2009-10-18: The Lord Is My Shepherd

Starring:

Kayley_V4icon.png

NPC:

Flint Gordon, Jr.

Date: October 18th, 2009

Summary:

Two captives of Level 5 have a conversation about the virtue of patience.


"The Lord is My Shepherd"

Level 5

It's a typical day in Level 5. Or maybe it's not day. It could be the dead of night - it's so hard to tell when locked in a box with the only means of telling one day from the next is when you receive your meals. And even then Kayley isn't sure they don't change the intervals just to mess with their heads. After about a year ago, she realized that she was getting kinder treatment than before. More people were interested in the touchy-feely aspect of capture. There was an ever revolving door of psychiatrists who wanted to know how she was feeling and what she had planned for the rest of her life. After all, she was so young. If that meant getting better food and the possibility of ever getting out of here, she played the crocodile tears and the 'my life was so hard' card. She was quite a good actress.

For the moment, though, there was no one there to watch her and she lay back on her cot, one leg dangling off the side and swinging back and forth. As she did so, she hummed a little song that she had learned back when she was free to wander. Her mother had the Holy Spirit feared into her once or twice when she thought that that was what Kayley needed to break her out of her shell. All she got out of it was a few songs, which she put to good use when she was bored. Her voice was actually quite sweet - high and still child-like.

"The Lord is my Shepard,
I shall not want.
He leads me beside
The still waters.
Now goodness and mercy
Shall follow me,
And I will dwell in the
House of the Lord forever."

Kayley's across-the-hall neighbour is restless.

It's hard to tell he's even there, but it's not like there's anywhere he could go… anywhere any of them could go. Contained like pet rats, no matter the vague, cloudy promises of seeing the big bad world again some day. If they're good. A few grunts and wheezes emerge as proof of the cell inhabitant's presence before the girl's singing can't go without taunting a goddamn minute longer.

"Well Haaaaallelujah amen!" The man shoves up from a set of push-ups, lifting his tall, tough body up from the cold grey floor and moseying to the burnt, beat up window that looks across onto Kayley's cell. Flint plasters on a sloppy, mad grin. "In case you ain't noticed, there's no Lord down here, little girl."

No matter how grumpy Flint may be, well, Kayley doesn't care. And, in fact, she may just enjoy herself a little more knowing that she's annoying someone else on this Godforsaken floor. It relieves the monotony of the days. Though she smirks from the safety of her bed, when she sits up again, her face is a blank and wide-eyed, as she knows how young that makes her look. "The Good Lord said that the meek shall inherit, sir." When in doubt, be polite. It always gets them off guard. "All we must do is wait and we shall rise again." Swinging her other foot off the bed, she plants her feet and stands up, shooting him a look through the veil of her blonde hair. "Maybe not all of us, however."

As the young Level 5 captive speaks, the man across from her cell stops being restless for a minute to… stare. Kayley has done the damn near impossible: she's shut him up. Eventually, he comes around to critique her sweet-voiced religious philosophies:

"Huh?"

Flint squints, crinkling his eyes in dull-witted incomprehension. "Ohhhh, I get it," he snaps an points above a smear of burnt, black residue on the glass. "You're sayin' we gotta be patient and the good Lord, he provides."

Though Kayley knows Flint's ability - anyone who's been on the level any longer than a week would know it by now - she finds it a shame that she can't show her own. It's one that has proven quite difficult for the Company to keep in check. In the end they simply keep her on high doses of Haitian pills to make sure she can't dissolve right through the walls or any of the guards that would bring her to freedom. Though she's attempted to fake taking them, they've gotten wise to that after some other break out and basically force the pills down her throat.

Stalking to the window, she smiles at her company across the window. It's almost a pitying smile and she rests her arms against where the window and the wall meet as if they're talking across a fence. As easy as can be. "So the good book says," she tells him. "You're so smart, I can't imagine how they managed to get you trapped in here."

The other alert captive paces off to the left corner of his window, pausing to smirk smugly at Kayley. Yeah, she's pulling the wool over his eyes. He tips his peach fuzz head up — the Company barber's getting slack — and says, "They snuck right up on us." Us? Hey, who's counting. "They almost made me an agent!" he beams, glowering not a second later. "How 'bout you, short stuff? How'd a kid like you wind up down here, anyway?" Pause. "Aside from, y'know…" He winds a finger around his ear, watching Kayley. "Bein'… crazy." They've been down here a while. Even Flint is wise to the fact that the kid is a little … disturbed.

If Kayley shows that she's put out for being called crazy, she doesn't show it. That same friendly smile is kept on her face and she continues leaning against the window. Unlike the flamethrower, she doesn't feel the need to pace. Instead, she keeps her large blue eyes fixed on Flint. "An agent?" She sounds breathless with wonder at the thought. "Why, I'm hardly surprised." Though she is at the Company's stupidity at thinking they could make him an Agent. Unless they were lying to him in order to get something else. That seems more likely to her. "Who me? I'm supposed to be 'dangerous'."

Smirking, Flint paces back and forth. He's covered in sweat from head to toe — it even stains patches of his dull grey t-shirt a darker grey — but he doesn't care. He adds fuel to the fire, literally, by splashing a stream of flames out from both of his palms. So hot, its blue. The blatant display of power serves no purpose. Flint is probably just bored. "Of course you're dangerous," the man replies on a flare of blue. Now who has the upper hand! He speaks to Kayley as if all of that should be obvious. Silly little girl. "You wouldn't'a been shoved in one of these boxes if you weren't dangerous. What'd you do, kill your dolly?"

The power show that Flint gives Kayley is taken within stride. As far as Kayley's concerned if it can be seen, it's not as powerful as her own ability. It has the telltale signs that can be avoided and warned against. The fact that he's in here without herself and the others seems to be an insult. The smile turns into something of a smirk. Without changing positions, it suddenly looks as if she's leaning toward him a bit predatorily. "Oh yes. And what a pretty little dolly he was." That smirk fades for a moment and she pouts slightly. "No one ever asked me if I wanted to be an Agent. I find that rude, don't you?"

"Maybe they're waitin' 'til you're of age," Flint suggests. Logical, right? He faces the window again, hands in held up on either side of him, grasping air, as if ready to set something on fire at any given time. A far cry from the seemingly delicate girl across from him. He smirks again, but he's quickly frowning darkly. "Hell, I dunno, though. They say they wanna help, but they don't give a rat's ass about us down here. You're gonna be waitin' a long time, you ask me!"

"I wouldn't think that should matter to them." Kayley finally has bored herself with leaning against the glass and watching this plain man bluster. As far as she can tell, he's not very interesting at all and she can't figure out why exactly he's in there other than the fact that he can light things on fire. That shouldn't be enough. "Not as long as I'm sure you will be," she sighs and turns away from the window to find something else to occupy her. "I'm bored of this now."

Flint doesn't exactly look offended that the teenaged girl doesn't want to talk to him anymore, but he does throw his hands up in the air. "Sorrr-eeeeeeeee!" he shouts sarcastically, an obnoxious squeal that penetrates the faintly muffling effects of the windows and walls. The other prisoners are probably glad Kayley is bored, too. The pyro turns around toward his cot, but stops and suddenly eyes the girl over his shoulder. "…wait, what's that supposed to mean, not 's long as I will be?"

Even if Flint were offended by Kayley's offhanded dismissal, that doesn't mean she cares. She's decided by now that he's not interesting enough for a show any more. Flopping back down onto her cot, she looks back up at the ceiling and starts humming her old hymn again. "You're a smart man. You've said so yourself. I'm sure you can figure it out all on your own, hm?"

Flint gives Kayley a long, studying look. …in the end, he probably doesn't get it, but his only answer is a grunt. He glowers at the teenager for a few seconds longer, whether she sees it or not, before he slams the meaty part of his palm against the window and idly wanders back to fall into more push-ups. "Goodniiiiight, crazy girl." Even if it might be morning or afternoon.

Kayley is pretty sure that Flint won't get it, and that's what makes her smile and finally interrupt her humming in order to get a last parting shot in. "My dolly was much larger than you, Flint Gordon. He thought I was a shiny new toy for him to play with. He didn't realize he was the one who was in the toy box. Did't realize it until I took him apart and buried him in the sandbox with all the other bad dollies." The humming is back again. And after a moment, she sings again.

"Now goodness and mercy
Shall follow me…"

The young blonde girl pauses and then adds in her sweet soprano, "Sleep well, Flint Gordon."

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