First little lie ♰ Keep me breathing as the water rises up again

[beingdifferent]

[The first image the camera captures is a pair of large brown eyes, blinking sleepily before widening. They dart back and forth as their owner pulls the communicator back, showing a small pale face framed by dark curls, mouth curled into a frown. Zoom back a little more and the starry expanse from the deck is visible in the background.

The girl in the foreground bites at her bottom lip, licks it, looks around again before frowning at the communicator. She pulls it up closer, staring at the screen, and speaks one word with a distinct note of fear in her voice.]

...Mommy?

Comments

[beingdifferent]

Who's Admiral?

Did I do something wrong?

[mistconduct]

According to him? Probably.

What the shit. You're like eight.

[beingdifferent]

But who is he?

I am not, I'm nine! [She huffs, as if it should've been obvious. It's a grievous mistake to make.]

[mistconduct]

Nine. Yeah. Seriously, nine?

He's just this prick in charge of where we're at. I've never met him. He's a skeeze who kidnaps fucking preteens now, apparently.

[beingdifferent]

How can we escape him? I don't think I want to meet him at all.

[mistconduct]

You're asking the wrong person. I've been trapped since January.

[beingdifferent]

That was only last month.

[mistconduct]

For real? It's July for me right now.

[beingdifferent]

No it isn't, that doesn't make sense.

[mistconduct]

Yeah, you want to know what also doesn't make sense?

Kidnapping nine-year-olds.

But for real, time's fucked up here. One of the many things. I think it might be like how when you're a prisoner you lose all sense of time, but that might be, I don't know, dramatic.

[beingdifferent]

The lady I talked to before you said I was here because I did something bad. Don't they tell you how long you'll be here?

[mistconduct]

That's standard prison. This is Barge prison. They keep you as long as they want.

Like I said; Admiral's a prick.

[beingdifferent]

But I want to go home now! That's not fair!

[mistconduct]

Yeah, life here really kind of sucks like that.

[beingdifferent]

[She is very quiet for a long moment, eyes downcast, then suddenly looks back up.]

Then what should I do now?

[mistconduct]

Your first day? Your very first day?

My first day was getting into a fist fight and getting locked up, so we don't...want to do that.

I dunno. Explore, talk to people, try to get your bearings?

[beingdifferent]

Will you come with me?

[mistconduct]

Yeah, totally. I can do that.

My name's Chris.

[beingdifferent]

Chris is a good name. Mine is Esther.

Do you know where I am?

[mistconduct]

Yeah, it's not a bad one.

Esther? Okay. Cool.


You're up on deck. Give me a second, I'm coming up from the way bottom of the ship.

[beingdifferent]

This is the deck? It looks just like a planetarium.

I'm not going anywhere. I'll wait.

[mistconduct]

Yeah, it looks like that all the time. Pretty cool, right?

Sit tight, I'm coming up now.

[beingdifferent]

It's pretty, but it's so big. [She moves a little further from the rail, quite literally sitting tight.]

Okay.

[mistconduct]

[As promised, Chris wanders up on deck, looking around for the little girl up near the rails]

Hey, Esther?

[beingdifferent]

Chris?

[She uncurls and gets to her feet (in patent leather Mary Janes and old-fashioned knee socks), standing no taller than his chest when she gets to his side. Formal as a princess, she extends a small hand to shake.] Hello, I'm pleased to meet you.