Red Chamber

Chapter 2

The carcass of the three hundred pound man created a pool of blood that encircled everyone's boots nearby. It was quiet after that, albeit a few hurls, small vomit landing on the next man's shoulders and chest. The alarms stopped blaring, even I followed suit, and I withheld warm tears as the metal border closed in, blocking my watery view of the city. My home, the place we call Lustrous Utopia I.

Black Sword was one of the thirty-five casualties during the Red Walk; he's only remembered because he was the last death. I wondered why Grey didn't put me down, right then and there. Then I realized it was because of Zed. He had a drop of empathy in him. He saved my life. Had he been near the entrance, he could've saved Black Sword's life. I made sure never to forget it, as I exited the Red Chamber, and took my first steps into Titan.

A beautifully illustrated tattoo of an Ouroboros displayed itself to me, sprawled across the naked back of an emaciated inmate. We were in the holding cells where the Umbrages stripped us naked. I stared into the man's back as my tattered beige pants were ripped down to my ankles. I heard the snap of the plastic gloves smack the wrist of Zed's hand.

"Cavity search boys, spread em or lose em. Choice is yours."

I didn't resist when Zed's hand clasped my shoulder, pushing me forward. Right before the violation, I saw the Ouroboros tattoo move on the inmate's back. The multi-colored scaled snake was eating itself; maybe it was a metaphor for his life. He had one of those 'living' tattoos, very expensive, popular with the gangs in District 1. Where poverty ran rampant, nearly every politician was corrupt, stealing from the land. Gang life was everyday life, and roughly half of the inmates incarcerated in Titan were from there.

We moved as a unit through the disinfectant passageway. A long, circular tube, with a shallow ceiling. Where the magnetic boots sealed you to the moving walkway. Across ten chemical stations, cluttered with monitors, and computers, that jetted out random substances on our naked bodies. If, by chance, one of the stations began to beep, it meant you had a virus or disease and had to be cured before entering Titan. A short, fat man, two stations ahead of me, set one-off. I watched the Umbrages walk in wearing big, white contamination gear. They scooped him up under the armpits. He kicked and screamed as they hauled him off. This momentarily halted us at the fifth station.

"What happens to a man like that?" I whispered to the Ouroboros tatted man next to me, without looking he answered quietly.

"Taken to the Medical Ward. This my third time in here and no man ever makes it back from the

Medical Ward."

His voice was raspy, and strangely soothing, like a blues singer who chain-smoked. I got the message between the struggles of his lungs to create the words. I remembered an article I read on the outside, while I was on the beat as an enforcer.

The headline read: MEDICAL WARD PRISONERS TURNED INTO PRISON FOOD.

"Why do they care if a man comes in diseased? If he's serving life, like me, be better to let him die slow."

"Part of this new initiative, created by the High Priestess a few moons ago. Ask me, one of the guards probably caught something from messing with the inmates. Spread it along to the outside world.

Can't have that."

"You from District 1, right?"

"Tattoo give it away?"

"You connected on the inside?"

"Got a few caves waiting for me, cigarettes, before the turf wars start, that is."

"Caves?"

"You a first timer?"

"I'm a last timer, got the full boat."

"s**t, what you do? Try to kill the High Priestess? No one gets the full boat, not in Titan. Maybe in Crimson Mountain or the Lowlands, not even in Haunted Hills. You're special huh? What they name you?"