The Cage (Book 2)

Lockdown

The next chapter is already on Ritoria! The Cage is always one chapter ahead there! 

Lockdown

It didn't take long for me to realize that lockdowns were absolute hell and truly the worst form of punishment this 'institute' could exact on an inmate. The escort Schneider sent me with rushed us across the prison block like bats out of hell, our pounding footfalls and panting breaths drowned out by the screaming from the cafeteria, effectively keeping us from detection. The sirens turned off a minute ago, but the sounds of chaos still rose all around us like a deafening cacophony of horror.

My escort took us down a somewhat clandestine path I had never before used nor even taken note of; it steered clear of all the known guard checkpoints and avoided the cells on the ground floor.

At one point a group of guards nearly surprised us -they appeared to be headed for the cafeteria- had we not heard them coming and ducked into a darkened corridor at the last second.

Heart hammering, I pressed myself to the stained cold wall, all but wishing to become one with it. As they passed us in a flurry of black swears and thundering heavy boots, I caught the familiar sight of bared firearms...

Powerful chills shook me as the memory of that fateful night assaulted me for the second time today.

Before I could stifle the dark thoughts, I was once again standing down the black barrel of a gun, and the blackhole nearly swallowed me.

It haunted me still. For how long?

Something told me that the answer to that question was: forever.

Once we were in the clear, we continued. Speed was of the essence, it seemed. Up the metal stairs leading to the first floor we went, careful not to be spotted by any of the lookouts stationed around the catwalks, and I, like a fool, tripped on one of the steps and nearly went crashing back down the stairs. My foot began to throb, but I quickly banished the sensation to the recesses of my mind, to be dealt with later.

"Be quiet!" Hissed the escort, as if I had planned to trip. His head swiveled nearly 360 degrees, checking to see if I had given us away.

The panic smacked across his features foretold of dire consequences if we were caught all on its own.

We did not want to be caught.

"Whatcha doing out there?" Growled one of the inmates from the safety of their cell.

We were noticed.

"Yo, you can't be out here man." Piped another from the safety of his cell.

"Is that... is that the King's bitch?!"

"How come he gets to be out while we're all holed up in our cells like stinky ass rats? Shit ain't fair."

"Man, royalty sure get treated different."

"For real."

God dammit! We'd been spotted by the general population and they were bound to call attention to us.

"Move, move!" The escort all but shoved me along.

"Hey! What's going on over there?"

My stomach sank.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

A guard noticed the rising ruckus from this section of the block and was coming to investigate.

I felt like a deer caught in headlights.

Panic ensnared me in its thorny grip, scratching me raw.

"Fuck!" My escort hissed, appearing to be all out of ideas.

There was no corridor to hide in up here.

And there was no time to run back down the stairs.

It looked like we were about to get caught.

"Hey!"

I turned in the direction of the hissed call only to see the bespectacled guy calling to us from his cell two doors down.

"This way!"

He waved us over.

The escort and I exchanged a single glance before we both moved at the same time, driven by a new hope of salvation. We ducked into the bespectacled guy's cell a millisecond before the guard appeared.

Panting, we huddled in a corner, waiting with our hearts in our throats.

"What's all this noise?" The guard demanded angrily.

Renewed fear swelled in me.

What if they...!

None of the inmates who had been vocal about our sudden appearance said anything now.

But of course they wouldn't say anything to a guard. How could I forget? A snitch in prison was worse than a proven gay, a job-loving guard or a child-fucker. Snitches got stitches.

I started to mistakenly relax.

And then he appeared in front of our cell, baton in hand.

I sucked in a wheezing breath and held it.

He was scanning the cells, but by some miracle, he didn't look inside this particular cell to see us huddled in the darkest corner like cockroaches. Only the cell's owner stood in sight, attempting -and frankly failing- to affect a nonchalant pose while shielding us from view.

"Fucking cocksuckers." The guard muttered with a disgusted grimace as if all the prisoners were nothing but dirt under his boots, and then he spun around...

And stopped.

His face slowly turned to our cell and our eyes locked.  

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Well shit. 

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