A week had passed. It had been one of those detestable weeks wherein you are under the impression time is both stagnant and roaring past, where you are never truly sure if you are genuinely conscious or in a perpetual dream. Perhaps because I was living this nightmare.
I couldn't keep anything down. I knew tomorrow was the day, and there was way I could ever pre-empt the inevitable horror. I made myself a hot chocolate to appease the child in me and calm my stomach, while I flicked through an old poetry book. I endeavoured to suppress the nausea until I'd finished; ' some blessed Hope, whereof he knew and I was unaware,' before hurtling to the bathroom.
Mathers greeted me with a plastic grin, impeccable uniform and with a nonchalant spark of brutality glittering maliciously in his serpentine eyes. He fired numerous malevolent comments regarding my bedraggled state, prior to thumping me on the shoulder, pushing me towards my aircraft.
Sweat glistened in my pores, dripping off my forehead and onto my nose. We were there. And this place seemed slightly too reminiscent of my hometown. The grass was the exact same shade of green, the buildings were made to the same style, of the same bricks, and the high street bustled with a thousand faces that could have been friends. I negotiated through the crowds, fixating my eyes to the pavement, forcing my brain to become fascinated with the miniscule grains that composed the slabs in a fervent attempt to evade my thoughts. Then I saw the gates.
I stood there, for a moment. Pressing my palm against the blisteringly hot metal, as though I could be absorbed by the very touch. I let my eyes close and my eyes fall loosely at my sides as I melted into the atmosphere...
'Jones. Jones! Have you done it yet?' I pushed my fingers to the device in my ear, eradicating Mathers' incessant buzzing.
'Get on with it! I have to see and document the evidence yet, remember?' I was jolted into the barbarous reality. I swallowed, inhaled, and replied, ' Nearly done. Five minutes and I'll be back.'
'You'd better be - unless you want your fingers breaking,' he hissed. So. I really had to this.
I found a lower wall at the side of the imperious fence and hurled myself over it with a boyish clumsiness. My heart pounded, threatening to burst through my paper skin as I scanned for any witnesses. I slunk by the shaded walls, ducking under windows until I found a crevice near the centre of the buildings. Reaching gingerly into my pocket, I retrieved the burning metal egg. As I placed it into the nook, it struck me that I could hear... singing. Children singing. And children shouting out ABC's. Children reciting multiplication tables. It hit me. This was a school.
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