Thank you! Haha I'm a big fan of open-ended shorts, sooorryyy ;)

That's actually really, really cute! :3

Jfc that was a plot twist I was not expecting. Brilliant though :)

"how DiD you Do that backwarDs b?"

That was adorable!

I quietly pad over to the door and lace my fingers around the metal bars. I try to get a peek at the new guard, Cabiner, but he's not in my line of sight yet. I glanced at my wrist again. 0 hours, 01 minute, 12 seconds. The watch begins to itch, and I let go of the cage to scratch at my arm. I can hear the footsteps getting closer. I scratch harder. My heart beats faster. I can see Kilapis now. His mouth is moving, but I don't hear any words. He sees me and motions for me to go back to my bed. I stay planted firm. That's when Cabiner appears before me, ravenously scratching his arm through his uniform sleeve. Irritated, he unbuttons it, revealing his own watch. I cannot see the numbers from where I am. We meet eyes, and my itching arm is relieved. At that exact moment, my watch falls off, and I watch in utter horror as his follows suit. [the end]

My cellmate snores again, but Kilapis knows well that nothing can stop her. I busy myself in counting how many times she snores in an hour. Her average so far is at 157 times and I'm counting the fifth hour when I realize I'm counting the fifth hour. I stop and she snores on, unaware. I can almost see my heart beating out of my chest. 0 hours, 07 minutes, 43 seconds. Okay. I begin to pray. I've never been all too religious, but I think this is as good a time as any. 'Dear God,' I say, 'please help whoever my Soul Mate is cope through not finding me. Please do not let him go down a screwed up path.' I could swear I heard my cellmate say "Amen," but I could also be hallucinating. 0 hours, 04 minutes, 03 seconds. I hear Kilapis get up. He opens a door farther away from my cell. "Officer Kilapis, let me introduce you. This is our newest guard, Officer Neil Cabiner. Show him around, why don't you?" The door shuts closed with a click, and something forces me to my feet. [tbc]

Maybe my Soul Mate is sporty. Or is he bookish? I wonder if he's smarter than me, or I than him. I cannot stop thinking of him that day, only naturally, as our clocks are ticking. By the time I lay down in bed, awake as always, my wrist reads 0 days, 8 hours, 54 minutes. The next time I check, the days counter has disappeared and the seconds counter has appeared. 5 hours, 28 minutes, 16 seconds. I feel my heart involuntarily beating rapidly. I wonder if he's experiencing this, too. Is he asleep? Is he awake? Is he thinking of me, perhaps? I turn my face to the wall, placing my warm, sweaty hands onto it's cool surface. Then I put my forehead against it. I tried desperately to even out my breath. Manny Kilapis must have heard me because he walks over to my cell. "Quiet!" he hisses. "I don't care if you had a bad dream or what, you shut your damn pot hole." Unlike Siwy, Kilapis isn't very highly educated. 'Barely scraped by' is apparently enough to be a prison guard. [tbc]

He slams his baton against the metal railings of our cell and my cellmate quits snoring, not quite awake yet. "Hey, 707, what's the time?" he asks me, following with another laugh. It's become something of a running joke, ever since one of the night guards saw my watch and told all of the others. "Time for you to fuck off, Siwy," I say. This time, Tuck is the one chuckling. "Calm down, Howie, it's probably just her time of the month." I roll my eyes, and by habit they land on the numbers that have been haunting me my whole life. 1 day, 19 hours, 08 minutes. I decide since sleeping isn't an option, I might as well sit up and read. The same book, the only book here. The Stranger. I'll say one thing about Albert Camus, is that he was a strange man. And so my day starts, uneventful; and so my day goes on, uneventful; and so my day ends, uneventful. I won the game of basketball for my team during our rec time. That's one thing that's improved during my stay here: my sports ability. [tbc]

Her watch fell off when she was fifteen, but at sixteen her Soul Mate overdosed on something they were doing together, and it drove her mad. Not mad enough to be criminally irresponsible, though, that's a point she's drilled quite well into my mind. She's pissed, and I can't say I don't see why. I hear the jingle of keys and footsteps — two sets. The morning guards have clocked in. "There's gonna be a new transfer tomorrow. They say he was raised in Alcatraz. Real strict that one," says one if them. By the gruff voice, I identify him as David Tuck, a short and plump man. The other guard laughs. It's the high ring of Howard Siwy, the "bad cop" to Tuck's "good cop". "Ain't nobody walkin' into my prison on a golden throne. He's'a gonna hav'ta prove hisself." Siwy's an educated man, don't judge him so quickly. His natural drawl only comes out when he's discussing something he's passionate about. [to be continued]