The chains connected to the cuffs round Carlie’s wrists and ankles filled the silence of the paled white walls in the corridor of the prison. She kept walking, not wanting to attract attention to herself. She knew the reason she was here wasn’t because she had committed a crime she had been wrongly accused of. No. This was worse.
‘Keep it moving.’ A guard barked.
Carlie kept moving until they reached the metal gate separating her from the corridor and the main part of the prison. She could see the other inmates watching her, trying to decide what kind of inmate she would be. She couldn’t see any other women, which didn’t seem to surprise or worry her. The gate opened and she was led up a flight of stairs, the other inmates still watching her. She was stopped outside an empty cell and her cuffs were taken off. Then she was flung into the cell, her body falling to the floor with a thump.
The door slammed shut behind her, laughter creeping through the metal of the door. The cell was very bare, only housing a bunk bed, a chair, a sink and a very dingy looking toilet. She’d have to try and clean that as best she could at some point. But Carlie had better things to do right now. Climbing back to her feet, she walked to the small window with bars over it. Her right hand squeezed between the bars and gave enough space for her to rest the palm of her hand against the glass. The bars had pushed up her jumpsuit sleeve, revealing a scorched lightning bolt on the inside of her lower arm.
Closing her eyes she started to focus her mind. The world outside her window started to darken, clouds descending round the prison. Thunder rolled and then a large lightning bolt struck the ground a couple of miles away, setting alarms off inside the prison. She could hear guards running round the prison like the world was about to end. Like it hadn’t already. Carlie’s eyes shot open, the entirety of her eyes completely blue.
‘Guess the Daughter of the Spark never really died.’ Carlie’s voice came through past her lips, a deep sound that had the undertones of more than one voice speaking at once.
She smiled as a second lightning bolt struck the ground a mile away, only to then solidify in the ground as a bright blue lightning bolt for all to see. She knew it would be the sign they had been looking for. This world had given up, but she was still alive, still fighting, and this was not the end. Not even close.
