Number 249

Chapter 1: Processing

Quentin was almost blinded by the bright lights shining directly in his eyes as the guards told them all to strip down for "Processing". Quentin did as he was told and was able to somehow keep still as they searched him for any illegal contraband or weapons he may have on him. This was humiliating and it seemed one of the prisoners who Quentin had sat behind on the spaceship ride over had enough of this degrading search. The gigantic prisoner snatched away and immediately smashed the guard's head into the wall with a sickening thud, even though this guard had harassed them the whole ride over it was hard to not feel pity for him as blood seeped out from his shattered helmet and pooled below him. The guards started and afraid drew their rifles and without hesitation or warning fired at least 15 shots into the mammoth prisoner,leaving burned, charred holes all over his body, including one where his eyes used to reside. It was a disgusting site and apparently too much for one prisoner as he barfed...right on Quentin's bare foot. With a sigh Quentin slung the vomit from his foot with a kick of his leg, slinging it towards the wall where it slapped and slid down. Then the rest of guards came in to move the prisoners along through processing and help their fallen comrade. They started to move to the next room which had a manually operated door which was locked until a guard in the next room working the controls said otherwise. There was an audible ding when the light above the door turned from red to green. They shuffled along and in the next room the guards were taking no chances, laser rifles at the ready, handed out clothes to the prisoners. Quentin quickly put his on, thinking anything would be better than being nude. Then they got moved into the final room in processing, The Tag room. Everyone and their mother had heard of the tag room though few have actually ever seen it, unless you've been through the system.First they take a gun similar to a staple gun and put it to your ear and pull the trigger and what that does is injects something they call a Tag into your ear, basically what that tag does is it monitors your position in the prison and immediately puts you in their system. So once the tag is in...it's real, you're in. They shambled in and then stopped and started slowly moving forward Quentin stood as tall as he could trying to look above the line and saw the fabled Tag gun and heard the tiny click and grunt every time someone got injected and started hearing a loud buzzing noise coming from further down the line and he kept subconsciously moving forward. While he was distracted by the loud buzzing noise and what it could be, he felt a sharp, quick pain that stopped as quick as it came and he looked to his right where the pain had come from and saw the guard with the Tag gun and was immediately shoved (and i quite literally mean "shoved") along. He could finally see what the buzzing was and it was each prisoner getting a number tattooed on their arm. Quentin was dreading this, not because of the pain, but because he didn't want a number tattooed on his arm branding him as a criminal for life. He was forced down in his seat as his turn came around. He somehow forced his deep monotone voice out and said "Taking any requests?" The guard hissed at him to "Shut your fucking face before he stuck his stun rod in it." Quentin did. And then was branded with the number 249. When they picked him up and pushed him headlong into the prison's living quarters as they had done with all prisoners, they said "Welcome to the Abyss."