Chapter Three: December 16, 1942 Again

8:37 — Icy water runs down my body, but I don't care. More important was that I wash the garbage stink out of my skin.

"A-achoo!"

Though if I tried to keep showering, I'd probably catch a cold. Sighing, I reluctantly turn off the water and don the towel, wiping away the moisture.

The shower door opens, and a half-dressed Red shoves a bundle of clothes at me. "Get dressed. We need to see Leader," she orders, and withdraws behind the door, shutting the said opening behind her. I pull the clean clothes on gratefully.

When I'm fully dressed, I cautiously reopen the door. Red is waiting expectantly, fully dressed (though how she'd gone from half-dressed to fully-dressed in under two minutes was beyond me, since most of the girls I knew took about ten minutes[1]), and she seizes my wrist and starts dragging me to another room.

I'd never bothered looking too closely at Red: I'd only bothered paying attention to her to find her general information out of curiosity. I didn't even know what color her eyes were. Her hair at a glance was dark brown, like the average Jew.

Now, as this peer, half a head shorter than me, drags me around this unknown house, I can't help but notice that her hair has a slightly red sheen. Her eyes I thought were black or brown back before this mess—again, I'd been expecting the average Jew, as could be found in my and most other schools—but now I remember from when we collided that they're a bright, shimmering blue, a lot like my own eyes.

She stops in front of a blank wall and runs her free hand over the surface, searching for something. Then she releases my wrist, crouches down, and starts prying up the cheap plastic flooring. Under the tiles is a black circular grate, with a plastic netting, and under the grate is a stairwell that spirals steeply down into darkness.

"Come on," Red mutters, her fingers closing around my wrist again. The grate had been unscrewed, and the way down was clear. Not that I want to go down, but it doesn't really seem like I have a choice.

"Wha—where are we going?" I ask nervously. I'm not scared of the dark, and I'm not scared of heights, but a combination of the two seems extremely dangerous. She pushes me down brusquely, until the top of my head is just under the floor-line. Then she turns around, screws the grate until it falls under the floor, and begins collecting the tiles to set back into place. Once she's managed to get the tiles where they're supposed to go, she screws the grate back into the hole and rearranges the somewhat disturbed floor pieces. It's pitch black.

The sound of something scraping makes me start nervously. A fire sparks to life behind me, and I turn around to see Red, her features eerie and shadowed.

"Stick to the outer wall, Red advises, and touches the match to a hollow in the central rail. The flame visibly spiraled into emptiness.

"Alcohol," I breathe. Red murmurs confirmation and scoots in front of me.

"Come on," she repeats. "I don't much like this place, and we just moved headquarters, so I'm not used to it yet."

I shrug in response, and focus on not killing myself on the steps.

End Notes:

[1] (though how she'd gone from half-dressed to fully-dressed in under two minutes was beyond me, since most of the girls I knew took about ten minutes) — most girls take forever to change, I am not kidding. Sometimes I'm done changing by the time some other girls have unlocked their baskets! But then, even guys have trouble getting out of the Phys Ed locker rooms faster than me, so it's subject to opinion. =3

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