Sisters in Arms

One day.

That was their mantra, their motto, and their promise.

Two girls stood holding hands in front of a drab, gray wall. Together they imagined the possibilities of things awaiting on the other side. Their minds were so depraved of experience that they had a hard time picturing anything other than what they were used to: smooth metal corridors, colorless cells, and electric barriers.

The girls stood on a crack-less cement pavement walkway, perpendicular to it's suggested trajectory. Two lines of others just like them marched behind them wearily. The echo of their footsteps bounced around the seamless walls and up to the high ceiling, cascading back down again; a self-conducting orchestra of despair. Before long the chains shackled to the arms of the dreamy prisoner girls were pulled along by their compliant partners-in-captivity. They were ripped out of their meditative state and fell in line with the rest of the despondent many. One day.

One day.

Each day was the same thing for the girls. Everything was the same. Though this prison housed no torture, no pain, and no physical suffering, it touted a psychological burden that was much worse. They were in cells side by side and exactly alike, just as everyone and everything else. All the walls smooth and dark gray, all the floors stone and hard on foot, all the ceilings high and white, all of the areas restricted by visible electric barriers, all of the guardsmen cloaked in silence and black and default mask. A world devoid of feature, and vacant hope. Even the skin of these unfortunate prisoners has grown simultaneously dismal and porcelain in the unnatural halogen glow overhead. There was no ambition or desire or aspiration among the prison folk; optimism sank and circled the drain. Yet two young girls had an innate desire for freedom. Two young girls who were born into this colorless madness found each other and found a way to look upward and onward. Each day, on the walk to the feeding hall, they stepped out of line and faced their wall. It was theirs now. And with their faces mere inches from it, they searched their own minds, apart and collected, for a life on the other side. Talking in whispers, they would build pleasant confusion in one another. I bet there is warmth out there. And soft. And fresh. For these things they longed, having only had involvement with their counterparts.

After stepping out of line for only a few short seconds, not even enough to constitute one single minute, they would be tugged along their path and ushered back into the succession. Back to the plain and ordinary and life as they new it. On the outside, they were just like everyone else around them, generic and manufactured and docile. Inside though, they were combating their surroundings. Before they get yanked back into the life of nothing, they sprinkle water onto the soil and seed of their hearts. If any two words could hold vast meaning it was the two words they chose to inspire life in their born-dead vessels. One day.

One day.

She awoke naturally, turning in bed in a just-woken state of confusion. All at once her head was flooded with questions. There was no blaring morning alarm pouring out of the wall speakers. There was no guard outside her door, and even stranger, the electric prongs that normally create a cell door were uncharged and dull. With trepidation she approached the area of the non-existent electric field, and after a seemingly long session, stepped through to the short outer corridor. She ventured to the cell to her left and looked inside. The girl's eyes met; one pair out in the corridor, the other pair above a huddled body, knees and chin keeping each other company. Strength was to be found in each other, as usual, and they joined hands to walk the hallway. The reached the end, where they normally are herded for roll call, and walked in with a triumphant disdain. A gun was shoved into their collective. It wasn't a merciless and stoic guard, but a man with face and color and care. He spoke to them. He hugged them. He told them an army had finally been mounted. The war was being won. They were about to be freed. They knew of no war, no army, no freedom. They knew of one life and one home and one master. They had nothing to say. There was no response to be given, but it was not waited for, anyway. He grabbed them and ran them through their course. All the familiar sights had given way to things unknown, and they could not comprehend the new features being placed before them. It was as if you had grown an altogether entirely new sense and your body couldn't process the new stimuli given. They passed by salvation and justice and intervention long-awaited, without acknowledgment.

The following moments were erased from their memories. Not due to any force other than inability to retain. The soldier led them to a leader. The leader led them to a gate. They were spoken at and congratulated and hugged and talked to and overwhelmed. All of this forgotten in favor of the ultimate memory. The one they had pretended to be having the whole time. The memory they had been dreaming of without knowing what it possibly could be. The only memory they could ever want.

They were led to a gate. A button was pressed. The interlocking teeth of the only irregular wall they had ever seen began to separate. All was white for a while.

Before they had realized what was happening, they had been ushered out into open air. They choked on the freshness and the liveliness. They were scared of the cool green grass and the gentle, invisible drifting winds. Their nostrils were flooded and overflowed with pollen and smoke and pheromones and sweat and blood and all manner of earthen delight. Finally, their eyes adjusted to a powerful sun. It took time, as it was their first exposure. Involuntarily, their hands had already clasped. They stood triumphantly outside the prison and turned to face it. It's walls burning and crumbling, and the black flag atop it being torn down and trampled on. Their only home ever was being demolished and desecrated and it brought legitimate, natural, innate smiles across their faces. They turned again and faced the outside. The outside. The perfect memory. Their heads turned inquisitively and sharply as they took in the greens, reds, browns, blues, oranges, and yellows of the flora and fauna. Unnatural shapes reared their heads in the form of trees, clouds, fields of green grass and ferns, roads, hills, valleys, skies, dirt, and rocks. Their shoeless feet dug into the soft mound and they fell to the ground with tears of elation. Cuddling and rolling and feeling. After an eternity of experience, they found themselves stood once again. Much of the commotion had died down. And they found this time appropriate to pay tribute to their saving grace, their mantra, their maxim. One day.

Day one.