Episode 2: After The Darkness

Girl's Hostel - Night

MaiChelle awakens, her back against a hard cot and her arms and legs bound by plastic cuffs to the bed posts. Dazed, she looks around, peering around the room filled with girls in their pale grey nightgowns, slumbering on flimsy cots. Her eyes widen with alarm and confusion as her breathing escalates and she struggles to free herself. She weakly calls out to anyone who may hear, "Hello? Somebody…" The plastic cuffs make a dull clanking noise against the cot's metal posts as MaiChelle continues, in vain, to free herself. A girl in the cot next to MaiChelle opens her eyes which look like large black pearls set against her cinnamon skin. She presses her index finger against her dark lips, "Shhhh…they'll hear you," she says. The girl carefully crawls out of bed and perches at the edge of MaiChelle's cot. She peers down at MaiChelle's bruised face which scrunches in fear and pain. "They always tie the new girls up," she says. MaiChelle looks terrified at the girl's comment. The girl is surprised by MaiChelle's terror. She chuckles.

"You ain't from around here, is you?" she says. "Don't worry, you be alright…as long as you behave…whatcha' in for?"

MaiChelle is a little taken off by the question. "Nothing! I haven't done anything wrong! What is this, some type of prison?!"

The girl giggles. "Depend on who you ask? Go like this…" The girl demonstrates her request by grinning widely, baring all of her teeth which are crooked, stained and cracked. MaiChelle imitates the girl, revealing a set of perfectly straight and perfectly white teeth. The girl nods in approval. "Wow! Somebody gonna' get approved and promoted for sure! That one, this is true. You den' put a few notches in somebody's belt. That's for sure!" The girl laughs.

MaiChelle becomes very still, her face serious and inquisitive. "What is this place?" The girl stops laughing, her face matching and even surpassing MaiChelle's seriousness. "Look here new girl…" She hesitates as she sizes MaiChelle up. "You really don't know why you here, do you?"

"If you can just cut me loose, I can just leave," MaiChelle says.

The girl explodes into mocking laughter. "What?! And go where?!" The girl examines MaiChelle closely, climbing out of the bed and circling around her, closely looking at everything about MaiChelle. She looks at her expensive clothing, her new shoes, her perfectly manicured fingers, and the frightened look on her face. And then the girl's face lightens with a smile of victory, "Ha! A fallen angel!"

The girl, springs onto the bed, straddling MaiChelle's body and sitting on her chest. "Get off of me! You're hurting me!" MaiChelle yells, waking the other girls in the room who quickly gather around, hungry for violence. The girl viciously leans into MaiChelle's face, "How does it feel to be down in the dirt with the rest of us, fallen angel?!" The other girls who have gathered about the cot, cheer her own. A light fills the room. A woman stands in the doorway of the dormitory. The girls scatter, running back to their cots. "Kyra! Get back in your bed!" the woman yells across the room. Kyra climbs off of MaiChelle and returns to her bed. "Anymore disturbances tonight and you're all going to regret it!" the woman threatens. She slams the door shut.

DARKNESS.

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