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38. the tunnels

Anne awoke to a bright and sunny morning but she wasn't drawn from sleep by anything pleasant.

There was a guard in their cell banging on their metal beds with his cane, telling them all to get up and come upstairs to the hall for breakfast. The enforcer stomped out and slammed the door shut, leaving it unlocked for their exit to the hal.

Anne sat up, shaken from the noise. She ached, she hadn't slept well. Her dreams had been dark and sad. Anne had forgotten for a split second when she awoke where she was, before it crashed down on her again. She was in prison. The reality felt like a heavy, damp cloud sinking down on top of her, suffocatingly sad. Anne swallowed hard, looking around the room as she tried to come to terms with the reality all over again.

"Rise and shine, buttercup." January sung sardonically as she stood and dressed. The older girl had seen Anne's expression and she sympathised.

"Breakfast is in five minutes. You can sit on our bench in the hall," Kes told Anne, climbing down from his bunk. He pushed his red hair out of his eyes. His bright eyes twinkled. "We sit together because we dorm together, that's how it works."

Peggy looked more tired than yesterday, her mousy hair drawn back in a hasty bun. She looked at Anne and Anne smiled warmly. Peggy blushed slightly and looked away, but Anne thought she almost caught a smile creeping onto her lips. The girl was sweet. Contrastingly - Margaret's sullen face was moodier than usual, which Anne considered to be a result of the early rise.

They all dressed quickly and Anne followed the others out of the door like a lost puppy. They walked in straight lines down the corridor which was cold, grey stone, lined with dozens of identical cell doors bearing barred windows. There were numbers on each door, the only way to differentiate them. Anne saw other inmates exiting their stone cells and joining the line which lead up the creaky wooden stairs to the ground floor. Their cells were set on a lower level of the prison.

The hall where they ate was large and cold too, with high-set barred windows and many wooden benches positioned in neat, spaced-out lines. At the top of the hall stood around ten enforcers, watching with eagle eyes. Dozens more patrolled the outside of the hall and kept the line in order as they moved along. Anne felt nervous and intimidated being somewhere so large, unfamiliar and unwelcoming. The guards were all men, all of them tall and broad and Anne was again reminded of Mr Hammond. She shuddered.

As Anne entered the hall behind January she watched the tall girl take a wooden bowl from a table and January was dished up two ladelfuls of an ominous-looking grey porridge. Anne followed suit and carried her bowl of porridge to January's bench where she sat with her cell mates. Looking around the hall Anne saw the vast differences in all of the inmates... tall, short, skinny, plump, some were older almost adults and some were barely six years of age. Anne wondered how they'd all got here and what they'd done. She saw one girl with blonde hair who was staring right at her.

"Don't make eye contact with them," January elbowed Anne, jolting her from her daze. Anne turned to meet January's almond eyes. "They'll target you. You're already new so that's bad enough as it is."

Anne hastily dropped her eyes and her head down and focused on her food, spooning it in hungrily. She was so starved it took several large spoonfuls before she noticed the taste and gagged. It was disgusting, she retched. Her stomach grumbled in desperation, begging her to continue eating. Anne blanched and looked wordlessly at her bench companions in horror.

Margaret laughed cruelly.

Kes chuckled. "This food is poison, that's for sure." He nodded.

"Where did you get that bread from last night?" Anne said eagerly in hushed tones. "It wasn't so bad as this."