Newskids

Chapter 4: Riot

I spent about twelve hours in the holding cell before I was sent to prison. No trial, the police just put me away quietly. And while I wasn't mad at them for that, it was their job, I was mad that they threw a seventeen-year-old kid into prison for a five-year sentence for murder. I didn't even need to be there long to see what a horror it was. I'd seen men get stabbed by other men. Guards shout the worst things I'd ever heard at inmates and even things I will not mention but can never unsee. I was in prison for three days, and two nights at this point.

The sun was going down, I could see that from my cell window. The bed was comfier than the holding cell at least, but it was still an old, hardened mattress like mine. In prison, they should really work towards reforming people. Being in prison is punishment enough. But it didn't seem like anyone else had the same idea.

Each of the other newskids had visited me at least once in the three days I'd been in the prison thus far. Blue, Boni, and Arcturus visited on day one, Shade and Cowgirl visited on day two, and Gold, Cat, and Splint visited me today.

The guards and prisoners alike had a love of targeting me for injuries and fights. Maybe it was because of my age, or my height, or what I did. Or all of those things combined. I gained a very reputation in prison very fast. I became known as the short, quiet kid with glasses who killed a guy. It didn't help that I'm not physically strong. Every man in that horror house was much larger than me in stature and older than me in age.

The only nice privilege I got was from the one guard who liked me. His name was Frank, and he brought me the daily paper and managed to convince the warden to give me my own cell. It was dusk, and I was reading the paper, holding it up to the light from the window hit it. Holding it up made my arms a bit sore, and it didn't help that I had several bruises and cuts as well, and I had a limp that I walked with from here on out due to my broken left big toe that I knew would never heal properly, but I could still walk decently, and even run if I pushed myself. But I knew that I'd probably limping for the rest of my life, even a little bit. A guard broke my toe stomping on it, and it was bandaged a lot. I was in pain but I'd had worse. That wasn't a fun experience. The checkered patch on my pant leg knee was beginning to fall off, my clothes were dirty and just about the only clothing that I wore that was in good shape; with the exception of my glasses, was my hat. It was just fine because I left it in my cell whenever I left it.

I was reading, when I heard a loud commotion outside, and I peaked out of my window, by standing on my bed as I did in the holding cell. I was surprised by what I saw. There was a crowd outside of maybe thirty people, and soon enough, the prison guards, as well as a few citizens, were fighting the crowd.

I squinted to see if I could make out any of the people, and sure enough, I could. Gold was in the front, and the rest of the newskids, with the exception of Boni, were all fighting. Boni was instead talking to one of the guards. And looking closer, she was talking to Frank.

This was the plan that Shade and Cowgirl mentioned. "Utter chaos" was what Cowgirl called it. If they lose this fight, I'll know for sure that no help is coming.

Outside of the prison, the fight was at its peak. Gold; who was typically a pacifist, was actually fighting a guard and in an attempt to look tougher than he was, he had a cigar hanging from his mouth. He was throwing and blocking punches while taking a few blows. Blue and Cowgirl were working together to take on a particularly large guard who was about twice Cowgirl's size, which was still much bigger than Blue. Cat was whacking a citizen who was trying to tackle her with a newspaper, Arcturus was easily pushed to the ground by another citizen. Shade was swinging a bat at anyone he saw coming at him, and he was also protecting Splint, who was throwing rocks from behind him.