Grayson Maes's Story

All Maggie heard was the sound of lapping waves. They didn’t crash on the shore with defining noise, nor did they hit a daunting cliff face while lighting cracked, as if it were a perfect soundtrack to a gothic novel. The waves were simple. Soft. They chilled Maggie’s toes.

As her gaze slowly moved up from the sandy ground, her eyes traced over a lake that reflected the sky so well it could fool her into believing she could swim through the clouds. She felt a sense of wonderment fill her chest, as if filling a hole that had been missing for quite some time. Everything around her made her feel warm, from the birdsong that floated through the air to the flower beds spread wild. She hadn’t even minded the pollen that tickled her nose.

After a few minutes, she began to notice chatter and laughter behind her. Her reaction was odd. That pure wonderment she experienced soon turned to a feeling of love. To a feeling of being at home, to being at peace. She’d felt a happiness she couldn’t recall feeling before.

“Maggie?” someone called from the noise behind her, snapping her out of the daze she’d enveloped herself in. A small smile inched from the corner of her mouth as she began to turn around to face whoever had called her, but the scene faded away the second she caught a glimpse of brunette hair.


Rubbing her eyes, she slid from under the scratchy grey blanket that did shit all to keep her warm. Her bare feet touched the concrete stone under her, and even after three years of being here, that sudden chill of cool stone still sent a shocking shiver up her spine. As if on cue, the little slot on her heavily locked and mechanically powered door slid open, and a tray of mush food was slid under.

The only time Magnolia ever hears someone call her Maggie anymore is in that dream. It reoccurs nearly every night; she’s standing in front of a lake, someone calls out to her, and she wakes up just before she can look to who it is. That warm feelings always vanishes as soon as reality awakens.

She doesn’t get called Maggie by anyone here. Hell, not even Magnolia. She’s just an orange, a prisoner. Not like she has much interaction anyways. The only time she sees anyone is when guards file in after knocking her useless with the white noise.

She hates the white noise. Though, she can't imagine anyone liking it if the effects work on them. She has no idea how they even created such an awful thing, how this certain high pitched noise could be so hurtful and ear bleeding that all Maggie can do, all anyone under the IAAN colour classification field can do, is crumple to the ground ground, covering their ears and scream and throw up from the shear pain. It was like your head exploding but it hasn’t brought you death. Just the inability to do anything except focus on your brain as it keeps getting bombed even after it’s turned to liquid.

Yeah, she’s in no state to use her powers when that’s going on. Bastards in the Camp: 1, IAAN Kids: 0.

Maggie chose to ignore the metal platter at the base of her door. When you’re fed the most basic, non-nutritional food that was cheapest to provide, one’s appetite just dissipates. She was fourteen when she came here. Though she grew taller, she still fit the grey sweats that had been issued to her. If anything, they were a little too big for her frame.

Pressing the button at the side of her door (meant to alert whoever was outside her locked door that she was finished), the metal slot slid back open and she pushed the tray out without a second though. She clambered back onto her bed.

Just another day in her orange issued, isolated, concrete room. Truly a perk that no one could come near her while she was cognitive in fear that she would control them. Not like she would stupidly try like she first had when she’d gotten here. There were too many people. She could break one mans mind at a time, only to have to do it over and over again. As soon as she was caught, they’d shoot her on the spot, no questions. She’d heard the occasional gun shot outside her door. Didn’t take her much to figure out what had gone on out there.

There wasn’t much to do in a bland room by one’s self. Shocker, she knows. Occasionally they slipped in a few things. A piece of paper. A torn book. But really she was just left with her thoughts. She barley even had any memories to keep her entertained, to recall in order to pass the time. She remembered her parents, bits and pieces of her childhood. But after she left her window to run away there was just… silence. Blackness. It was like she’d been asleep from that point on until she was fourteen and entering the camps electric fenced gate. She didn’t know who took her memories, or what happened. Maybe it was the camp. A form of taking away what little freedom she may have had during that missing time period. Maybe the dream she always had was a memory. It seemed too real not to be—

White noise filled her room, and Maggie let out a high pitched scream as she lurched over and hit the ground. No matter how many times this happened, it was just as worse as the last. Covering her ears, she couldn’t breath, couldn’t think. Her stomach lurched as her eyes were downcast on the grey floor. Too soon, the noise stopped, but the effects lasted.

There was a swift kick to her side where she had curled up in a ball. She grunted, but even the hit to the ribs wasn’t as painful as the throb in her head. “When we give you food, you fucking eat it,” growled the guard. Turning her head with a painful groan, Maggie drank the feeling now of cool concrete. The guard was young. A shiny newness was written on his face. Excitement. Maggie had never had a guard enter her room before alone. It was a rule to go in pairs when encountering an orange. This guy was reckless. Stupid. He was power hungry, looking to excerpt dominance over anyone he could. He just picked the first target he could; Maggie.

Stupid move.
Slipping into his mind, she felt as if she was pushing through gross sludge. She wasn’t interest in looking at his memories or listening to his sickening thoughts. She just had one goal.

“Back away now,” Maggie spoke, as she pushed the action into his head. She envisioned him doing it, projecting it to his mind. No room for him to ignore the compulsion. “I’ll kill you, you stupid bitch-”, “you will not hurt me. Keep yelling useless threats.” Maggie stated intensely, though her tone was hushed. Maggie was still playing fear. There were cameras in her room after all. She had to be careful.

As the guard continued to rattle off aimless yells, Maggie continued speaking, facing her head away from the camera so they couldn’t see her lips moving. “you aren’t ever going to enter my room again by yourself, nor will you enter any other room. Do not hurt or kill any of us.” Maggie had to stop to suck in a sharp intake of breath. She was starting to feel the pain in her ribs as she whispered. “If you are ordered to hurt or kill someone, fake it. Now leave my room, and forget this conversation happened. You came in here, hit me, yelled at me, and left. That’s it.” The man obeyed without another word, turning away.

Just before he left, Maggie quickly muttered, still very much in a painful heap on the ground, “don't lock the door.”

“It must be lonely to be a ghost,” Isaac mused, absentmindedly picking a piece of grass off the brown issued pants that matched the brown uniform all those in his encampment wore. “Throwing aimless trinkets just to get the attention of the one’s you loved,” he continued, leaning back so his weight was on his outstretched arms as he gazed at the beautiful sky. “Meanwhile the others are still loving that persons rotting corpse, all the while hating and fearing the nuisance they’ve become as a ghost.”

Taking in a deep breath that smelled of fresh rain and the sweat of those around him, Izzy glanced back down at the garden of vegetables he was tasked of taking care of. Sitting up straighter, he reached out to toy with the green top of the carrot burrowed underneath the soil.

“No wonder some ghosts turn bitter. They just want to be remembered, to be seen by any means possible.” Sighing, he pushed himself up from his previous cross-legged position on the ground, and picked up the watering can. Tilting it so it sprinkled out little droplets of water, not wanting to over do it as it had rained the previous night, he almost missed the passing comment of the green walking behind him who muttered, “dude, you’re so fucking weird.”

Well, maybe next time he wouldn’t eavesdrop on Isaac’s conversations with his plants, not that he wouldn’t have minded the green joining in— but that would never happen. No one here made friends even if Izzy tried.

It wasn’t as if some of the greens and blues around didn’t want to be friendly or partially sociable in a positive way. It was just that the guards never liked it very much. If two people got close, or if a group got close, then they became concerned that they would conspire a way to get free. At least that’s what Izzy thought. It made the most common sense considering the situation.

Whistling a little tune softly, Izzy continued on with his job of watering plants, giving a small smile to any other IAAN kid who looked his way. The struggle of the camps showed on all their faces, as he was sure it showed on his. By no means was life here wonderful. They had no freedom, even if they were allowed outside to do jobs and chores unlike some of the others colours. They could mingle (within reason). Guards were around more, scattered like little seeds, always keeping an eye. The white noise was frequent, if one person stepped out of line, they all suffered the consequences.

If the guard felt like using someone as a punching bag, no one would really stop it until it got to a dangerous point. Sometimes not even then.

Izzy couldn’t remember the past couple of years in his life, no care in the world why. He didn’t care to even think of the life he could remember. This was all he knew now. He had to find a way to survive, to keep uplifted. Talking to his plants was one of the ways he kept himself sane, though he did get a kick to the head and face full of dirt when some of the guards heard him do it. However, that’s not as bad as when he absentmindedly uses his powers. It happened more often than he cared to admit.

Setting the watering can down, Izzy brushed the soil off of his palms and placed his hands on his hips, examining the garden below him. They veggies were growing quite nicely, if he did say so himself. Then again, all the gardens he had attended to over the past three years n this camp had. Of course, if they would get him better and more proper materials, they would grow even better, but beggars can't be choosers. Well... in this case it's more like prisoners can't be choosers. C'est la vie.

Picking up his materials, holding them like an awkward cluttered bay in his hands, Izzy made his way over to on of the supply sheds on the compound yard. He had done his first task for the day. Now it was time to make way and pull various weeds. He didn't mind the chores they assigned really. It kept him busy, even if his hands were extremely rough, calloused, and cut.

Setting his things down in the respective spot, he grabbed a plastic bag that he could throw the weeds into and made it back outside. He stopped, visibly startled, when a little droplet of rain hit him splat on the forehead and dripped down to the tip of his nose. Looking back up at the sky, squinting one eye shut to fend off the clear rays of the sun, he saw rain clouds quickly moving in and the pace of the new rain increased.

Giving a small pout, Izzy mumbled disappointingly, "Oh no, my plants."