Academy Murders: Youngling

Spindly legs quaked. Down the wall the miniscule arachnid found a tiny home right behind Kim’s rack. A smile stretched across her face as she remembered the mother and that there were offspring possibly all over the cell block.

Some inmates weren’t afraid to pull triggers and take human lives, but they held fear of spiders. Kim cupped the little thing in her palms. It bit her. The sting was not severe as it had no toxins. She winced slightly and then giggled. As she let the little thing go, she smiled a faint smile of hope and prosperity for the youngling.

Screeches and cries and sounds of trying to stomp the critters.

“You see these things?” New guard Daloni asked. He stood about five foot eight. He had a soul patch that was just in regulation and that was his only source of facial hair. He was muscular but not bulky. He stood slightly hunched over like he was about to deadlift three hundred pounds.

“Jergensen, you like those goddamn things?”

“They’re some of nature’s architects. Did you know that webs can be stronger than steel?”

Dolani looked at her. “No.” He didn’t indicate whether the “No” meant he didn’t know or he didn’t believe her.

“Yep. Just like the master builders of the world, they weave special webs that make the insects collect around them.”

Then, the lights flashed and a siren sounded like a newborn out the womb.

“Inspection!”

Kim’s cell slid open. She stepped out and stood against the wall. The flashing lights glinted in her eye a harsh yellow and she squinted. The smell of toothbrush and elimination wafted out into the corridor.

Only letters in purple ink resided in Kim’s cell. She held no contraband and never really had any other items that the prison permitted.

In the cell again, Kim heard shouts from other inmates. One woman demanded that she have her brown paper bag left with her ramen and bran muffins she bought from the commissary. What Kim lacked in commissary goodies she made up for in all of Yawquisha’s notes. That was her treasure and her secret stash.

The realization of the fact that she still had to sit here unjustly didn’t faze her. It didn’t got to the bone. The pain stopped somewhere in the fleshy part of her arm and spread to her wrist then her hands and the tips of her fingers. What she knew proved her innocence. The anguish came in waves but it didn’t pass that barrier.

Her soul pushed her to do chin ups, push ups, and leg ups. Her physical condition and her mental health remained at peak positions. In the moments where she had time to herself, which was most of the time, she memorized her letters from Yawquisha. When it came time to email her attorney, she took the time to go over the details of the case.

While she was reading the lines on the computer screen, she recalled the coded messages that Yawquisha sent and laughter, dry and cracking expelled from her throat. She looked around the room. Though it was a low laugh, it still turned heads. No one could be laughing at their lawyer’s words which were the only line of communication available to them. Kim then piped down and kept looking at her screen without cracking so much as a smile.

To take her situation seriously meant that she had to contemplate day and night the fact that she was still in here. From her vantage point, she could see the difference from the faces in her mind. Small and round some yellow is always grim and menacing. She closed her eyes and the faces continued. upon opening them, she saw only the faces of her parents. They looked red and shook their heads in disgust. A blink blanked them out of her consciousness.