OMG It's a Teaser!!!!!

mood: determined
pandora/ipod: "9 to 5" by dolly parton

I'm trying to jump start myself on a new WIP that's been languishing a tad while my brain was awash in BANISH and I thought posting a teaser would be better than jumper cables. A little.

I posted a different version of this months and months and months and months ago, but I've reworked the opening to something I'm vaguely happy with. Working title: CAMP 18.

The morning alarm crackled through the loud speaker a half second before blinding white light flooded the darkness, piercing the nebulous haze of his dream. His eyes flew open. Above, the rippled, rusting folds of the corrugated metal roof morphed in and out of focus just inches from his face as his eyes adjusted to the stark, fluorescent light. He looked down to the threadbare blanket--rough and frayed like burlap--that covered him.

Something wasn't right.

His heart pounded in his chest. Where am I? Where…Who am I?

Murmurs rippled through the room. He couldn't understand their words, but he could sense the fear in their voices. They don't know either.

With a screech and a pop, the loud speaker sparked to life once more. "Attention Detainees," it said, the voice scratchy with too much treble. "Please check your headboards for your location. Roll call in ten minutes."

His bed shook. He gripped the bare wood frame with both hands. Earthquake? He glanced over the side of bed and realized the floor was five feet below. Bunk bed. No wonder the ceiling was so close.

What was he supposed to do? Headboard. Right. He flipped over and found a metal placard screwed into the wood.

BUNK 22
CAMP 18
CHECK WRIST FOR
DETAINEE NUMBER

Wrist? He flipped over both hands, exposing the pale, soft skin threaded with blue-purple veins. The number was tattooed on his left wrist just below the crease of his palm.

84117

Detainee 84117. Yes, that was familiar. That's what they called him. Memories bubbled to the surface, coming up for air. 84117. He was supposed to get up. He was supposed to get dressed. His belongings would be in a trunk at the foot of the bunk. Roll call. Medicine hut. Breakfast. Familiar and yet something was…off.

"Five minutes, boys," a gravelly voice bellowed. "Five minutes." Square shoulders below a pock-marked face and a nose that looked like it lost a fight with a vegetable peeler strode down the aisle between the bunks. He wore military fatigues and shiny club tangled from his belt, slapping against his thigh as he walked.

His name is Garrity. I remember that.

Garrity caught him staring. He whipped the club off his belt and clacked it against the wooden frame of the bunk as he sauntered by. "Hurry up, 84117. Don't know how they did it in Bunk 4, but in 22 my boys are ready on time for roll call."

That's why it all felt wrong. He'd switched bunks.