The food would appear three times daily like clockwork, dropping from the ceiling in a tightly sealed paper box. Gross, dry food that didn’t require refrigeration of preparation. Food that sustained life, but could hardly be considered a luxury.
Now everything was dark, a rocking motion and jostling brought her back to the present. Misery’s vision was blurry and her extremities tingled. Where was she? What happened? She could hear metallic clinking and as her eyes sight sharpened up she could make out shapes from the light filtering in.
As her brain started engaging and her senses started coming back to her, she realised she was in the back of an armoured van, the walls being clearly reinforced as all outside sounds were dulled. Hence the jostling as the van drove over a presumably bumpy, rural road. She tried moving her hands, but they were attached to a heavy chain, the other end of which was tightened around the wrists of a small child. The other occupants of the van were equally chained up, and were either still out cold or drifting into consciousness like her.
There was a dulled thump, and Misery was thrown from the bench as the Van rocked violently before all the jostling and rocking stopped. She could hear people yelling outside the van, though the reinforced nature of the walls dulled the words. She frowned, still feeling blurry and a bit off. She tried to get up at head to the door at the back, but the chains pulled her back.
She jerked chain hard to pull the boy with her. “We need to get out of here.” Her voice was quiet and croaky, whatever shit they had gassed her with was clearly still in her system. But she was present enough to at least realise whatever was happening outside, this was her chance. She put her palms up to the door and blasted cold at it, causing frost to climb up the door and coat it. Super-freezing the metal, and hopefully making it brittle.
She kicked at the door with her feet. Still bare-foot and dressed in yellow overalls, as was the inmate uniform in the Birdcage. She rammed it with her shoulder and felt it give a little. “This is our chance.” She said with a hoarse voice, hoping that her fellow inmates had a way of getting out, or at least more core strength than her.