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Milo waits for Melissa for a while. But it becomes obvious that she isn’t coming, so he sets off alone. He will stop by her house after school.
He walks along, avoiding various disasters along the way. He is just approaching the crosswalk when he notices the crossing guard holding up a sign. “Stop! Milo.”
“Oh, hey Elliot.” Milo smiles up at him. “Having a nice day?”
“Fantastic.” Elliot says, with his usual grumpiness. He doesn’t move. Usually, Melissa would yell at him, but Melissa isn’t here.
“Can you move, please? I’ve gotta go to school.” Milo asks politely.
Elliot glances over his head at something, then back down at the child. “I’m not letting you past, you’re a menace! You’ll put everyone in danger.”
“I’m still putting everyone in danger from here, so you might as well let me past.” Milo points out, which doesn’t seem to convince the guy. “I-“
He feels a sharp pain, stabbing into his shoulder. And then his legs buckle. He crumples to the ground, his head spinning. He hears yelling, but it sounds like it is coming from underwater. And then he feels rough hands yanking him up, dragging him away.
He tries to struggle, but darkness is quickly overcoming him.
———
Milo wakes up on a cold, hard floor. His head is pounding, which isn’t unusual. But where is he? He has never been anywhere like this before. He is in the middle of a huge room, made of white tiles. The room is really bright. Which isn’t doing much for his headache.
Rubbing his eyes, he sits up. “Hello?” He tries. No reply. What happened?
He remembers getting up, not meeting Melissa, a pipe exploding, tripping over a tire, a tire exploding, tripping over a pipe, getting stopped by Elliot…
Now he remembers. He rubs his head as he staggers to his feet, even though he is very sore, because this can’t be good. Getting knocked out isn’t unusual for him, but this definitely isn’t the hospital. And now he’s probably going to be late for school.
“Hello?” He calls out again. “Thank you for picking me up, but I’ve gotta get to school!”
Nothing.
Ok, he needs to find a way out of here. The room is nearly entirely featureless, but there is a big metal door. He walks towards it and tries first pushing, then pulling. It won’t open. So he is locked in a strange room.
His hand automatically goes to his backpack. Which isn’t there. He suddenly realises what that funny, squirmy feeling was- he feels exposed, less protected. He doesn’t go anywhere without that. He tries patting down his pockets, but they are strangely empty. Not even a spare pen or tissue, or a treat for Diogee.
He doesn’t even have his sweater vest. Or shoes. All in all, a peculiar situation. But even without anything, he is optimistic. Whatever is going on, he can sort it out. Whatever doesn’t kill you, only makes you late for school.
There is what looks like a keycard reader next to the door. He tries touching that. A puff of smoke comes out of it, and the door slides open with an ear piercing shriek. As he steps through, an alarm starts ringing. And that’s when he sees that there is another door. And it isn’t opening.
He steps backwards, but he hits something hard and metal. He turns around, and sees another door has come down, trapping him in a small space, with the walls painted black. With an alarm ringing in his ears, a red light flashing above his head. This is definitely one of the stranger situations he has been in.
But he is sure that it will all work out.
There are caution signs, and Milo likes caution signs. So he reads them. Level Six Containment.
And then a lot of symbols. Milo knows warning symbols, and he doesn’t think that there is a single one missing. What is supposed to be in that strange, white room? Something really dangerous, clearly. Well, he can handle that.
The alarm is still ringing, but he likes alarms. He is used to them, he can ignore them easily. He scans the rest of the sign, and notices the smaller writing at the bottom. Danville Monster Containment. Next to the name, a little logo.
Any stray worry lightens immediately. He knows about them! They are in the news sometimes. More importantly, Melissa loves them. She is going to be a monster keeper one day, and she knows everything about them. So monster keepers means good.
He waits for a very long time. The red light shatters, but the doors stay intact. But eventually he hears noises, coming closer. And the door opens.
“Hi! I-“ Milo is cut off by an annoyed bark. Not from a dog, but a person. Wearing heavy protective gear in black, their face hidden by a helmet and visor.
“Don’t move!” The person holds up something, and even young Milo recognises it as a weapon. He squeaks, freezing. Even with his optimism, he knows to be cautious around someone with a weapon.
Some more people step into the tiny room. A few more people in black with weapons. And some people who are also wearing protective gear, but are wearing red. And have badges. Milo’s eyes light up. Monster keepers! “Hi!” He tries, knowing that these are good guys. “I’m Milo. I think I’m lost? I’m supposed to be at Jefferson Elementary right now.”
“You aren’t supposed to be anywhere aside from that containment cell.” A sharp voice, from a keeper. Milo blinks. “You do this again, we won’t be so nice.”
Milo isn’t really sure exactly what he did wrong. But he knows that when someone sounds like that, arguing with them isn’t a great idea. “Ok! So, when can I go home? And have you seen my backpack? I need it to handle Murphy’s Law.”
The keeper cackles. “You won’t be needing your backpack, monster.”
The door they came through closes, and the door behind him opens. The keeper grabs his arm and yanks him into the room. Milo struggles automatically at the rough handling. The keeper squeezes his arm tight enough to bruise, before throwing him to the floor. “Stay in the middle of the room and keep your hands where we can see them.”
Milo follows orders, almost too stunned to not. The door is shut again, and a team of people are working on the broken part with tools.
The keeper is speaking on a radio now. “We got it back in.” He says, confusing Milo. What could the ‘it’ be? And why did that guy call him a monster?”
Another keeper placed down a jug of water and some food on a tray, alongside a blanket. They don’t say anything to him. But they talk to each other a lot. They whisper. They look at him, with curiosity (very common), and fear (also very common), and something else too… they look at him like you do when you find dog poop on your shoe, or get gum stuck to your hand.
The intensity of their feelings is so much that he shrinks back. His hands are still up, and he is still being watched. Closely. He doesn’t understand. What is going on?
But it is becoming clearer. He doesn’t know why, but they are hurting him. They won’t let him leave. So he has to get away from them, he has to leave as soon as possible.
Just before they leave, they stop. “We need to give this thing a name.” One keeper says. “Do the honours, boss?”
“I have a name.” Milo argues. “Its Milo Murphy, and I want to go home.”
He is entirely ignored. “How about… jinx?” The cold keeper suggests. And people nod, and laugh, and compliment him.
Milo winces. He hates being called that. But it’s fine. He doesn’t understand why they are doing this, but it won’t get to him. This is one of the strangest scenarios he has gotten into, but not the most dangerous. Not the hardest to escape.
He is optimistic. He watches and thinks, he comes up with plans. He executes them. They don’t work. He only gets past a couple of airlocks at maximum, he only gets through a short tunnel before he is stopped.
But he is still optimistic. If he let a few setbacks stop him, he wouldn’t be a Murphy. He keeps trying, and keeps smiling.
Besides, even his family will be worried by now. After… well, he isn’t exactly sure how long, but it must have been a little while. So there will be police, and helicopters, and dogs. Search parties. All that stuff that happens on television. So even if he keeps struggling to escape alone, he will surely be rescued.
So he keeps trying and fighting and smiling. Even when he fails, and fails, and fails. Even when a siren brings fear to his heart, because he knows that he will be manhandled back to his cell. Even when he begins to gain bruises from hands and boots rather than from Murphy’s Law. Even when people spit cruel words and treat him like a dangerous, scary, uncontrollable monster.
Melissa would be really upset to know that her heroes are so nasty. Milo needs to tell her, when he gets out, because Melissa would never be so nasty.
One day, the airlocks all break. He runs through, ignoring the blaring alarm. He sees a corridor. He speeds up, because if he could just get out there…
“Nice try, Jinx.” The anger in the voice of the guard is venomous, terrifying. The name spat like a curse. His arms are grabbed, he is bent over so his struggling becomes entirely ineffective. A rough kick from another guard knocks his legs out from under him, and he is dragged back. Away from the corridor. A funny, painful, sad sort of feeling burns in his chest, and in his eyes. He isn’t exactly sure what it is. He hasn’t felt it before.
“The boss will be furious. It got way too close.” One guard remarks.
“They’ll have to increase containment procedures.”
“What else can they do? This is already the most contained monster I’ve ever seen, and I’ve worked here since before the boss.”
“Hey, not my problem.”
“I bet it will be our problem if it actually gets out.”
He is tossed to the floor. Held down, by a heavy boot that digs painfully into his back. “Can’t risk it getting out before the door is repaired.”
Milo squirms, but that just earns him pain. He yelps, which earns him laughter. Why do they hate him so much here? Why do they think that he is a monster? He wants his family and Melissa. He wants to go home.
Sure enough, the ‘boss’ doesn’t sound happy. Neither does anyone else, and everyone seems very annoyed at each other. A lot of that annoyance is then directed at him. “It’s feral. A flight risk.” Milo flinches. “You lot need to do something about that. It can be frightened and hurt, use that!”
Oh, Milo doesn’t like the sound of that. But he doesn’t plan to stick around much longer, so hopefully that won’t matter.
“We still need better containment.” Someone else muses.
“A cage.”
Milo’s head turns as much as it can to look at whoever spoke. “Just install a good, strong cage in the centre of the room. That’ll cut down on escapes. Another layer of protection. And that’ll remind it of its place.” The person kicks at him, even though he was too busy staring to be struggling. They won’t do that, right? That’s too far.
And then they build a cage, and he is shoved in.
And he keeps fighting. Of course he keeps fighting. They shouldn’t be doing this to him. And he wants to go home.
And he is sure that he will. Soon.
He will.