully tucked me back into bed and walked away when we were done. There was a strange wistfulness in his demeanor. He opened the door and I heard Mr Cooper's voice outside. He must have been watching or listening in and for some strange reason, I felt betrayed.

"That was well done," Mr Cooper congratulated his partner. It was like having a bucket of cold water thrown in my face. "Didn't think she still had that much information in her."

"Shut up," Mr Raring hissed in a cold voice. Angry. Was he angry for me? I hoped so. I needed more protectors, because my enemies were too many. "She can still hear you."

He shut the door and I heard their footsteps click away down the corridor.