Chapter One

 

I had never expected my time in the Welshberg Juvenile Detention Center to be enjoyable, but I did expect it to be livable. I had gone my whole life believing I could survive anything that didn't kill me, and that as long as I had my life there was nothing important they could take away from me. During my time in Welshberg I found out i was wrong, that there were many important parts of me that could be damaged without my life being taken, and some of those things could never be repaired. Survival was still the top of my list of priorities, but withstanding this hell was slowly replaced with escaping it. Only in imprisonment had i discovered what my freedom meant to me.

 

From the second I walked in I knew friends would be hard to find. The older kids were too worried about their rep to be friends with a young awkward child like me. They were too concerned with talking like they were rebels and how they blew up some ministers mailbox or how they laughed as they blew smoke in a police officers face. But I was a shy awkward fifteen year old and I wouldn't have been able to talk to them even if I had wanted to.

 

There was another group there too, brooding and introspective. The kind that just sat there blankly and ate their food silently. They didn't want to talk to me and I didn't want to talk to them. At least not after the first time I tried.

 

I looked down to him and said “hello” and asked his name. He responded to me by giving me a hauntingly blank stare. I wanted to look away from him but his stare captivated me. His stare abruptly changed to a look of absolute horror and I soon understood my mistake. Through staring ahead blankly and fixating himself on an unmoving canvas he was able to pass the time and do it all without having to face the horrors of this place. I had interrupted him causing him to return to reality and face things he knew he couldn't. I had caused the world he had found in the fabric on the back of that couch to come crashing down and be replaced my the gloomy surroundings of this building and the cramped comfort of his dormitory. He cried into a small stuffed rabbit he had clutched to his chest as I backed up and walked away.

 

The construction of the Welshberg Center was an abandoned above ground bomb shelter made some time in the late forties. This style of bomb shelter was made obsolete by the creation of better bombs and was replaced by underground shelters. Some time in the eighties the American government decided to make use of it, though why a Juvenile Detention Center I don't know. Aesthetically, it was quite unappealing as nothing had been changed or even painted in the conversion. The walls were thick concrete slabs with bulky exposed wiring and huge overhead ventilation shafts. I imagined that somewhere in the remnants of nazi Germany this building had a twin, although the nazi's probably used it for something far more gruesome than the storage of its dysfunctional youth. At that time however I had no clue how gruesome this place really was. It had been built in a thick patch of woods miles from civilization making the area around the fence terminally dark, and since the fence was quite close to the building the yard was always some degree of dark and gloomy.

 

Despite the depressing look of the yard I began to hold sacred any time I could feel the sun against my skin, whether that meant spending time in the yard or just sitting by a window at lunch. With the scarcity of our visits to the yard I made a habit of sitting by a window at lunch. Unfortunately those windows faced out a side of the building where the trees drew close and I soon found that about the only time I could expect any real sun was in the summertime and even then there was no guarantee, as the woods greedily absorbed all the light they could, sucking it into their dark void and despite all the sunlight they took in they never seemed to brighten. They remained for the longest time an impassable void as I imagined all that could be out there. It seemed that nothing better could possibly be in them, at least not before the lights in the compound began to dim.

 

Two weeks into my stay there was an interesting new arrival. I decided to talk to him immediately so as not to let this place take hold of his personality before we could be properly introduced. His name was Mica and right off I found him to be warm, exuberant and charming. I found him to be like a bejeweled eye in a statue carved from onyx. Nothing seemed to dull his abundantly positive mood, and although you could tell he was a bit disturbed by all the darkness that surrounded him he never let it become a part of him, and he was among the only one of us who could truly claim such. In an attempt of reserve this friend for myself I invited him to sit with myself and my only other friend, a chubby kid named Jello, at lunch. He wasn't called Jello because he was portly, it was a reference to what he did to get in here.

 

I met Jello near the end of my first week There. He was alone eating lunch despite the appearance of friendliness between him and his older peers. I soon realized that the conversation between them in passing was more formality than friendly, and beyond the facade of nicety he really had no friends to talk to. He seemed nice enough so I sat down in front of him and introduced myself. He said hi and introduced himself as Jello. At this point I had overheard rumors about him, but I had never known who he was. I couldn't be sure because he wasn't all that big, so I asked him why he was called Jello.

 

Openly, he told me about a teacher that picked on his weight relentlessly, Jello lost some weight but the bulling continued. In every room at the school there was a private bathroom for the students and teacher, except that this teacher kept it all to himself. One day he stayed behind to do some makeup work, and when the teacher left to get some food, leaving Jello alone in the room, he got an idea. The next week he stayed behind again. When the teacher left to get some food he went into the bathroom and exacted his revenge. Making a pot of hot water with the coffee maker in the teachers lounge, he mixed the hot water and gelatin in the toilet bowl letting it set up while the teacher ate. Upon his return the teacher made his way to the bathroom. He seemed sick, the splattering sounds coming from the bathroom began to bother Jello, who was already trying his hardest to restrain uproarious laughter. When he tried to flush he realized what was going on, Jello, being a thorough prankster had even jelled the water in the tank. The urge to laugh soon became uncontrollable when the teacher emerged, his face as red as a ripe tomato. He was embarrassed and infuriated by someone he thought was so much less than him. To be embarrassed in such a sick, weak and, vulnerable state was enough to piss him off, and the laughing just drove his temper over the top. A fight ensued in which Jello knocked his teacher out. Perhaps, Jello mused, if he hadn't laid him out, things would've been seen differently but as it was it didn't matter that Jello hadn't started the fight. He'd knocked his teacher out, he was the bad guy, case closed.

 

 

The first day he was there, Mica didn't even show up to lunch, probably because of some sort of orientation. The second day however he joined us, bringing light and life to our table. His humorous presence opened up both of us, raising the typical fear and nervousness that usually hung like a fog throughout the compound.

 

I was glad to finally have a group of friends to belong to. Belonging was very important here, friendly conversation could pass the time, and friendly banter could boost morale. It felt very good to feel like a person in a place no person would choose to inhabit, and the guards took everything that they could take that could make us feel human, then they broke our spirits until they had taken everything they could take, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

 

But the darkest reason to travel in groups was for defense. We had all heard the stories, sometimes people were taken and beaten, tortured, or at least injured in some way. This happened whether we traveled in groups or not but there was no one in the compound that wanted to risk traveling alone.

 

On the first day Mica sat with us I could feel the intent stares of the guards on my back, but I thought nothing of it. Lunch was the most free time we had, it reminded me of school, hanging out with my friends not a care in the world. As my humanity began to return to me I felt the lights above our table grow lighter and warmer. Even after I had finished my food I continued to sit at the table and basking in the surrounding warmth instead of returning to my room for a moment of solitude. We all stayed until the “moving bell” rang. The moving bell being an air raid alarm played softly about ten or fifteen times a day. The guards ushered us out, forcing us to leave without even being able to say proper goodbyes.

 

As I walked out of the cafeteria and down the hallway I could feel the presence of a guard behind me. Surrounded by a veil of darkness and cold I made my way to the speaking room. Leaving the guard at the door, I made my way to the center of the room, surrounding myself with people to escape the sickening feeling the guard had left me with. The temperature and lighting returned to the average for the compound; a stark cold accompanied by dim, bleak lighting. I didn't like it as much as the feeling I had had in the cafeteria with Mica and Jello, but it sure beat the cold darkness I had felt in the hall.

 

The next day at lunch was just as exuberant as the last, but before I could finish my food the feeling I had gotten in the hallway the day before returned. I watched Jello's blood run cold as he stared at the dark figure approaching behind me. Curious though I was, I didn't dare look behind me. Mica noticed my tension and looked at the figure for me.

 

“Who are those gruesome looking pricks?”

 

Without looking I answered, I already knew who it was. “They're called the 'in-house guard,' unlike the people you met when you got here these guys actually live here with us.” I would've said more but he was already standing at the end of our table.

 

“We will not tolerate this disruption.” The guards voice was a icy, emotionless, monotone dirge, it was not frenzied or even hasty and had not a touch of anger to it. It was fully authoritative. Despite it's lack of emotion, his voice terrified me, his cold, flat fury piercing me, sending shivers down my spine. I had no doubt he was serious, and I had no desire to test him. His presence demanded I look him in the face. Slowly and cautiously I gazed up at him, his uniform a chilling gray with a simple nameplate above his pocket reading “Potter”. The guards neck wasn't wrinkled but each crease seemed to draw in shadows which were made even darker by the long shadow cast by his bulging chin and square jaw. He had the face of a thirty year old man who had lived a a long, hard life, scars and creases spread out wide across him mouth and cheeks. I was unable to bring myself to look him in the eyes. His large, well muscled frame cast a shadow over the length of our table even though there was very little light to cause such an effect, in fact his body had almost no color to be seen like a figure painted in pure black ink and shaded in equally dark charcoals. Our stares were broken by the sound of his voice.

 

“Do I make myself clear?”

 

The other two answered promptly, while I had temporarily forgotten how to speak.

 

“And you, you worthless cretin?” I felt his frigid stare burn

into my forehead. I then looked into his eyes which were merely bold black shadows, enveloping each individual eye socket. My head erupted in pain as his gaze focused, a glimmer shore across the edge of his unseen irises.

 

“Yessir.” I said mechanically, not even knowing I had said it until I heard the words pass from my lips.

 

Satisfied, the guard returned to the corner where their table was located. A dark fog hung over the area, obscuring their faces and physical features. Exhausted, I said goodbye and left abruptly without even finishing my meal. I made my way to my room, collapsing onto my uninviting bed and falling asleep immediately.

Reviews

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I enjoyed this chapter very much. You go great into detail. However, you need to check for errors. I found two errors that I actaully were paying any atention to.