The Sleeping Prison

Chapter 8

"The best way to keep a prisoner in prison is to make sure he never know they are in prison, or in this case it's a her."
Leo sat straight up. She had been dozing off. After "breakfast" she and Eli had come back to her room and they had talked. Of course nothing of what they talked about was important, well it was important to Eli.
She talked about what the latest fashion train is, the cute boy who works in the gardens, and something about a dog named Fro-yo?
Let's go with she had tried to pay attention but she couldn't.
"Who said that?!" she said looking around.
Eli gave her a weird look.
"You may have been sleeping, how very offensive!"
"Sorry Eli. I really was-"
"How peculiar this prison of yours is. It takes their worst fears and puts them into shapes she knows. Very clever." The second voice was clear but still sounded miles away.
"Did you hear that?!?" She yelled getting from the bed and moving though the room.
"Leo your making a mess! I'll have to clean this later! Your imagination is getting away from you."
"Sorry about the room but I must know where those voices are coming from-"
"Voices?!? Are you mad? No one was speaking!"
"Maybe I am mad." She continued to hound though the room.
"Will this do the trick?" Said voice two.
"She'll work her way out, one way or another, stronger or broken." Said voice one.
"How long has she be out?" Asked voice two.
"A day, not long," responded Voice one.
"Where are they?!? I can hear you!" She yelled at the wall. She was mad.
Then she seemed to lose whatever weird spell had come over her. Her head aced and her body throbed.
She layed down. Eli came over and put a small hand on her forehead, like her big sister would have. The big sister she sent to her death.
"Your burning up! I'll call the doctor! No wonder you're delusional!"
She got up and let the room.
Leo never in her life had actually thought of herself as crazy but now she did. She hadn't felt delusional. She had gone from extra alert to utterly exhausted in seconds.
•••
Julian still couldn't understand why that guard had let him go. He had clearly saw them but whatever, he was free another day. He was alive another day because of it and he owed it to the world and that boy that he lived on.
When they arrived after the long exhausting walk back to the willow with 7 huge duffel bags they were all sweating.
Hannah and Grace both wanted to go swimming and James and Will wanted to change their clothes. Luke was, as always, along for the ride.
Sometimes, no matter the time constraint, you just have to let you friends have fun.
"Ok guys lets go swimming," Julian said desperate for a break himself.
They went to the waterfall and all hopped in wearing their underwear and the girls wore their t-shirts.
Graced splashed everyone from the shallows. Will climbed to the top of the waterfall, which wasn't that tall, "I'm gonna FLY!" Then he jumped.
A series of whoops came from Hannah and James.
Soon the rest of the group had climbed to the top waiting for their turn to jump. Luke did a flip, when Will got to the top again he did a backflip with 3 rotations.
When he climbed out of the water he gestured with his hands for applause. Hannah and Grace clapped enthusiastically.
James dragged Grace to the top of the waterfall.
"Come on, I know you want to." He said grabbing her hand, "I'll jump with you." He said in the nice open voice that could make anyone give.
"Come on Grace!" Hannah yelled, and soon a chat of "Grace!" had picked up.
When they both jumped everyone cheered. When James and Grace swam up to the shallows Will said, "wow James! Such a ladies man, maybe next time you'll do something the girl actually wants to do."
James, as well as Grace went beat red. Everyone laughed.
They splashed each other, laughed, smiled, joked and had fun. For a second they were regular teens again with their regular lives and regular friends doing regular things for fun.
A few hours later they had all eaten a light lunch and were ready to start working again despite the longing to keep playing.
"Ok guys we need to start on our shelter, we've all agreed that it needs to be underground, so do we just dig a whole?" Julian asked.
"The roof could collapse if we did that. Maybe we should do something else." Grace added.
"We can't! It's the only way." James noted. He was right, any other plans would fail.
Luke signed under tree.
"We know we need to go underground but the roof can't collapse on us."
"That's not what he means," Hannah translated. "He means if we go under the tree the roots will help create a stronger roof."
"That will work but how do we penetrate the roots to start?" Will asked.
"We don't, we dig around them. We find a big gap as our entry." Hannah explained.
"Sounds good. Luke, James, Will, and I will start digging. Hannah you can work on a makeshift shelter for tonight. Grace keep everyone hydrated. The purifier is in my bag." Julian ordered. Will looked to Hannah. She nodded. This was going to get on Julian's nerves.
They all dispersed, the boys went to start digging. The girls did their tasked.
They worked like that for hours, right up until nightfall.
Julian collapsed and Grace gave him a canteen. He had been up for two days. Most of them had, all but Luke.
Grace had made a fairly big sized meal. She probably hated being a housewife but she knew she didn't want to do the digging.
They had found a fairly big sized gap in the roots and had dug down about 10 feet. The roots had held firm and the tree didn't fall over so both were good signs.
They had dug a tunnel about 6 feet tall and 5 feet wide and 3 feet back. Not big enough for them to sleep in yet.
Hannah had done a nice job in making a small shelter just big enough to hold them all and hardly visible. It wasn't clean but it was very helpful.
The next day they would make support beams out of wood to make sure that the tree doesn't fall right on top of them. The dirt was well packed but still rather safe than sorry.
Julian ate all of the meal that was given to him which was quite a lot and they were all quite hungry. They had beans, some sort of canned soup, and green beans. It was a fair meal that left them all full and sleepy.
Julian found it hard after dinner to stay awake. The others must have had the same problem because soon they were all crammed in the small hut.
Julian clutched the blanket given to him by his older brother right before he had died.
His brother was two when he died, his own father beat him to death. Julian's mom had then died of grief. Gone the night of his death.
Not long after they were in the hut he heard the sound of marching men. The sound of war, that soldier had followed him, he should have stayed behind to make sure they were not being followed.
But just as quickly as it had come it left. It was going to purge the country of Shiera.
They no longer could go back.
•••
Vance hadn't been expecting the new shipment of troops over the border when they came. They were fresh, he could tell, many of them harbored the same look he had when he first came here. Innocents, he thought bitterly.
He longed for the days when he was still training, he was so innocent then, no blood on his hands. The he had his best friend with him.
Now he remembered the boy he saved a couple of hours ago, looking so much like his best friend. Same features, same eyes, same lips. Only difference was the hair and how he held himself.
He stopped bitterly to his post. He had another guard helping him on duty tonight. He was a tall, heavily muscled, young man. Vance had seen him before, on the transport, being an absolute stupid head.
This will be a long night.
"Hey, bro!" He said when Vance approached. "You ready to party? I got something special."
The boy pulled out a half filled bottle of Russian vodka. It stung a little to see something from his home. Of course his home isn't called Russia officially but in all of his people's hearts, they were Russian.
Now as the boy swaying slightly on his feet did he notice he was drunk.
He slammed the boy into the wall of their post. "Your going to listen to me real closely. Your going to go to your ranking officer and turn that in and sober up. You disgrace our country, you full of yourself brat," he growled.
He let the boy go and he sprinted away.
Not long after did a replacement come, and with that replacement came the screams.
The screams of the boy being tortured. He hadn't even know his name. He hadn't known what the new rules where.
The blood on his hands only built up.