Never Seen Again

A story based around a nameless prisoner in a society as unforgiving and righteous as any and with a far more aggressive prison system.

Never Seen Again

 

In this society, people don’t commit the same crime twice.  Hell they don’t get arrested twice.  There are two prisons.  One where you do your time for your first crime no matter how petty; And two, where you are never seen again.  They just come and take you.  You can run, you can hide.  They find you.  No one knows where this second prison is.  People just go and never come back.

I had been stopped, arrested for doing something illegal.  I won’t bore you with the details.  But I deserved the time.  Just like every other prisoner big or small I was given a bracelet that once attached never comes off.  It’s how they find you.  The prison is pretty much free roam.  People know where the boundaries are and where you go if you try to escape.  So why try?

I did my time and was released.  A few months later I was getting back to normal.  I wore my bracelet with disgrace everyday as people in this society frowned upon you for committing even a single slight against the whole.

I was driving.  I wasn’t speeding, I wore my seatbelt, I didn’t have my communicator on.  But I was stopped all the same.  Routine I suppose.  I was good.  I looked at my friend who wasn’t looking at me.  When they ran my id they saw I was on parole.  They asked if they could search the car and of course I allowed them.  What did I have to hide?

I was searched.  The car was searched.  My friend was searched…  And they found something.  Co-conspirators.  I wasn’t even told what we had.  I was thrown on the ground and cuffed.  So was he.  His first offense.  I didn’t struggle.  I knew there wasn’t really a point.  At least id do my time somewhere and live out my days in the unknown.

I was left in a  room.   Cold.  My handcuffs were removed.  It was about five minutes before the door in front of me with its single window, opened up.  A man walked in with a tray of food and threw it on the floor.  He slammed the entry shut and closed a metal slate over the window.  I looked at the food not really feeling hungry.  But I ate.  Wish I had drink.  As soon as the last bit disappeared from my tray, my wrist began to beep.

I looked down at my tracker, lifting an eyebrow.  Funny.  That sounds almost like a…BOOM. Never seen again.