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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Part 7
"The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitude."
Reliving
June 19, 2000
38 weeks to go.
"...the young, the fit and the strong who have so much to contribute..."
The words hadn't meant anything at the time. Nothing had. But, slowly, they began to work their way into his mind and, even more slowly, into his consciousness. Jarod looked up at the marks he had drawn on the wall, the sign of the weeks that he had to remain where he was. He calculated that he had been sick for three weeks - that was what a guard had replied, in answer to his almost inaudible question.
Now he mentally scratched three marks off from the chart he had drawn on the wall of the cell and slowly counted those that remained. Thirty-eight weeks. Two hundred and sixty-six days. Six thousand...he couldn't keep up the chain of thought. The calculations, simple as they were, took both time and energy and Jarod had little of either to spare.
Instead, for the first time, he began to think about the actions that had resulted in him being imprisoned. He thought of the man, able to be with his family instead of trapped in the cold, grey cell and the feelings that had prompted him to take the sentence for the innocent man swept over him again. He knew that the man was innocent. He, Jarod, had been close to uncovering the truth before he was arrested. It hadn't been a surprise when the turned up on the doorstep but it was frustrating. He had been so close. And now a convicted criminal, wearing another man's name and identity, was walking the streets, able to breath fresh air and see the sun and talk to people every day. Able to find other victims. Something twisted inside Jarod and there was a sudden sharp pain but this was different. This was the pain that would finally get him up and living again.
June 22, 2000
The room was dark and Miss Parker, as the door slid shut behind her, wasn't sure whether to be thankful for somewhere she could hide or frightened of something she couldn't see. She continued to stand just inside the door, straining to hear something in the silence and fighting to see something in the dark. It was worse, knowing that she could see nothing but a person choosing to view this room through the security system could see her hesitancy. Gradually fear built within her until she felt something twist inside her. Spinning, she reached out a hand for the button that would open the door but, instead, the room was suddenly illuminated by the pressure of her hand on the light switch.
Gasping with shock and fear, she stared at the door for a second, finally reaching out to touch it with a trembling hand and despising herself at the same time for her apprehensions. Finally, slowly, she began to turn. Each item came into her field of vision and she stared as if seeing it for the first time. Suddenly there was an abrupt movement and, catching it out of the corner of her eye, she turned and found herself confronted with the small mirror Jarod had been allowed to keep in his room. Slowly, cautiously she approached it and, acting as though it could blow up in front of her, she picked it up and examined herself carefully in it.
June 22, 2000
The corridor was wider than he remembered it but considering that he had been avoiding this part of the Centre since the last time he had visited it, soon after Jarod had escaped, it was hardly surprising that it should appear out of proportion. His eyes travelled the length of it, visually exploring the areas where he had never permitted Jarod to physically explore and the memory of this added further to the guilt he was feeling. The note hadn't helped. Sydney thought he knew what Jarod had been feeling when he wrote it but the words had only added to the burden that Sydney felt was becoming heavier by the day.
The memory of everything he had inflicted on Jarod came piling back in on him, enhanced by the words on that paper, until Sydney could feel himself bowing under the pressure. Pain had been building inside him for days, a pain which twisted and turned, seeming to burrow its way into his very core. He had struggled to relieve it, but found that it could be removed. At least, there was one way that it could, but Sydney was not yet ready for that to happen. He knew what he would have to face before it could occur and those demons were worse than the ones that tormented him now.
Finally he stood outside the door and, slowly, moved out one hand and released the lock on the door. As the door slid back, instead of the darkness and silence he expected, he was confronted by a bright light and a loud crash of broken glass.
