Georgia was wondering if she was finally dreaming. Though she always expected her first dreams to be about the necrophiliac, this was a pleasant surprise. Fire and shrapnel rained around her like a warm acid rain in D.C. Blue fluorescent lights flickered [i]on, off, on off[/i] above her and blared through her skull. When her eyes fluttered open, everything was blurry yet [i]sharp[/i] all at the same time. She tried to pull her hands to her face to shroud her eyes from the harsh colors and light, but only one came up to shadow her brow. She could make out small piles of orange and larger forms of dark blue and harsh red. Her breathing was shallow, the smoke quickly invading her senses. Georgia tried to cough the scorching smoke from her lungs as her senses slowly crept back to her. The blobs in the room became more defined and more terrifying. She quickly sucked more air and smoke into her lungs when it finally occurred to her that the masses of dark blue and red were dead bodies, most with large sections of metal piercing their guts or their brains. One man had his face crushed under a collapsed section of the ceiling, his blood and brains splattered near his head. His fingers still twitched as flames slowly began to consume his body. Bile rose in her throat, but she pushed it down and looked away to stare at her boots before she could have a full blown panic attack. A head rested at her boots, its mouth gaping wide open as a large shard of glass stuck from its throat. Georgia couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, its scalp burned and its nose bloody. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know. Its fingers lazily pried at the strap over her ankle. Georgia pushed a scream down her throat and began wiggling her foot out of the strap, already loosened thankfully to the inmate at her feet. Time was starting running faster, her once sluggish and sleepy mind finally taking grip of her predicament and taking action. Her left hand fumbled to loosen the strap holding her right hand, the ruined neurons and dead pinky finger twitching and shaking. Once the last hand strap untightened and ripped off, Georgia collapsed to the floor onto her knees, her last strap painfully digging into her ankle and contorting her fall before finally snapping. She cried out in pain, her ankle searing with pain. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, turning the pain switch off and the flight switch on.
 
Georgia crawled from the wreckage, her palms and thighs digging into tiny pieces of glass, but she ignored the blood pooling in her hands and on her uniform. The guards could go fuck themselves if they yelled at her for ruining her uniform. She wiggled into the hallway and jumped up, surveying the area. More grotesque bodies and more shrapnel lined the walls. Ash scorched the loose white frames of the ceiling, threatening to collapse any moment. Screaming and the sound of bodies sizzling surrounded her. The doors lining the walls had shadows pounding against their frames, the hinges becoming looser and looser with each slam. Angry and desperate voices screeched from the inside as the blaze slowly inched closer and closer, closing in on its prey. Georgia soared down the hall despite pain resonating through her ankle, fearing what hardened criminals waited behind the doors. Georgia wasn’t some terrorist or cold blooded murderer. She was a street prostitute. She could never compete with the skills and thought process of her peers.
 
As she continued to barrel down the hallway, more and more disfigured bodies began to pile over one another, as if they had been in combat when they both suddenly dropped dead. Georgia stopped to regain her stamina and paused to examine a body. Two girls with hulking shoulders and broad, bloody fists lay dead in the hall; one’s face was smashed in a wall while the other’s chest was pounded in, her ribs pressing up against her skin. She did not breathe but her eyes still fluttered, as if she was trying not to fall asleep. Her chin wobbled and her foot twitched. Georgia stared incredulously at the inmate, her mouth open in shock. Sickness surged through her stomach, and she purged at the woman’s feet, her bile scattering over her boots. She leaned back, landing flat on her ass with her hands flailing in the air. Her [i]Prime[/i] chip pressed against the skin of her wrist, turning the area into a white square. She glanced at her other wrist and read her prisoner information.
In bright white letters the words [i]terrorist[/i] and [i]murderer[/i] stretched over her veins. She huffed a short and wry laugh. They might as well have put [i]whore[/i] there as well. Not like she hadn’t been called that before.
 
Bellow her listed capital crimes, [i]22:07:2235, 10:49[/i] read on her wrist. No, no, now she had to be dreaming. She couldn’t be stuck in that ice box for over a hundred years. No, they would’ve pulled all the inmates out if the program failed and shipped them back to Earth either to be transferred or to be executed.
 
Her chest constricted as she told herself blatant lies, a million explanations and fears screaming in her head all at once. Her lungs swelled and tightened, forcing the air and smoke from her system. Her dry throat narrowed, blocking her trachea. She collapsed and leaned her failing body against a wall, pressing her sweaty forehead and arms onto the cool surface. [i]Calm down,[/i] her mother’s scratchy voice echoed in her head. [i]Steady your breath,[/i] the voice in her head urged. Georgia pushed away all of her thoughts. She put away all the adrenaline, guilt, anger, fear, and uncertainty that stirred uncomfortably in her gut and forced it into a locked box. She cleared her mind and clenched her fists, her left hand scrambling to catch up with her right hand. Her fingernails dug into her palms, her scar especially biting through her body. Her blood spiked as she focused on the low ache vibrating through her bones. “You’re alive,” she whispered to herself. “You’re here.” She slowly sucked air through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. “You’re alive.”
 
Georgia yanked herself back up and began running from the scene, adrenaline rushing back to her skull. Just as she began to barrel through a door, she could barely make out words through the air.
 
[i]”Hey fuckface!”[/i]
 
Her brain could barely grasp the words before a boom echoed through the open air. Blood and brain matter splattered at her feet just as she rounded the corner.
 
A man lay on the ground, his face blown open, the gap between his eyes leaking red. Three female inmates were a few yards; two knocked down and one standing proud with a gun. Georgia’s eyes immediately honed in on the gun, its barrel glinting in the fluorescent lights. She gulped, her throat dry. She wanted that gun. She needed it.