Chapter Two

 

By the end of my second month there I had gotten used to the routine. Doing a constant zombie-like shuffle, I drag my disheartened body around the compound without much thought. Wake. Shower. Dress. Eat. Study. Attend their twisted version of school. Eat. Take in a lecture in the speaking room whose only point is to insult us and break our spirits, calling us criminals, addicts, trash, crazy, hopeless, miscreants, and killers. I turn red at the mention of killers. Beaten, we return to “school”. Sit in the common room quietly...

 

“No talking!” Mica, laying on the floor beside me raises himself to face the guard, which is more than I can do. He shoots the guard a defiant sneer. I look to Mica, my face reading “don't mess with them” as clearly as if it had been written there. Mica looks away from both of us and lays back down. The short squatty guard who had just yelled at us bent sideways, whispering to the tall, evenly figured man next to him. After brief conversation they both turn to look at Mica, who was at the time laying eyes closed on his back, ignoring the whole world. I stopped to admire his ability to find peace in even the most trying situations.

 

When the guards go back to conversing amongst themselves, we go back to talking ourselves. “Mica,” I thought “and the freedom of the yard were the only true decencies of this place.” I gaze into his eyes, “If I were to leave today, you would be the only thing I'd miss.” The words edging close to my lips but find themselves stuck behind my clenched teeth. Mica's eyes blink innocently, and I smile, thinking how oblivious he is to my unspoken words. He smiles back, “perhaps not” i think to myself.

 

Tired, I lay myself next to him, wondering if this gesture is making him uncomfortable. Seeing him laying there contentedly I once again think “perhaps not”. Feeling warm and comfortable in his presence I fall asleep. My dreams of warm, well lit rooms are interrupted by the moving bell. I shuffle off to bed, wishing I was still back there laying beside him.

 

 

 

Making his way to his room, Mica feels a tap on his shoulder. Looking back he recognizes the figure behind him as the tall guard that sat beside the one that had yelled at him earlier.

 

“Come with us.” He says dryly, motioning to a door down a hallway that was usually kept pitch black. Curiously, the hall is lit somewhat comfortably, or at least well enough that he could see the “authorized personnel only” sign on the door. Slowly the door creaks open and the short guard emerges, a wide grin on his face.

 

 

Mica was the first boy I knew personally to suffer what the inmates called a “Welshberg Beatdown”. I had heard stories and even seen the results walking beaten down the halls, but this was personal.

 

All the stories I had heard went more or less like this, the guards pull the victim aside and take him some place no ones has been, and no victim can remember being. Then the next thing he remembers he's getting woken from his bed by a guard about fifteen minutes before the morning alarm. Beaten and oftentimes still bleeding, he is instructed to shower off and clean himself up before the alarm and is given a bland set of clothes to replace the blood-stained ones they were wearing. Also the victims are usually lightheaded, sluggish, and easily angered, almost as if they had a hangover.

 

Although Mica hadn't been beaten quite as bad as some of the others his fighting spirit was nonetheless damaged. Not that he was bothered so much by the pain, it was the way they did it, the way they could do it again and he wouldn't know until he was woken up early the next day. His wounds were constant reminders of the day his spirit was broken, tormenting him to the point where he avoided mirrors altogether. But as they healed his spirit returned from its retreat.

 

 

As the gray winter passed events slowed and the temperatures that I hadn't thought could drop any further, did. I became comfortable with the dull monotony of life in the compound, which in retrospect is very sad, but excitement around here usually wasn't a good thing. Near the beginning of the Spring I turned sixteen and was moved down the hall to the end where they put anyone who was sixteen of older. Most importantly, my new room was next to Mica's, and eventually we discovered the connecting door between our rooms. The door was always locked but when we couldn't sleep we would lay on either side of it and talk until one of us went to sleep.

 

It was during one of these late night conversations that he told me he had a crush on me. In that first year together I had never suspected he was gay, actually I hadn't even really considered it, despite my attraction to him. All I had known about him was that I was blissful in his company. I didn't sleep at all that night, we talked until the morning alarm. I was perfectly awake while I was talking to him, but upon getting up I began to feel the effects of sleep deprivation hit me. Seeing Mica in the hallway to the bathroom, I could tell he felt the same way, perhaps worse even. He shot me a drowsy smile as I entered the bathroom. Tired, I showered and toweled off but as I was getting dressed I overheard someone being yelled at by a guard.

 

“Hurry up with that shower you filthy worthless b*****d!”

 

“You know what...” I recognized Mica's voice instantly. “..F**k you!”

 

I also recognized the guard as Potter, the guard from the cafeteria. With tremendous speed Potter reached into the with one arm grabbing Mica by his neck, holding his naked body in the air before him. Mica attempted to punch him to no avail, the guards arm were just too long for Mica's fists to connect. Angered, the guard deftly threw Mica across the room. Mica's body slamming into a thick concrete wall with a sickening wet smack, his body landed in a wet slump, seemingly unconscious. The guard stepped towards him ready to attack again.

 

With all my might I hurled a bar of soap, striking him in the eye, which I followed with a quick jab to the nose sending him crashing into a mirror. The last thing I remember from that day was the glass showering over the guard, a look of fury on his face.

 

 

 

Groggily, I wake in a padded room, looking straight at the door which has a slit in it allowing a small sliver of light. I attempt to move my hand which is caked in blood, but I can't. Just trying to move it causes my whole body to flash with pain. I can't move. I can't move!

 

“Its time to move him.”

 

The dark face of a guard peers into the slit and turns away.

 

“He's still awake.”

 

Silence......

 

Purple fog passes through the slit, filling the small chamber. Unable to hold my breath, my lungs fill with the disgusting fumes, which taste like decaying flesh. I struggle to remain conscious, and in a minute or two my hazy vision sees the door open, revealing a shadowy figure frames in white light.

 

He fades out of focus and all I see is white...

 

 

 

Morning bell wakes me. It's torture to move. Remembering my hand, I look down to see it's still caked with blood, in fact so are my clothes though the blood is now dried. The only blood on my sheets is dried blood chipped off my clothing. “How long was I out?” I wonder as I make my way at a staggered pace towards the showers. The water runs reddish brown for the longest time as I clean my wounds in the warm water. Blood gone, I discover there are no cuts on my body. “How can that be? I was just covered in blood?” Bruises cover my body though there are almost none on my face. Suddenly the taste of rotten meat enters my mouth causing me to vomit continuously down the drain. Afterwards I tilt my head up to the shower head, open my mouth and gargle, spit. Gargle. Spit. Gargle. Spit. Gargle. Spit. The taste of vomit leaves my mouth after a bit but no amount of gargling will get out the taste of rotting flesh. Hard as I try the taste won't leave me.

 

I dress, I shuffle down the hall to the cafeteria. I am met with the shocked stares of passer's by the whole way. I hurry to get my food and sit down across from Jello and next to Mica.

 

Jello speaks first. “Long as I've been here nobodies been gone as long as you.” He has the same look on his face as the kids from the hall.

 

“How long have I been gone?”

 

Mica answers, “More than a week, but from the looks of you I'd say you got off easy.” I look down nervously at my lap thinking, “you just don't know.” When I look back up at him he meets my face with a warm smile, suggesting he had missed me.

 

 

Later I found out Potter hadn't been seen since I had fought him. Rumors spread that I'd killed him. I recounted the story to large groups for close to a month, people came time and time again to hear the story of a hero.

 

During one of the largest of these storytelling's, which took place in the back end of the yard, I looked up at the compound and saw a large window on the top floor. Even through the thick iron shutters that had been left open I could see a massive cloaked figure watching over the yard. His stare silenced me. I got the feeling I had seen him before although I couldn't say where from. Gradually the shadows behind him parted revealing a second smaller figure. Potter. So he wasn't dead after all. As seven guards emerged from the compound the eyes of the large figure glimmered and he drifted back into the shadows of the second floor. The guards closed in on us, four surrounding the group, three entering it, moving towards me. People looked on in awe as I was escorted into the compound.

 

Inside we walked down a hall I had only seen in my nightmares, funny, it was in plain sight but I had never seen it before. The door read “Authorized Personal Only”, a fog rolled out from under it. I had never been beyond this door in my nightmares, but I could imagine the horrors behind it. The door creaked open, a blast of cold air chilled me instantly. Beyond it there was a thin purple fog layered over a blood soaked floor. A pair of chains hang from the wall and below them lays a human skeleton, a vague smell or rotten meat hangs in the air. As I walk across the floor my feet slosh in the abundant blood. My breath comes out in clouds as I am led up a set of stairs and into an open and airy room slightly resembling an office. The large figure looms ominously at the other end of the room.

 

“You think we can be toyed with? That you can simple parade around playing the part of the hero? Well you will no more.” His bellowing casts a breeze across the room, blowing a foul smelling fog in my direction. “We are more powerful than you think!”

 

My knees weaken and I fall to the floor. There is an explosion of pain in my stomach causing me to vomit both breakfast and lunch onto the floor. I cannot raise my head to look up at him.

 

“Upon leaving here you probably wont remember this but I want you to know this, you cannot defy us!” His voice was dark and menacing with a subtle European accent. His words came thick and slurred, with short pauses every so often, as if he had a different native language.

 

I feel a hand on my shoulder and i hear a familiar voice. “As you undoubtedly know, I'm not dead.” Potter says gruffly, digging his fingers into my shoulder and deep into my skin. Blood pours from my shoulder.

 

“Remember that.”

 

Releasing my shoulder I fall flat onto the ground, the fog creeping over me, consuming my face.