Chapter 2
Blind folded, gagged and hand cuffed, I was led down what I
thought was a hallway. Two other people were present, dragging me along. Our
footsteps echoed loudly and faint cries could be heard in the distance, cries
of suffering, torment, and torture. I tried to shut the cries out of my mind
but no matter what I did they were always there, screaming at me to accept
reality and forcing me to realize that all hope of anything was lost.
I was in prison.
Not just any prison though, the prison of my nightmares. The prison used to
discipline and scare disobedient children. The rumours of this place were never
ending and even I, as a seven year old, had heard things I shouldn’t have about
this place. I overhead my dad talking to my brother about the atrocities
committed here and regardless of the reason you were brought into this place,
you will never be able to leave.
The Eternal Prison is what it was called. A prison made for the sole purpose of
keeping its inmates inside until they rotted away as corpses. Escape was
nonexistent; the prison consisted of tunnels deep beneath The Kingdom. In the
200 years of this prison’s existence, barely any had left it alive. For those
that did leave, they were taken out to be publicly executed. These executions
served as reminders to all of the citizens that the King was in charge of who
lives and who dies. That he alone controlled all of their lives and was to be
worshiped by his people. The only thing I had heard that even slightly related
to escaping this prison was when I once again overheard my father having a
discussion with big brother. He had mentioned a way in which a prisoner could
be released from this hell hole, and be dropped of all charges. However, soon
after he mentioned it, he declared the whole thing as rubbish, just rumours
started from the families of the inmates.
We had stopped walking now and I heard the sound of a large door being opened.
My blind fold was ripped off along with my handcuffs, and I was thrown inside
the room. I tripped on my way in and fell onto a cold, hard surface. The door
was shut behind me and I could hear the footsteps of the jailers fade.
I didn’t even bother to get my face off the ground. I just laid there,
thinking. Even now, I couldn’t accept what I had done, where I was, or how my
entire life had turned upside down in just a few seconds. Just a couple hours
ago I was living my life carefree, and without worry. Everyone was together,
and absolutely nothing in the world was wrong.
No… things were wrong. Things had been wrong for a while. There’s no point
in denying it any longer. These past two years were filled with worry and fear.
I had just been forcing my self to stay ignorant and carefree. I had never
lived in a peaceful world, from the start everyone around me was struggling to
live. Just because I’m a kid doesn’t make a difference. I need to accept the
reality around me.
Reality? What was the point? I’ve already been thrown inside the Eternal
Prison, there's no way I'm going to escape. My life had ended the moment I
stabbed Father.
It was as this thought went through my mind that I realized something important
about my feelings. Every time I thought of Father, mixed emotions followed.
However, in contrast to the feelings I had thought I would feel: guilt, regret,
and pain, I felt the complete opposite instead. Rather than feeling guilty, I
felt happy. Rather than feeling regret, I felt as if what I had done was
absolutely right and justified. Rather than feeling pain, I felt satisfaction
in his death. Though I might once have died for his pride, I was now feeling
joy in killing him.
The fact that these thoughts and feelings were mine shook me to the core. I was
happy in killing my own father and with that thought came another: My father
was an evil man. Killing evil should be rewarded, not punished. I shouldn’t be
in here. Rather than being locked up in jail, I should be famed and revered.
This whole thing was unjust and unfair, they had no right to arrest me. I
shouldn’t be in here, I need to leave. I need to escape.
No…. I did it again. I’m masking my true thoughts with these fake ones. I
couldn’t care less about whether any of this was “just”, my true reason to
escape is the very reason I’m in here. I need to escape to find my sister.
I knew from the start, from the moment when I realized I had failed to stop
them, failed to save her. I knew that she had done nothing wrong and that no
one else deserved freedom as much as her. She was beyond what one could even
call innocent. I needed to escape to find and save her.
How long I laid there I wasn’t sure, but soon I could hear footsteps echoing
down the hallway and into my jail cell. The steps stopped and a rattling noise
could be heard. Then came the sound of a lock clicking and a door being opened.
Soon the footsteps were in front of my door. I picked myself up and looked
through the small barred window on my door. A guard was outside, from what I
could see, he was wearing a small hat and had a brutal looking face. He opened
my door and two other guards came inside and grabbed me by my arms. I was
pulled outside and pushed forward. The guard opening the doors moved on to the
next cell.
As I thought, I was inside of a long hallway, consisting of cells on both
sides. The hallway was dimly lit by a few torches set up in intervals. Lined up
against the walls were guards carrying short swords at the ready. All of them
looked exactly the same, a large brown coat covering themselves and a metal
mask on their faces. They were all wearing hoods and their eyes could barely be
seen through the small openings in their masks. In front of me, the inmates who
were just taken out of their cells were lined up and moving slowly down the
hallway.
“Move it kid.” A gruff and threatening voice behind me.
I was shoved sideways, right into one of the guards, who grabbed me by the arm,
gave a low growl and pushed me back into the line. I slowly started walking
forward, behind the inmate who shoved me. He was quite large and had long dry
hair. He was wearing a matching set of black and white stripped pants and
shirt. Now that I looked at the other inmates, I realized they were all wearing
the same matching clothes. Looking at myself, I was surprised to find myself
also wearing the same thing.
When had they changed my clothes? I wondered, it must have been when
I fell unconscious on the carriage.
The line moved slowly but surely forward and it wasn’t long until I reached the
end of the hallway. The closer we got to the end the brighter it became, until
finally I was out of the hall way and directly into the largest room I had ever
seen. It was easily more than ten times as large as my entire house, the walls
were made of the same black brick the hallway and cell was, but in this room
there were many more torches. Throughout the entire room metal tables were
placed in rows, with small gaps in-between. Guards were once again placed all
around the room with their swords at the ready.
The line I was part of was moving towards a line of three tables that were not
in sync with the others. Once I reached the tables I realized that we were
supposed to take our food here, everything was already set up.
I grabbed one of the plates from the pile on the first table, and looked ahead
at what we were being served. Large pots were all that occupied the rest of the
first table and the two others, all of the pots were the same size and had the
same substance inside them. The substance was a thick grey coloured liquid. Is
this thing even edible?, I thought, but grabbed a spoonful on my plate
anyway. I picked up a spoon from one of the piles and reached the end of the
line.
It was then that I started to hear the whispers. I must have had been too
focused on my surroundings that I missed them at first, but now they were
clearer then ever. The next thing I noticed was when I stepped away from the
line and started to look for a place to sit: the stares, wherever I looked
there was someone staring at me, I could also feel the eyes of others behind
me. Of course, I thought, it can’t be everyday that you see a seven year
old kid sent to the Eternal Prison. Hmm, now that I'm looking closely, everyone
seems to be looking at me with a strange look, amusement... That’s not good.
Before I know it I’ll be treated as a play thing.
I tried to ignore the stares and whispers as best as I could and quietly went
to find an empty table, so as to avoid contact with the inmates as much as
possible. Finding one, I sat down and stared at my plate, almost as if just
glaring at the grey mush would make it seem more edible. It did not; rather it
made it seem every more disgusting then it previously had, if that was even
possible.
Knowing I had no choice, I grabbed a spoon full of the mush and brought it to
my mouth. I plugged my nose with my other hand and forced the substance down. GAH,
That was way, way, way worse then what I had thought. There’s no way I can even
think about eating another bite, no way in he-
“Hehe, don’t worry, the first one is always the worst. It takes just a little
getting used to is all.” Without realizing it, one of the inmates had sat down
on my table, right across me. He was a tough looking man, but yet his face
wasn’t as mean looking as the others. He had dull grey eyes and a large scar
ran from his left cheek down to his chin. Surprisingly, he was smiling at me,
though something about the smile seemed a little off.
I just stared at him, immediately on guard.
“Ah, excuse my bad manners, my name’s Husk, its nice to meet you…” He held out
his hand.
I shook it, but still remained quiet, something about this guy was keeping me
on edge and this time I was listening to my instincts.
“Ah all right, I understand if you don’t want to reveal private information but
you should know, you’re the talk of the entire prison right now.” His tone was
friendly and I could not sense any danger.
“I’m the talk of the prison? I mean I know it’s probably rare for someone my
age to be sent here, but it can’t even be that uncommon right?” I finally spoke
to him and hearing the sound of my own voice after such a long time relieved
me.
Husk burst out laughing at what I said, “Not too uncommon' you say?” He
continued laughing.
“What’s so funny?” I was starting to get irritated.
“Hehe, you should know, it’s extremely uncommon for a kid like yourself
being sent in here. This is The Eternal Prison. It isn’t the first place
criminals are sent to. There are plenty of other jails besides this one, but of
course this one is special. You have to do something seriously whacked out to
get in here. I mean half the guys you see around you are mass serial killers.”
Husk said while still chuckling. “Ah, speaking of which, been meaning to ask
you. What did you do to get in here?”
I thought hard on how to answer that question, but ended up deciding on just
answering truthfully: “I killed… my father.”
A moment of silence, then- “Ouch, that must have been hard on you, but you sure
don’t look like you just killed someone.” His reply sounded sincere, it seemed
he was genuinely sorry for me.
“Don’t worry, I’ve already thought about it for who knows how long. I’ve
accepted whatever I needed to and decided to move on. By the way, doesn’t the
security in this prison seem a bit lax? I mean this is The Eternal Prison right,
filled with the most dangerous and deadly criminals of this land. Yet we all
can just walk around freely, it just doesn’t seem secur- “
There was a sudden noise from the table two beside mine, an inmate was keeping
another in a chokehold, and was holding what appeared to be a knife at his
throat. It seemed that the inmate holding the other had broken the spoon into a
makeshift knife, and took the other inmate hostage. They were both standing on
top of the table.
“You hear me?! Let me out of here now, or I’ll kill this guy!” The inmate with
the knife yelled.
There was silence for a few seconds, until a light chuckle broke the spell. The
laugh was coming from one of the guards in the room, compared to the other
jailers, his uniform was a darker colour, and he was wearing a different unique
cap. The man was tall, and his eyes were hidden by the shadow of his cap.
“What’s so funny?! I’m not joking around here, I’ll kill this guy! I SWEAR,
I”LL KI-“
BANG
My table was instantly stained a dark red and a sickening “thump” echoed
throughout the room. Smoke was rising from a small object the guard who laughed
was holding. I couldn’t identify the object; I had never seen it before. I
turned my gaze from the guard to where the inmate had once stood, and the sight
that met my eyes was not something I would have liked to see. The man was lying
on the table and his head had fallen in such a way that it was turned towards
me. Right in-between his empty eyes, there was a small blood covered hole.
Blood was rapidly forming around the body, and the other inmate who was being
held hostage quickly got over his shock and ran over to another table on the
other side of the room.
No way… Did they just kill him? Just like that? And what in the world did
the guard use, it made such a large sound. And the sickening hole in his
head... Whatever it was, its something new and I think only that one guard has
it.
I looked away from the body and instead looked around the room. The other
prisoners weren’t even fazed by the scene; they were all just continuing
whatever it was they were doing. Is this an everyday occurrence for them?
I thought, it was then that I truly realized the situation I was in and how my
life meant absolutely nothing to everyone in the prison.
“Wh- what was that thing?” I asked Husk with a trembling voice.
“Eh, you mean the gun?”
“Gun?” I asked, confused.
"The thing the warden was holding. Oh yeah, if you don’t know yet, that
guy over there is the warden of this place. In other words he’s in charge of
this entire prison. If there’s one thing you never want to do in this place,
it’s getting on his bad side. As you’ve already seen he doesn’t hesitate in
killing anyone. Hell, I’ve even seen him shoot some guards for fun.” Husk
explained to me, he kept his voice low, almost a whisper.
I didn’t know what to say, so both of us kept silent and ate our meals quietly.
Though it wasn’t long before the silence was broken by a yell in the room-
“Ah damn, that was Ted who just got done in. Now what the hell are we gonna do
about tonight?” The voice was unfamiliar.
“Hmm, Ted’s dead…” Husk said in a thoughtful voice, “Someone’s going to need to
replace him…”
“Excuse me, but what are you talking about? You’re going to need to replace him
for what?” I asked. I had the habit to talk politely beat in me by my parents.
Husk then looked up straight at me, his face deep in thought. He seemed to be
thinking quite hard while looking at me; his eyes stared deep into my own. I
was starting to feel uncomfortable and looked away. What’s up with him? And
something feels really wrong about this whole situation… I looked back up
at him after a minute and found him smiling at me.
Whew, that was staring to get really unbearable, though something about that
smile also seems a bit off…
My thinking was interrupted by Husk’s voice, “Well well, I think I’ve found a
solution…”
“A solution?” I asked him.
“Oh, that’s right, you don’t know yet. Well you see, even here in prison we
need ways to keep us… entertained you know. So the guards have set up
the perfect way for everyone to have their enjoyment and I have to say it’s
quite ingenious.” His voice sounded different from before, it had a hint of
malice.
“What do you mean by… entertainment?” I asked him hesitantly, I was afraid of
the answer.
“Hehe, well you see, it’s actually quite simple. There’s this room the warden
made, the largest room in this prison, where every night all of the inmates
gather. There are these stands built in a full circle around the room and at
the very center there’s a ring. Every night two people are chosen to fight in
the ring, while everyone else watches as they fight to the death.” Seeing the
fearful look on my face, Husk quickly said, “Ah don’t worry, don’t worry, the
fight for tonight has already been decided, so you won’t be fighting.”
I sighed with relief, though it was short lived.
“You see, that would be how it normally works, but it was Ted’s turn to
fight tonight and as you know, he’s dead now. So, were going to need a… replacement.”
He was looking at me funny, his smile was still there, but it had warped to
being a sinister, evil one.
“Wh-what do you mean by replacem-“
I was suddenly grabbed from behind by two big men, and dragged off of the
table.
Husk had gotten up and was following me as I was being dragged. “Well you see,
I’m also fighting tonight and well don’t we all want an easy win once in a
while? You should be honoured really, you’re first day here and you already
have a chance to fight. You know, some people would kill to be able to be in you’re
position.” He started laughing, a cruel evil laugh.
I just stared at him, dumbstruck. What’s happening? Husk… Husk wants to kill
me? There’s no wa-
No…, that’s what I thought before too. Its about time I realize that I can’t
trust anyone, I’m all alone…
I tried to look behind me, but was elbowed in the face by one of the men
carrying me. All the way the only thing I heard was Husk’s sinister laugh. I
heard a door open and Husk stopped laughing.
“Well then, you should start getting ready. Oh and if you have any regrets,
then you should really forget about them. After all, you’re going to be dead in
a few minutes.”
The two men threw me inside a room; I landed head first onto the hard, cold
cement. I looked up, feeling dizzy, the last thing I saw was Husk’s smile and
then the door was shut.
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