What do you do with prisoners who pose a threat to your authority? You gag them ,chain them, beat them to a pulp, shoot them, lock them up in high security dorms with electric collars, slowly torture them day by day, poison, starving, drowning, burning, anything insanely treacherous that comes to mind and leave them to lick their wounds.
To be honest, it could have been worse. I've been placed in isolation since we'd been escorted to the officer who furiously lectured us before sending us off to seperate cells, chained and hand cuffed. I presume it is the same for the others.
The cell they'd placed me in was no different from the cells they used as our dorms. The same set of beds, bathroom and tables. The walls were all painted white and there were no windows except for the small barred square on the door for the guards to see into the room.
It was an hour later before I had any company, although it was unwelcomed. An officer who introduced himself as Brenton, stalked in confidently with a pad of paper and pen. He sat down silently, calculating and watching my face for signs. Then he started shooting questions. What were you thinking? What were you planning to do? How did you get out? Who's idea was it? The list went on. I held his gaze and never let a word slip from my mouth. Subtly the expression his face hardened with wrinkles, as time passed. The obvious anger building up within him.
At last he snapped. "Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Are you going to talk?!" Our eyes met with a scowl. "Guards!" Well, I guess I brought this on myself. With less then a seconds notice, two bulky men dressed in the classic black uniform shot through the door. Each had taken one of my shoulders and were running at full speed shoving me against the wall, hard. A wave of cold air hit my body as my arms grew numb from their iron grip. " How did you escape?" Brentons voice echoed boldly within the room, a snark smirk spreading against his face. "Still no answer?" The grip on my body lifted, to be replaced by a fist against my stomach. I doubled over gasping, clutching my sides, unable to move, as the second guard threw a strong kick at my thigh, leaving me on the floor. "Who's idea was it?" Against my body's will I was forced upright again. The guard held me up in an arm lock, pushing the socket close to breaking point. "Last chance" I coughed. Fear eminating from every fibre of my body. "Finish it" The door opened a crack and Brenton walked out before the locks closed.
I screamed. A loud crack engulfed the room. Crack. Followed by another. Crack. Throbbing pain engulfed my right arm slowly eating away at my whole right side. The two guards continued to punch at my stomach as I was sandwiched against the wall sliding into a heap on the floor. The first guard reteated as I started falling to my side, the other threw one last powered kick. I hurtled right into the desk, shattering my knee against it, as it tipped over, before falling helplessly to the ground. The two men exited the cell as faint figures.
I shuffled, pulling what little strength I had together against the pain. But was left to no avail. I couldn't sit up, I couldn't even manage a full lung full of air. I wanted to tear my arm and leg off. I wanted the pressure against my chest to disappear. I wanted to stop gagging. But we never get what we want.
Someone help me, please? Pride & Dignity are pointless when you can't even move.
I don't know how long it was until a muscled round woman dressed in white walked into the room. Her motions were rough with no grace or elegance, as she handcuffed me. My arm refused to numb down. She hurled me up by my uninjured arm, and kept me upright as we shuffled slowly out of the cell and into the hallway. I could barely keep my eyes open as I watched the lights that reflected solemly on the floor. I stopped watching the doors slowly pass, and hobbled mindlessly, until we reached a room at the far end of the hallway. The woman unlocked the door knob then slipped a card into a slot which released another set of locks. As we shuffled in the door closed behind us. She lowered my onto the stretcher, adjusting the backing before pushing me up against it. Her face grimaced in amusement when I winced as she shifted my leg up. The outsides of my stomach sunk in, as the new exposed and not curled up position sent me into a fit of suffocation. Starting up the oxygen tank she placed the mask against my face and shifted my left arm up to hold it there, before rustling through her metal bench. The rustling continued for a long while before she came back with a peice of cloth and a tray of bandages and other material. Placing them to the side, she pulled up my shirt, pressing her fingers against my ribs. "1..2..." She pondered, but didn't elaborate. She then moved down to my legs, putting pressure as she asessed the bones. When she'd finished she placed rolled up towel below my injured knee. Gently, as she could be, she rubbed a cold serum around it, which merged with the pain. She then wrapped it lightly with bandages and slipped on a brace. My fingers gripped the mask and I nearly fell back into choking, as I winced. Then came the worse part. Our eyes didn't meet, she didn't say anything. Rather she swiftly moved onto my shoulder, stopping briefly to analyse the details, before grabbing hold of it. I screamed, into the mask. Stopped breathing. Her strong hands forced my shoulder back into its socket, shifting the cracked bones into place. It hurt. And that is an understatement. Quickly she held my arm against my body in a bent position while correcting my dropping hold of the oxygen mask. "Breath. Can you hold it?" My fingers shook and I slowly regained my hold on the mask. A sling replaced her hold of my arm, I barely had a second to think before I screamed again. The bones in my wrist shifted under her palms, reforming into its proper shape. I blacked out.
"Don't think of doing anything reckless. You have 2 cracked ribs, a broken wrist, dislocated shoulder and weak knee. Do you need a glass of water?"
"Yes" I mumbled, my voice sounding hoarse and vague. The gushing of the water filling into a glass filled the room.
-----
Artificial lights. Grey walls. Shouts of angry prisoners, quarreling. People pushing and shoving, smashing against the walls, bars and the thick batons of the enforcers. I could barely walk properly, let alone push, shove and weave me way through the crowd. God, it hurt to be at the bottom. I guess its what happens when you fall from a high position. People are quick to replace you and your enemies will make sure you never climb back up. In here, nearly everyone was an enemy. Our group was the only people we could trust. The society of this place was built almost completely of gangs. You banded up, you don't have many friends. The people in your circle was who you stuck with and were most likely the only people who didn't want to stab you in the back the moment you blink. That was life.
The guards sent us back off to our dorms and our usual schedules after our 'discipline session'.
YOU ARE READING
Towards the sunlight
ActionSix teenagers band together in an attempt to escape an imprisonment that is all that they'd known. They don't remember a time before that and they don't know of the world outside. Outnumbered, their first attempt fails, at the cost of one of their...
