S.C.D. Files: Entry Level: Top Secret
File Number: 623-78D.
The November Incident: Official Report
Search Tags: Aleta “Yeshaya” Silver, Detonation, Ryan Katraz, Brianna Thompson, Kaeotica, Renee Gupta, Jaedia Haala, Marshall Quentin, the Subway Inferno, The November Incident, Easter Project.
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Name: Brianna Thompson
Date: December Third. 2593.
Location: S.C.D. Base: Richmond, VA

[Editor’s Note: This report is abridged, beginning on paragraph nine of original document. For unabridged, acquire special permissions.]

The only reason I’m really writing this right now is because the S.C.D. needed an official report. I didn’t really know what they meant by that, so they just handed me a laptop and told me to write what I remembered, they’d take care of the rest. But, frankly, I’m not sure what to put here. A whole lot of what happened just transcends sense and words. It’s one of those ‘You-had-to-be-there’ stories; if you weren’t, it’s just a little bit too incredible to believe. I mean, come on. Who would have thought that, I, a sixteen-year old girl from Richmond, Virginia, could have landed in a position like this? I almost don’t even believe it. It’s like I was told I was the new president yesterday. It just doesn’t happen.

I guess the only way I can really get started with this story is by starting. It was November, and a miserably cold and rainy one, at that…
-~-

It was dark, bluntly put. The sounds of guitar chords strummed softly from a badly-lit room at the end of the prison corridor, a woman leaning comfortably against an instrument-covered wall, legs kicked up onto the bench she sat on, a red, electric guitar in her lap, eyes shut, playing a song that was about five hundred years old. Letting the melody to “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd float around the room, the redhead let a soft, small smile slip across her lips as her fingers moved.
Something shuffled in the corner. The woman opened one silver-blue eye to stare at the prison guard sitting there, his legs crossed, arms folded, a confused stare all that his brown eyes and thin lips expressed.

“Are the only songs you know ancient, or are they just the only songs you want to play?”

In a sort of silent reply, she opened her other eye, returning his gaze unblinkingly, instantly switching the song to the latest smash hit, “The Wonderful End of the World”, by Fishbowl, a metal band. The guard, Aaron, shook his head.

“I guess you do know more recent songs.”

“Really?” She finally spoke, albeit sarcastically, jerking her head back to flip a strand of her firebrand hair from her face, once smooth and tanned, now pale from a long sentence. The scar that went vertically across her left eyelid and downward to her cheekbone was dark, much like the rest of the razor-thin slashes on her face that somehow did not disfigure her otherwise pretty features. Fingers changing tack once more, she began to play a different song, the fast rhythm to this one making her close her eyes in concentration once more.

“What’s this one?”

“Shinedown. ‘Cyanide Sweet Tooth Suicide’—it was made about…. Four hundred eighty or so years ago. Long before you were born, of course.” She chuckled, as though that statement didn’t apply to her, also. Aaron let his wildly thick eyebrows knit together as he stared at the woman. She’d been here every day he worked at the jail, every day any guard here could remember, which was over fifty years, and yet, she still looked around twenty-nine. Shaking his head again, he leaned forward, staring at her appraisingly, elbows on his knees now.

“How long ago did you get here? I know what you were convicted for, just not when, because—”

“Because there’s no record of when.” She finished his sentence, finally pausing, placing a hand on her guitar to silence the still-ringing notes to the chorus. “What’s the date?”

“Monday, August twelfth, twenty-five ninety-three.”
The redhead looked completely lost for a moment, as though she hadn’t expected it to have been that long. Blinking for once, she stared at a wall, apparently doing the math in her head, and finally, she appeared to give up, restarting the song where she’d left off.

“A long time, Aaron. I’ve been here a long time.” The look in her eyes did not appear to be angry about it though, or even sad. Simply as though it were as natural for her to be in prison as it was for her to play the guitar. “But it’s where I am, so the time really doesn’t matter, now, does it?”

“Why’d you do it?”

She lifted her head, sighing and stopping the guitar again. Placing it to her right, against the wall with the rest of the guitars, the woman fixed her gaze on him again, eyebrows lifting. “You want to know… why I killed him?”

“No,” Aaron shook his head. “I’ve been interested in your file for a while. It says that you plead guilty, even though there was no evidence against you, except for one testimony. You should have been acquitted, and could have been, had it not been for your alleged admission to the crime. Why’d you allow them to give you life here?”

She simply smiled at him. Not a “you’ll-never-understand” smile, or a “it’s-a-shame-I’m-stuck-here” smile, it was a “I’m-glad-I-did” smile.

“I’d like to go back to my cell.” That was all she said. And, knowing her, Aaron knew better than to press for an answer.