One

2405 Words
It wasn't like I loved it in prison. Not quite. There was always a void at the back of my mind, an itch I couldn't satisfy. Each second wasted into oblivion, marked only with a profound lack of excitement. Prison is – among other things – spectacularly boring. Every day consists only of the same old routine. Cell, breakfast, cell, lunch, cell, phone call (if you want it), dinner, cell. Sleep. And then we go again. Boring. The boredom itself might actually be a legal means of torture. But, on the other hand, prison was probably the best place I'd ever been. There was a bed there, there was light and there was a roof over your head, there were frequent meals that came without any worries if they were going to be your last, there were showers, clothes, shoes, there was warmth and shelter. That was more than I'd ever had at once. The only actually important thing missing was Willy. If he'd been there, it would have probably been perfect. But he wasn't and so I was constantly in a bad mood, without anyone on whose behalf I would have to try to behave. I sighed, annoyed, placing my hands on my back as instructed. I hadn't actually heard the officer voice the command, but I knew the ordeal well enough to be able to predict what was coming next. Sure enough, it took exactly one and a half seconds before I felt stiff cuffs around my wrists, tighter than would have been necessary. It was officer Moyer, then. The one that disliked me most of all. I puffed sarcastically and rolled my eyes. It was just so typical of these people to judge. That was, for the most part, all they did. They sat around, watched prisoners work and judged them all day long. As if they were any better. As if they would have acted any differently if they had been in a situation even half as bad as any of ours. They were superior just because they'd been born into a different life and now they thought they had a holy right to all the privileges in the world only because of that one simple fact nobody could call his doing, least of all themselves. They thought that because we were in cuffs and they weren't, that because they had guns and we didn’t, they had an advantage. That they were safe. For educated policemen they were pretty naïve. Did they actually think that the top of the criminal masterminds – however young – wouldn't be able to outsmart an average cop? I'd been told many times not to be vain because vanity could cost you your life just as quickly as a knife or a gun. But it wasn't vanity to say that I could beat most of the guards in this prison without breaking a sweat, even with my cuffs on, if necessary. I could break out within a week without my absence being noticed until the evening count. I had already formed several plans, none of them too challenging, each created specifically for a different part of day, just in case of an emergency. So it was really hard not to laugh in the face of a much-too-confident guard slapping you over the head because you were moving too slowly, or not to imagine his expression if you were to break out or, alternatively, just finish him off there and then. Sometimes, I laughed silently with the other prisoners. Thank god for those small mercies. I wasn't allowed any contact – my sentence strictly forbade it due to danger of consulting with criminals – but I didn't need it to understand the others. We were all either psychos, charity cases or – most of the time – a weird, frightening mixture of both. Our brains often worked in a similar way and normally it wasn't too hard to guess what the others were thinking just from a glance or a sigh or an eye-roll. Now, when it came to the security of the prison, we all thought the same; it was easily breachable. Almost any one of us would have been able to use the weaknesses of the security to our advantage. Consequently, almost any one of us would have been able to escape – if we'd wanted to. But none of us did, everyone for their own, more or less selfish reasons. For me, it wasn't much to think about. I stayed here for Willy. They'd promised me they'd keep him safe if I behaved. So that's what I did. Because it didn't matter that I hadn't seen him for three years now. It didn't matter that I could hardly even remember his face anymore. All that mattered was that he was safe. The guard led me past the other cells, down a dark corridor and then turned to the right. “I thought we were going to my cell?" I inquired, rather to fill the silence with hollow words than out of real interest. I even played with my cuffs behind my back, threw my long, brown hair over my shoulder carelessly, just to make a point out of how very bored I was. It was small moments like these, unimportant minutes of communication with another human being that life in prison really came down to. “You have a visitor,” officer Moyer said gruffly. His voice was low and unpleasant, his words mumbled and hard to understand due to the dense moustache covering ninety per cent of his lips. I even suspected that he had a few teeth missing, but whether that was true was left wholly to the listener's imagination. He was never one to talk around the bush, though, which was just fine by me. I even appreciated it at times. But today I felt weirdly disturbed. “Excuse me?” The pretended indifference was all but gone from my voice and I couldn't have cared less. I'd never had a visitor before. Not once in three years. Of course, that wasn't the least bit surprising with no one left – besides Willy, maybe – who would actually care enough about me to go to all the trouble of coming to see me. And Willy had a restraining order so he was out of the question too. “Who is it?” I demanded when the guard didn't show any signs of wanting to elaborate. But he kept silent. We turned another corner and then there we were. The room for visitors wasn't all that big. It was basically only two rows of five chairs facing each other, separated from one another with a glass wall and each equipped with an earpiece resembling a vintage telephone that enabled communication between prisoner and visitor. That was about it. It had never seemed menacing, much less frightening to me. Not up until that second. Not up until I saw the man sitting in one of the chairs, seemingly bored and completely normal, seemingly as decent as the next guy – generous and kind, with flaws he was always trying to correct – but in no way matching his innocent appearance, as I knew much too well … Immediately, there was something heavy in my stomach, the urge to turn on my heel and run away, an urge I hadn't felt in three years and had hoped I'd never feel again. But there it was, burning the insides of my gut, begging me to be let out, begging my feet to start listening to reason and my body to get over the shock and damn freaking move. But I didn't. Not because I was brave and not because I was in shock, either – I'd been in such a situation often enough to learn how to control my emotions and force my body to listen to my commands if need be. It was something else. I was curious. I wanted – needed – to know who this man was and what message he had to tell me. And, completely rationally, I knew that if I didn't clear this thing up now, I would be wondering about it the whole night – maybe my whole life, who knew? That was unacceptable. If pain was torture for the body, not knowing was torture for the mind. I was well aware of that. Once you knew you could adapt and move on. Which was, in the end, all I really knew how to do. Glancing back at the only exit I had, I made a decision. I wasn't someone to run away. And now I had to face my problems, which was exactly what I did. I didn't know the man. That was a relief right there. But I knew his kind. I recognized his sweater, the red one with the little flowers on the collar. It was hideous. Nobody would have ever worn that sweater voluntarily. Not if they didn't want to look completely innocent to the majority and distinctly recognizable to a chosen elite. I was part of that elite. Or at least I had been. That's how I knew. He had grey hair, cut really short, and a huge bald patch in the middle of his head. His face was gruff and fat with hundreds of wrinkles littering his cheeks and loose patches of skin hanging freely, dancing whenever he moved and almost completely hiding his small eyes and tiny mouth. His belly was effectively concealed by the small desk in front of him, but I had no difficulty imagining its size and shape. He was ugly. I made a few tentative steps to close the distance and then carefully sat on the chair. It was wooden and it was hard. I momentarily wondered if the chair on the other side was just as uncomfortable as mine or if maybe visitors deserved a tad more luxury than prisoners, but then I quickly wiped my head and concentrated solely on my visitor. My trembling hand slowly reached for the earpiece and so did his steady one. “Hello there, Ella,” he said with a silky voice that only someone who knew he was in total control could possess. It made my blood turn to ice and sent a long, agonizing shiver down my back. My name on his tongue sounded hollow and small, perfectly reflecting the way I was feeling. “Hello,” I breathed back. “How are you?” he inquired, only seemingly interested. “You don’t look too well. Have you been eating enough? You look a little pale. Maybe even a bit green.” I swallowed. There was a deeper meaning behind his words, one only I could detect. He was saying I should be afraid – as if I needed to be reminded of that. He was clearly laying out the cards for me. I'd been in prison for three years. And while the meals here were regular, they were neither generous nor tasty. I'd dropped a few pounds since the last time I'd been free. Also, there was no fitness room around here or any place where I could train. All I had was my cell and it wasn't big enough for me to actually do any sports. Which meant that, physically, I wasn't in my best shape. Besides, I hadn't seen much of the sun in years and continuous cycles of darkness and artificial lights tended to mess with a person's health. All in all, my fighting skills were probably shabby at best. The man was reminding me not to do anything stupid – or, more accurately, he was telling me not to do anything he would consider such. “I'm fine, thank you,” I bit back, trying to hold my head a bit higher, somehow again finding the energy and the urge to resist. “Never thought I'd see any of you again, though.” The man glared at me, throwing a quick glance over my shoulder toward the officer who was positioned behind me. He was clearly satisfied with what he saw because he turned back to me without making a big deal out of it. “Try something like that again and he's dead,” he commented simply. My grip on the earpiece tightened. I had a feeling he wasn’t talking about the prison guard. “And who’s dead?” “Finally got your attention there, haven't I?” he mused wickedly, an awful grin spreading on his ugly face. “Very well, let's get to business, then. You will do whatever we tell you to do. You will obey anything I say from now on.” He looked at me with arched eyebrows as if expecting some kind of protest, but I stayed quiet. He sighed. “You will meet me in twenty days outside of the prison. The exact location will be forwarded to you.” I struggled to stay calm. “If you haven't noticed, I'm in cuffs. I still have two years of this sentence left and then god knows what will happen. How am I supposed to meet you in twenty days?” He shrugged, grinning even wider and more evilly than before. His humanity seemed to simply melt away. A mask made of wax to put on for the benefit of the world. But not for mine. “Oh, I've inspected this prison. Seen how it works. I'm sure we're offending you with how much time we're giving you to escape.” “But …” “No buts,” he interrupted seriously. “This is the only way if you want that brother of yours to live.” I felt all the blood drain from my face. I felt my mouth getting dry and my ears started to ring and I could hardly hear his next words. “That's right. You know we have him and you know I'm not lying. He's fine, for now. He will be for twenty days. And as for what happens after that – well, we'll see. It depends on you.” He shrugged, utterly uninterested once more. Twenty days. I had twenty days to figure something out. He looked at his watch and sneered widely. “Only nineteen days, twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes left,” he purred. “Tick tock.”
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