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sleepycatofshimano · 6 months ago

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The 44080 Entries ➝ an 'The Outlast Trials' fan-fiction by sleepycatofshimano

Reagent 44080 Entry #2 | originally published on Archive of Our Own

If you haven't read the prior entries, click here -> Entry #1

Content Warnings Leland Coyle/Female Reagent, Non-con/Implied Non-con Elements, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Age Gap, Branding, Semi-Public Sex, Kink Shaming, Asphyxiation, Angst, BDSM, Teasing/Shaming, Obsession, Oral Sex, Mind Manipulation, Electrifying Sex (literally), Enemies-to-Lovers(?), Slow Burn/Slow Build, Bonding, Some Fluff (!), Diary/Journal Format

︙ This work is rated 'R'; do not interact if you are under the age of 18.

Chp. Word Count 6,109

⬐ Summary

=========

6 June 19xx

There was no better place to scribble in this diary of mine than my Sleep Room. While the other Reagents were busying themselves with barbaric arm-wrestling competitions and discussing what rigs work best inside which Trials, I was bedridden; by choice. You see, I would have joined them, but my neck looked more burnt than an abandoned scrap of toast on a Sunday morning. It felt thicker than leather restraints, and stung when my fingers fell upon my larynx.

I know what you’re thinking: What on this abominable earth are you musing about? What could possibly have caused such prominent damage to my neck? Well, you may be satisfied (or revolted) to come to an understanding of the man responsible.

It all started last night, just moments after I had abandoned the few chunks of unnamed meat on the plastic tray. I exited the cafeteria with a fiery passion for utmost success in achieving my goal for the night: confronting Coyle on my lonesome. As such, the Shuttle arrived rather quickly, as no Reagents were entering the horrors beyond without at least one other human. But that was exactly why I stood from the chess’ metal bench within a matter of seconds after requesting to undergo a Trial from the centre console in the middle of the common area; I hadn’t expected a Shuttle so soon. I recall the few faces who stalked the large, dingy room with confusion and intrigue as I took hurried steps to the rusted, rotating chamber-doors. But I didn’t look back once I stepped into the stagnant space of utter claustrophobia, before the chamber rotated me in a swift and smooth fashion, opening then to the inside of the spacious Shuttle; if there was one thing that needed to be quickly snuffed out as a Reagent, it was the underlying claustrophobia that many of us once held. Were you not to crawl into the most restricting and vile of spaces—simply to save your life!—then survival would be quickly off the menu for you.

Once the gas filled my nostrils, that all-too-familiar lightheadedness kicked in, causing disturbing hallucinations and thoughts to surface as my eyes darted rapidly across the dank chamber of the Shuttle. Reagents leaving me for dead… Gooseberry drilling into the faceless abominations of Reagents long past… The Skinnerman shuffling slowly toward my toppled-over frame… hundreds of child-like mannequins being ground to mere wood shavings… and Leland Coyle, making calm and calculated steps toward me as I stumbled back against a wall, taking notice of my dead night vision battery as I heaved and clutched my rig like the Cross of Christ—but he continued to inch toward me, tapping his sizzling baton against his own thigh, and then his abdomen, and then his groin, throwing his head back as he electrocuted his own growing heat.

And then it was over.

I arose furiously from the leather straps of my chair, running quickly into the next rotating chamber, before I was met with the rotting stench of the Thin Blue Line. Immediately, I toppled over against a pile of cardboard boxes, plugging my nose and gagging into the palms of my hands as I curled my legs against my heaving chest. In the distance, I heard the Shuttle squealing away on its rusted rails, leaving me alone (for better or for worse) and to fend for my life for the amusement of Murkoff and Easterman. Fucking pervs and manipulative scum. Just writing about them makes me want to suffocate myself with the leather straps of my E.S.O.P. (a device we Reagents are forced to wear inside the Trials; it holds our rigs, medicinal supplies, and allows us to communicate with the other Reagents inside the Trials; of course, if a Reagent is reading this, then you would know just how tedious and irritating the device gets when sprinting and crouching down). Mannequins of female stature pointed up and down toward the police station in stiff and haunting manners—all roads (literally) leading to Officer-Fucking-Leland-Coyle. I could only grit my teeth as I gulped down bile, rising once more to my feet as I regained my bearings; the main entrance was always guarded by some shit-talking Grunt, so I instead opted on taking a route I had not yet traversed: a narrow opening through the white van.

Entering the building itself didn’t take long; the broken window—most likely been smashed by a prior Reagent or an Ex-Pop—proved more useful than it looked, and I had vaulted myself over the broken shards, only to land square on my feet in a tiny room off to the side of the main corridor. Finding the security room also proved rather simple, as I’d remembered being tossed up over a male Reagent’s shoulder to push further into the building; only this time, there was no other Reagent to lend a hand, so I had to get creative.

Yes, getting creative was possibly one of the worst things a Reagent could have been forced to do in a Trial. Why I state this as fact, is merely due to the concentration and due diligence required to prove successful in said task. And I had decided to build a “stepping stone” of sorts, to act as my absent Reagent to vault me over this next obstacle. Of course, I had not thought this frenzied decision through to its end; I needed to confront Coyle. After what I had witnessed… I just needed to gain more insight on the man. How someone could have fallen into such perversion and sadism… or was it masochism? Could it have been both? But this was what I needed to know—what it was. Answers! I was bored! Lost! Trapped with a bunch of lab rats!

And then I heard it. The distant wails of a young male—perhaps another Reagent? The only way for that to have been possible, was for a Reagent that had been abandoned by his or her teammates in a prior Trial… or severely wounded; so much so, that Easterman didn’t bother retrieving the poor soul. I, of course, felt only rushed now to concoct a small elevation for my body to vault off, before my eyes settled finally on a stack of metal cabinets in the corner of the large room. They scraped and scratched across the glass-riddled ground, but there seemed to be no signs of entry aside from the broken window from earlier. My eyes were glued to that side of the room, and I stepped up onto the filing cabinets as I grunted and coughed up a swab of bile.

I knew a great risk came with causing such a ruckus, but it was either hide like a scaredy cat and risk starving to death in here, or to simply make my merry way to Coyle. I suppose neither sounded like an ideal, but I was never one to back down from a personal goal—or passion, really. So, off I went! Hurling my body over the tall, wooden plank that stood between the narrow hallway to the security room and I, until I came crashing down into a pile of broken glass. Luckily, I had fallen on my side, wherein the leather strap of my E.S.O.P. lay, so not a scratch had followed me out of my first mistake of the night.

Yes, it was the first mistake of many. Entering into a Trial alone could have been counted as the bar for the evening, but it was rather obvious that a lunatic lay dormant somewhere amidst my mind; for if there wasn’t, then why the hell had I been enjoying the rush of fear this Trial had already instilled within me? And would continue to, once I reached the security room with only a half-charged rig and a small battery pack. Upon arriving, the deranged berating and bemused grunts that shot through the musty air had first drawn my eyes to the rusted cage; it separated another Reagent from me and my clutched rig, only to discover the mastermind behind all the ruckus: that damned Sergeant. The man I’d been searching for—here he was, right within my grasp (almost) just on the other side of that metal cage! When the body of the male Reagent slid down the front of the cage, I knew then that this Ex-Pop was not one for patience.

And the first words he spoke to me, once he shrugged his baton back over his shoulder and sucked the dying cigarette deeper between his lips with a shaded look-over, went something (exactly) like: ‘There’s the slippery gal from last night’s shit show.’

It really felt like I had been stung by a death-blight bee, feeling my limbs tense and my posture straighten as I suddenly became more aware of the solitude I had placed myself in than ever before. And fuck—I liked it. I thought I did, until Coyle inched toward the rusted cage with a low whistle and those damned shades resting low, then, on his nose. He had stared straight past the night vision goggles left stranded on my forehead, and instead, decided upon my nude gaze; wide and eager. Eager for what? FUCK. I wanted answers. I only noticed the coarse and bumpiness of his right cheek when his full lips stretched upward into a lopsided grin, tugging lazily at his horrifying wound while only a few teeth peeked through his salmon slick. He caused unease to simply look at—let alone stare at his hanging cigarette wedged between his sluggish grin. He had dipped his slender fingers through the circular divots in the cage, clinging to the metal like his next weapon of sadistic torture had been chosen. I only remember standing there, in the centre of the tiny security room, frowning and heaving still from the fall; but the piercing and thumping and burning pain in my ankle suddenly began to irritate and seduce all senses, and before I knew it, I had braced my hands for impact as I came crashing to my knees with a strained grunt.

Then I heard that damned sizzling. And those words—oh, those damned words that spilled from his filthy lips: ‘Careful there, honey. Murkoff wouldn’t want t’a be caught responsible for an accidental injury in the Trials, now.’ They, too, were doused in that southern twang I had been forcibly familiarised with.

I had winced in pain at his remark, dragging frenzied nails against the swollen skin of my ankle as I cursed at myself for not trying harder to find a makeshift brace for my injury. Easterman couldn’t know I needed further care—no one could. Especially not Coyle. But was I truly that dense? He only wheezed out a bitter chuckle, taking another, long drag from his cigarette before plucking it mindlessly to the side as he then tapped his frizzling baton lightly against the cage a few times. ‘Little sweeting better hold that tongue of hers, otherwise she’ll end up conjuring the wrong side of the law.’

Really, all I could think about was the irritated skin that danced in throbbing pulsations around my ankle, mocking me as I lay against the floor like some wounded animal being stared at in a zoo; and Leland Coyle was the observer and caretaker here, it seemed. He had pressed his nose against the cool metal, baring that lazy grin again as his dark stubble coated the rust with its sable blight. His shades blocked the practical entirety of his gaze, but his stare was more prominent than I had wanted to admit at that moment; he had been evaluating my frame (or state?) twice—thrice over, sucking in his lower lip for only a second before letting out another hoarse chuckle. ‘Gonna make a fella watch a poor rabbit writhe helplessly before ‘im, huh? Got those ‘lil kickers all fragile and overworked, honey. Betters not to waste ‘at energy before I come ‘round and steal ya for myself.’ And then he slid his fingers over every metal divot in his path, stalking along the caged wall with a low click of his tongue and twisted smirk. ‘After all, they say rabbits got them lucky foots, don’t they?’

It was all a blur from that point forward. I had practically hobbled out of the security room after Coyle’s obscene viewing of my show of weakness, and I wanted so badly to steal that baton from the man himself and electrocute my innards for simply allowing such an injury to arise in the first place. I had taken a new temporary residence in one of the many empty and bloodied holding cells, clutching four keys in my hand as I whispered a silent prayer. 44100 had managed to snag all four keys from last night’s Trial, handing them over to me so I could enact a sort of vengeance against Coyle—which had been the plan all along, but curiosity truly had been injecting a sort of lethality into the cat. Waiting for the sizzling of the baton had proven more stressful than reaching the security room in the first place, and I could only wonder why Coyle had disappeared once I had hopped away from our first encounter together; a first of the night. Back into the rotating pod and around the corner I went, stopping first to snag a tiny bottle of medicinal fluids. I had downed the mysterious contents, though they didn’t seem to make my ankle any less inflamed, so I opted on keeping it as a form of distraction for the rest of my treacherous journey.

But the sadistic Ex-Pop was nowhere to be found—and why was I the one hunting him? Decapitation didn’t really so much as cause a well of tears or swell of bile to urge outward anymore, as I had been staring down at a lifeless body. Instead, it only reminded me of the real danger this man—all of them—carried on their belts like fucking trophies or silver bullets. Both, in Coyle’s twisted case. I just needed to hear the sizzling. The sizzling. It felt all tingly when I really closed my eyes to just. Listen. Listen to the electrode static. It popped in a way a flood of butter over an open fire would. Well, the air was then but an auditory stagnant. So. Quiet. Not even the man, depraved of any topwear and branded with the accusatory title of the Snitch, wailed or whined for me to cut him loose. No, it seemed as though I was truly a wild animal, forced now to run rampant around these halls of fresh blood and parted limbs until my objective forced itself into the light. Like hell I’d be pushing this new Snitch into yet another death trap without confronting the sadistic Sergeant responsible for 44100’s distaste and my intrigue.

Oh, but that next confrontation would have to wait—for I’m afraid Easterman has called for me yet again; only this time, it has been requested on my lonesome, which only leads me to believe this has to do with Coyle and I alone. After all, those cameras truly are a work of Christ’s miracle, huh? He sees all. 44100 was a mere stepping stone on these tracks to utter deprivation and electrifying predisposition. And he would surely see my bruised and coarse and singed throat; oh, Easterman! is this what you wanted all along? the fucking rabbit is the ace in this deck! Christ and the law be damned!

Easterman requested a simple check-up. In fact, he hadn’t even so much as touched my body; not like 44100. So, I was merely asked a few questions to, as the mad doctor had put it, ‘evaluate your psyche and find divots or loopholes in the brain.’ But what truly threw my own conscience for a loop, was the fact that Easterman hadn’t once asked about my neck, nor so much as glanced at it. I had found myself scratching absentmindedly at the peeling skin, nodding along to Easterman’s usual preaching into the human psyche and how we would only get better through the Trials. Well, this one in particular left me burnt in more ways than one, but thank you, Easterman! I could only agree and force a smile as my ankle pulsated in sultry irritation, and my neck, dry and itchy.

Easterman did run a gloved hand along the framing of the hospital bed in which I sat comfortably, clutching his clipboard to his chest as his eyes softened on mine. ‘Our employees are doing everything in their power to help you get better,’ he told me. ‘No matter what, they will stop at nothing to see you succeed in the therapy. Trust my words on this matter, 44080. You are getting better, and we here at Murkoff love you and the progress you are making. Okay?’

Okay. I gave him what he wanted. I nodded along with another smile and eager eyes. And then he was off to another wing, still clutching at that wooden clipboard like a malnourished leech. It was then that I grabbed at my neck again, gritting my teeth as I ran the pads of my fingers over the coarse surface. Fuck. Yeah, it hurt then, and it hurts now.

Well, here it is, folks! How my neck had been practically fried!

It all started with my struggle during my lift of the garage door to the basement; Coyle had struck at the main power supply, leaving me to restart the generators. He wanted me to feel even more isolated. Alone in the dark. After all, who isn’t afraid of the dark? Well, I wasn’t. And I remember dragging my ankle across the concrete floor of the basement as I flicked on my night vision goggles, searching for something to restart the damned generators. Unfortunately, I had spotted the large tank of gasoline far too late, as I heard a door creak open on my six. And the accent again: ‘Still out for vengeance, ain'tcha, sweetness? Well, miss, you ain’t find it yet… That’s for damn certain!’ And I felt the concrete slap clean against my cheek as the gnawing of a thousand electrical pins prodded relentlessly at my lower back. I hadn’t even the chance to roll over and face the sadistic asshole for myself, because that son of a bitch had positioned himself stiffly atop my backside. His legs were then straddling my own waist, one hand trained on my nape as the other held still the sparking baton. And his voice only sounded in my ear once I had wriggled my hand out from beneath the E.S.O.P.’s crushing weight, to which his warm hand came crashing down against my thick tufts of hair. ‘Yeah… You ain’t find what you’re lookin’ for,’ he’d whispered sweetly against the shell of my ear with a low whistle.

And then the attempt to swat the baton out of his hand arose, and before I could even so much as make contact with his wiggling wrist, my own had been clutched and twisted down against my back with a wail. And it fucking hurt. My curiosity had truly gotten me executed… Well, I thought that was about to be the case, but you’re here reading this, and I’m here writing this. Huh. Looks like this little piggy escaped! But it wasn’t without a fight, nor exempt from a betrayal of my own dignity. Self-preservation… self-worth… they were all the same in the end, huh, Coyle? Ignore that last part. Anyway, his weight had merely crushed my own, but thank the Lord he hadn’t brought that cursed baton back down against my body—or anywhere near. Instead, the bastard gripped a handful of my own hair as he muttered something low to himself, tugging my face from the cool concrete with a shrill scraping and grunt from the man above me.

I had then spewed my very first words at him: ‘You really think you’re following some sort of law, huh? All you’re doing is terrorising us!’ No, it felt more like a jab at the Ex-Pop than anything, baring my teeth even though he couldn’t see my features one bit.

Well, he didn’t like that very much; he’d practically thrown my body back up to my feet, handling me by the thick strap of my white tank and tossing me like some used gadget. I wonder if the contraband ever felt the same when Reagents found a new, shiny toy to get their hands on. Coyle shook his head with three clicks of the tongue as he slipped both thumbs through his leather belt hoops, fixing his posture to a sluggish thrust into the air as his head lolled to the side with a frown; those shades freaked me out, as his face looked expressionless here and now, even though his actions had proved much different. He’d waited a few seconds more before he spoke in a tongue even my own heart couldn’t resist thumping to: ‘Naughty as charged. Honey, I am the law. And these terrorists you speak of are your pinko pals who think they all hot shit within these walls. But let me tell ya something… I ain’t work like a hivemind. Now, I suggest you start hoppin’ along, sweetheart. I’ll give y’a head start from two. One. Two.’ Yes, my heart had contorted and jabbed erratically against my chest as I ran straight past Coyle—accidentally brushing past his shoulder and badge on the way out from the dark room. Luckily, I had found (almost instantly, might I add) a police vehicle, which was most likely being used as a prop of sorts; a roomy sedan with grime smeared all over the lower edges. Well, the Thin Blue Line stayed truer to its set than I wished to admit. Of course, the back-left door was hanging wide open, which smelled only of danger to me, but the sudden crackling of that damned baton forced any thoughts of doubt from my mind at that moment.

Rookie. Fucking. Mistake. Let me make this even clearer: ROOKIE. FUCKING. MISTAKE.

I was sprawled across the worn leather of the backseat, realising all too quickly that the door to the cop vehicle was still wide open; but shutting it then would have cost me my hiding spot. So, it stayed open. And it was almost comical then what had happened: My rig’s cooldown had finally reached its end, alerting me with a loud beep and click against my E.S.O.P. And, well, that was the beginning of… I was going to write “the end,” but perhaps this was—is—the beginning of something exciting. Coyle had sauntered over to my side of the sedan; I’d seen only his officer hat through the barred windows of the passenger side’s door, and he looked cheekier than a pup that had been cleared of its accused nature in chewing the shoe. The lunatic had slowly propped a leg up against the side of the vehicle and leaned his body into the low frame of the door. A cigarette was hanging again from the side of his lips, and another predatory whistle had sounded in my ears as Coyle shook his head with a chuckle; his voice was so condescending and full of melodramatic disbelief. ‘I tell ya, it’s like the ‘lil buggers hop right into the trap. Each and every time. It ain’t even worth nothin’ if they ain’t fleein’ by a hair. And you, miss, ain’t fled by no more than the length of an anaconda. A neonate.’

He was on me too quickly to react; his one leg had nudged itself between my thighs, while the other was grounded firmly against the leather floor as it straddled the side of the seat. The smoke from his cigarette wafted bitterly against my face, invading my nostrils and teasing the slick of my lips. I remember now how inviting it smelled, but I knew better than to succumb to old habits. Instead, I’d strained my neck to the side as I weighed any sort of options still available to me: kick the bastard in the sack and miraculously complete the Trial and risk losing any further insight on the Ex-Pop, or allow a corrupted cop to enact his sadism on me. Well, it’s only natural to know which had happened—otherwise I wouldn’t have jotted down these events in the damned first place.

I heard the car door slam shut a moment later, and a raspy chuckle followed. Coyle had rolled his hips back, positioning himself over me—only this time, on my frontside—as he slid a thumb across his lower lip with a sneer that lifted his shades up his cheeks in an eerie and deranged manner. ‘I take it you ain’t never been in a police car, sweetness.’ He groaned when I managed to pound a fist against his intruding thigh, but Coyle only chuckled again as he nodded gently to himself in explicit understanding. ‘Bingo.’

And I’d asked what he meant by this, practically yelling into his face: ‘What makes you the harbinger of all these assumptions?’ But he had simply clicked his tongue again, pressing two fingers between his cigarette as he sucked on its molten glow. Then, he drawled: ‘These dandy doors ‘ver here don’t open so willingly from the inside, honey. Sadly, beggin’ don’t work for every criminal offence.’ And I remember glowering at Coyle at that moment—at his perversion of words, and at everything leading up to this! So, in a frenzied fit of short-ended anger, I spat another remark up at Coyle as I lay stiff beneath him: ‘You going to use that baton on me like you did with 44100?’ And, honestly, I felt rather out of breath then and there—understanding only then just how far I had travelled since I’d first stepped foot out from the Shuttle, and just how many times I had to hobble to accommodate for my ankle. Coyle took blatant notice of this, and displayed a most unexpected gesture then; he had grabbed at my chin, holding it between his index finger and thumb as he took another long drag with his other hand. ‘Careful now, honey. Don’t wanna overexert yourself with that cheeky little mouth of yours. All that brain fuzz got you worked up over nothin’. That baton of mine won’t be used on your person. Not one bit, sweetness. You’re too much of a prime asset now… I’m seeing all ‘at for myself. Too much intrigue got me all riled up. These Trials ain’t built for sympathy. They’d stone a fella like me. So, let me remind ya of your place, lucky bunny.’ Those words—all of them—had stuck with me, even after the events of the Trial.

One thing was for certain: Leland Coyle was out of his right mind, but so was I. In fact, I had been imagining how satisfying it would have felt to electrocute his own cock right then and there, but the accursed and eerie sizzling surfaced again. Only this time, the electrical waves danced from the coiled surface of the baton against my larynx. I remember him whispering with a sickly grin, ‘Ain’t even think ‘bout resistin’, sweetheart. The hands of the law won’t allow it.’ His hands! His hands wouldn’t allow it! ‘And you sure as hell don’t want the other fuck-os rippin’ and… tearin’ the pink right outta ya…’ And then he tore his hand through my hair, grabbing at the back of my head to all but force my neck back and forth—back and forth—until he was sure he’d branded every last inch of skin below my chin.

And I almost believed his words as he brought his face real close to mine, and I was certain the sparks popping from his baton were now frying his dark beard and own neck. ‘Those pinkos with the machetes and drills for daddies ain’t gon’ treat you with the respect I’m showin’ here, honey. You’ll be grateful for my services of the law once one of them commie finks catches your ass for a real cookin’.’

Coyle’s words really piqued my interest, shocked and pondering still wedged beneath his lean frame and electrifying touch (the baton). And I remember asking myself through the numbing pain: why show me any mercy? what have I done to warrant your magnanimity? That thought process ended quickly when Coyle’s baton parted ways with my throat, leaving a cruel sting and dryness as he slid the weapon back into some sort of holster on his hip. What I thought was over had seemingly just begun; his face hadn’t yet followed suit in pulling back from my neck. Instead, I’d only then felt the sultry stick of a soft surface pressing gently upon my throat. Coyle’s nose was wedged snugly beneath my chin as the slow prodding of his lips trailed along the coarse and singed surface; the burning of my skin reacted in an irritated and stinging manner as his wet touch molested the damaged and peeling skin.

‘Smell just like burnt leather,’ he’d mused, now ghosting my throat with warm and laboured breaths as he had moved a hand down his thigh. I finally allowed myself to squirm again, trying everything in my arsenal (bare hands at my only disposal) to free myself from the man above me. But it shocked me—even more now, as I’m writing this—when he suddenly removed himself from my body, leaning back on his knees as he watched me, a young lady, blatantly disoriented and wounded, looking around the police vehicle with knotted hair and dried drool down my chin. Seconds later, (if I’m recalling it as such) I began pounding on the window above me, crying for help and making my position known to anyone else in the area.

Nothing.

Again, I pounded and wailed.

Nothing.

It fucking HURT not having anyone else to care for your life in a moment of distress and need, and I knew I couldn’t look back once the hoarse wheezing of Coyle’s deranged laugh began to sound behind me. ‘These vehicles are made to keep criminals like yous in, not out! You a crazy bitch, but I ain’t complainin’,’ he’d begun, before his voice came eerily close to my neck with a low whisper. ‘Now, then… Are ya finished playin’ this busted game of Cat and Mouse?’

And that was when the window above me shattered in hundreds of tiny pieces. Before I could even piece together what had just happened, Coyle hissed irritably with a guttural grunt in the aftermath. ‘Lord! A bitch gonna pay in spades!’

Finally, I can talk about the woman who truly saved my life; not some ninnyhammer like 44100, no. This woman knows the Trials. And she knew Coyle—for that nasty brick had hit him square in the chest, toppling him back against the opposite door with a banging thud; and that got him extremely riled up. It felt like he was toying with me specifically, not making any actual attempts on my life, but the anger that doused his voice then and there… That woman had placed herself in danger for me. Not even another second passed before the bright flash of hot, white light and the sweltering numbness of being caught in a stun rig (for the first time ever) washed over me. I was unable to so much as open and close my jaw. Anything, really. But a pair of arms had suddenly hooked themselves beneath my shoulders, dragging me quickly out from the police vehicle through the broken window.

She had waited to introduce herself; about fifteen seconds later, Coyle had unlocked the vandalised door with a key of his own, grunting as he stumbled out from the vehicle. I had been carried behind a stack of wooden planks, near where one of the generators lay dormant in the dark. Coyle had stormed off into a room opposite of our position, screaming out in enragement, ‘Gone and taken my lucky rabbit from me, have ya?! Always the cops bein’ fucked in the end, ain’t it, Clyde! Just like you wanted… The law means nothin’ to ya.’ The mysterious woman (Reagent?) waited until his rampage was over to release a low whistle and shake her head with a chuckle—just as Coyle had done in that fucking sedan.

Lucky rabbit. Lucky bunny. Luck. Rabbit. Bunny. Those fucking words. Those fucking words meant something. But here was the million-dollar question: why the fuck me?

‘You’re lucky that depraved fascist didn’t take your ass seriously, else you’d be overcooked meat for the next Reagents to puke and trip over.’ Those were her first words to me.

When I’d asked for her Reagent number, she merely sighed and shook her head twice over. ‘I don’t go by that fuckin’ number in here, sweetie. It’s Dorris, or it’s nothing. No freakish numbers to objectify ourselves.’ I had questioned what she meant by that last word: ourselves. But she only eased a brow and glowered. ‘Follow and don’t fuck us over with that peppy mouth of yours. That’s right. I heard your remarks to the blue bastard. Bold, and I like it. But out in the open, kid, this ain’t no place to fuck around.’ And we had shortly after reached a rickety ventilation shaft (clearly been opened by Dorris and potentially any other Reagents who knew the layout of this set; but why?), to which she had practically shoved me inside the slender cavity. Claustrophobia; exactly why you couldn’t entertain it here. Why couldn’t Easterman have been studying the effects of claustrophobia on the psyche instead? After a few bumps and inclines, we’d reached a rather spacious opening in the ventilation system; here, a few single-person mattresses lay, magazines similar to the one Miss Barlow had been reading, contraband I’d never seen before (looking rather tinkered with and unique to the stuff sold by Mister Noakes), basic toiletries and canned food, and a single, discarded E.S.O.P. that was riddled with scratch marks, imprints of odd drawings, and a clear burn mark on its right side.

Of course we didn’t stop here; instead, Dorris guided me through another opening in the vents, and after falling headfirst down to the concrete floor below after her (granted, it wasn’t a very high drop), I could never forget the audible gasp that escaped my hoarse throat.

‘The Shuttles.’ That was about all I could muster with my singed throat.

Dorris had patted my shoulder in a motherly fashion, but she had turned quickly on her heel. Motioning back to the Shuttles, I was confused as to why she would choose to go back into the Thin Blue Line. ‘I’ve got some unfinished work that needs doin’, kid. You’ll see me back there in time, but don’t keep an eye out. That appease your curiosity?’

It didn’t. I needed to know more. But for now, those Shuttles were the damn-near Gates of Heaven. So I left—not looking back once to so much as scan the open area for him: for Coyle. I’d grabbed absentmindedly at my throat, wincing in pain as the skin began to peel off beneath my finger nails, and I decided quickly that scratching at it was a terrible idea.

Well, I just scratched at it now, as I write this. But, on a far brighter note, I’ve acquired a sort of makeshift ankle brace from Mister Noakes; it’s really just a weighted towel of sorts, but once wrapped around my ankle, the immense pressure that had been constantly pounding against it had raised a tad. But not even he asked about my neck; no one had. Was this normal amidst the Reagents? Were injuries of such severity normal? It was honestly all so interesting to me, and I found myself almost flaunting my acquired lesion, as if to say, hey, I’ve been through horrors far worse than you, to any passerby. But at the end of the day, seated back here in my lonely bed, I can only ponder over who Dorris truly is, and why I’ve not seen her around the Sleep Room. Or anywhere, really. Who is she? And how did she know exactly when to take aim at Coyle? Why did she help me? Oh, God. Coyle. Is he okay? Maybe I need to go back in to find out for myself. Maybe that’s what she’s doing? I should be doing that. What the fuck am I going to tell 44100 now? My next task was meeting with 44100 and making up some sort of… lie.

Fuck. Would 44100 become the next Snitch? Or worse… Me?

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