Fade to black

"Nothing in this world is certain but **** and next winter's snows."

- Unknown

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Soft flesh hammered on steel, a gong echoing loudly through night. A chorus of hinges scraping against each other rose up to join the melody before finally, silence.

Light bloomed like fallen cherry blossoms, covering the ground as the door eased open inch by inch. Heat from inside rushed up to fight its way out, but it was a futile effort in a war it couldn't win.

The metallic chorus rose up once more, and then, mercifully, she was inside. Warmth enveloped her skin like an old lover, nuzzling at her neck softly as it eased some of the chill from her bones. She was home. She was safe. Safer.

Her eyes stung as her night vision faded in the new brightness, but the sensation soon faded. The space she found herself in was a small room, if something the size of a small kitchen even qualifies as a room. She could have crossed it easily with four of her short paces. The waiting room to get into Hell was probably more inviting than this place.

White tiles dominated floor to ceiling, and that's using the word white in its loosest possible sense, most were so crusted with what she hoped was dirt that they'd probably forgotten what their original colour had once been. An old couch, so battered it was next impossible to tell if the material covering it had ever held a pattern, was wedged so tightly in one corner that you couldn't have squeezed a cigarette paper between the back of it and the wall. It was so moth eaten, there were serious doubts about whether it could hold it's self together much longer. She didn't dare chance sitting on it, neither of them deserved that cruel fate.

Scattered opposite the couch were a large pile of rocks, glowing faintly like dying embers. Warmth bounced off the tiles as she edged closer to them, but it wasn't enough to make her feel any better. Pulling off the gloves she wore, she crept over and got to work on trying to coax some life back into the makeshift coals.

Emptying as much outside influence from her thoughts as was possible, she let the mantra fill her thoughts. The words echoed their way through her mind as she focused deeply on them:

'I am the Lotus,
My mind the petals,
The roots, my hands
The Sun, my strength,
The earth, my body,
The water, my blood,
The breeze, my breath.'

Feeling the energy well up inside her, she let a small trickle flow up through her hands and out into the stones, watching them glow warmer as it did. Much better. Maybe a little bit of a waste, but that extra heat was like getting all of her birthday presents early. Or so she imagined.

Warmth spread slowly through half frozen fingers, up into her arms, and finally, the rest of her body. 'Ouch, guess the cold had numbed the pain of how tired my muscles were more that I had realised.' Tired was good though. It mean you could feel your limbs, and if you could still feel them, then you'd managed to stay warm enough outside.

She had seen what happened when you didn't, and it wasn't a pretty sight. It was all too easy to loose a finger or a toe out there, even a nose if you weren't careful. At least being a woman meant there was one less thing that she had to worry about loosing. She had actually seen that happen. Not as funny as you might think. A guy she knew had once tried to sign his name in the snow outside, and well. . . actually I'm not going to bother making a joke this time. Let's just say it didn't end well for him.

There were only a couple of other things of note in the room. One was a lone heavy duty metal door standing opposite where she had come in, a multitude of security cameras fixed high above. The other, was Brick.

She shot him a little smile as he made my way over. "Hey Brick. They stick you out here again? What you do this time?"

He shrugged. Considering Brick was kind of short in the neck department, the movement made his shoulders nearly touch his ears, and his beard snag on his coat.

Brick was the tall, dark and . . . quiet type. You'd better hope he had some brains in that bald head of his, because he sure didn't have looks to fall back on if he didn't. He had a face that looked like it had been chiseled from stone, with a sledgehammer by a blind man, and a body built like the boulder that stone probably came from. Not pretty, not ugly. Just, pretty ugly.

She shot him another look.

"Nothing," he growled. "Honest."
One eyebrow cocked up inquisitively, leaving a look of disbelief lingering on him until he caved like she knew he eventually would

"Well," he said, sighing resolvedly. "Maybe I tried to bring a bottle of booze out here with me for company, and maybe someone caught me with it. Maybe. Maybe they made me do their shift in exchange for keeping quiet."

His eyes met hers, and there it was. That look in there that told you that whoever had caught him earlier would be getting intimate with that bottle at some point in their future. Brick wasn't resentful of the extra shift, but she knew he was pissed at being blackmailed into doing it.

Make a friend of Brick, and he'd give his last pint of blood if it meant saving your life. Piss him off, and well, he'd probably end up taking it instead. I'll try and think of something nice to say at your eulogy. Not many people pissed him off in here, and the world was a much happier place for it.

"You took your sweet time opening the door. I nearly froze my tits off out there! Ah. Well how about a drink on me when your done here? Something nice and mellow." Figuring trying to be diplomatic with him now might smooth things further down the road, especially if she attempted to talk him out of christening the culprit responsible's skull with an empty bottle. He wouldn't waste a full one.

He eyed her ample bosom, not an easy task through the layers of clothing covering them, and snorted. “That would have taken a while.”

"Funny. But I’m serious. Sure I've got something knocking around that's strong enough to take the lining off your throat and start a fire in your belly. Might even put some hair on that head of yours!"

"You're cute. How 'bout that drink in exchange for not telling the Queen Bee you were late back?" Hmm, maybe there were some brains rattling around in that head of his after all.

"Ok, and we'll call it even. Come find me when you're done and I'll see what I've got laying around. Can I go through?"

"Oh, yeah head on in. You promise to find me something good, and I might forget ending up on a double shift," he said with a thin smile.

Crafty bastard.