“GATHER UP!”

A prison guard yelled at all of the prisoners in the prison. Everyone formed a few lines immediately. We all knew what we were here for, a guard was dead, his gun stolen, and now they were going to question everybody, every prisoner that is. The cold was beating down on us, yet everyone was pouring cold sweat from anxiety, especially me. Amidst the chaos, I had already run to my jail and hid the gun somewhere safe, as long as the prison guards didn’t check it thoroughly, there was no way they could have found it. Multiple prisoners were being checked at once, tensions were high, everyone was scared, and I kept looking at the rifles in their hands. Paul wasn’t exactly calmed as well, but instead of fear, fear of being caught, he had this furious look on his face. I nudged him as if telling him to hide it, but there was also another problem. Paul was crying for the old man, and his tears were visible on his face, the guards would definitely have asked about that. The line was thinning, it was going to be our turn for questioning soon. A guard walked up to me.

“Name?” He asked looking at me in the eyes.

“A-Arthur sir, Arthur Thester.” I meekly said.

“Where were you when the incident happened?” Still staring daggers at me.

“I was talking to Paul, the man right behind me, sir, we were just hanging out at the yard, then we heard the gunshot, and we ran over to see what happened.”

I was somehow calmer when I lied as if it were a normal occurrence to me. As a Zero, hated by society, I had to become a decent liar to survive.

“Now why are you trembling? Did you do something wrong?” He asked. I couldn’t tell if he suspected me or not.

“Sir, I get anxious in a confrontation sir, that should be normal,” I said.

“You don’t decide what’s normal here, that’s my job. If you knew anything about the incident, tell me right now!” Said the cop, his tone hardened.

“I know nothing, sir,” I shook my head. He patted me down with a machine in an attempt to find anything suspicious, but the machine did not beep. He stared at me for another moment and went to Paul.

“Why you crying, son?” He asked Paul. Paul turned his head away, attempting to hide the tears.

“It’s nothing, sir.” He whispered.

“What was that?” The cop moved his ear in closer.

“I said, it was nothing.” Paul raised his tone, the cop was a bit taken back, he obviously did not want to start another commotion.

“Ok, but if there was nothing, then why are you crying? Is it because you felt guilty for killing that cop?” The cop raised his tone as well, the other guards seemed to be alerted.

“Sir, I was talking to the man you just questioned a minute ago. I am crying because the prisoner that died, the one whose body is still there in that alley, was a friend of mine!” He yelled.

You idiot! Why did you say that? I put in extreme effort to not look back and yelled at him. He basically just made himself the number one suspect, and since I said I was hanging out with him, I would have been a suspect too.

“Ok, no need to get angry. I am sorry for your loss, but currently, we are too understaffed to move his body.” Paul scoffed

To my absolute surprise, the cop gave an explanation instead of raising the gun. Maybe, by some miraculous chance, the cop took my word and the prisoner that died just coincidentally was a friend of Paul. Either way, I wasn’t complaining about it. The cop soon moved on to the next person. Eventually, the night interrogation ended, and everyone was sent to dinner.

Phase I of the plan: Find something sharp for Alexei to get the TNT out. Alexei, Paul, and I were sitting on our beds, facing the middle of the stone-cold cell. It was mid-December winter, after all, I was surprised there wasn’t any snow yet. Dinner time had already passed on the second day of confinement, and we were anxious for the lights to go out so we could discuss the exact actions for our plan of escape. Paul was still shocked by the events that happened today. However, there were some plus sides to that event. Paul was determined to help us, we got access to a weapon, which was a huge factor that we didn’t have before. There were twelve rounds in that pistol, one was fired at the old man, and I used one to put a bullet in the head of that crooked cop, so there were only ten left in the chamber. That was plenty enough. Furthermore, the pistol had the device that allowed Alexei to use his Spirit, which he called the Anti-Supression for obvious reasons. Even though he was a murderer and downright psychopathic, that cop’s face kept showing itself in my head. I just couldn’t get the image of his bloody face out of my mind, and the feeling of pulling that trigger. It was so easy, yet it ended a person’s life. The worse thing is, I didn’t regret that decision to pull the trigger, and I would do it again if I had to, anything for my freedom and the revolution. I had high hopes for this so-called ‘revolution’, perhaps they could indeed help society become better. I focused back on the problem at hand, I needed to figure out how to complete phase I of the plan. We had separated the escape plan, which Alexei called ‘The Freedom Operation’ into three phases.

Phase I: Find something sharp so Alexei can get the TNT that he hid in his body out.

Phase II: Find people, certain prisoners that would want to join the revolution, as they

always wanted more people. A military had to have its soldiers.

Phase III: Escape through the least guarded wall after Alexei blew it up, fast.

This plan had multiple holes in it. What if Alexei couldn’t get the TNT out of himself? He would have needed to basically do surgery on himself in order to accomplish such a feat. What if the TNT failed, or his Spirit failed, causing the wall to not blow up as much as we wanted it to. How were we supposed to know who to trust to recruit for the revolution? These were just a few of the different scenarios that I could imagine in my mind. However, it was more than I got. Truth is, if executed perfectly, that plan without a doubt would work, and that was what I chose to believe in. Fifteen more minutes until curfew, then we should have been able to talk. That fifteen minutes went by quickly as we heard the announcement echo throughout the prison, counting down the seconds until lights out. Five, four, three, two, one, and nothing could have been seen anymore.

Lights out in this prison were absolutely terrifying. Before my eyes could adapt to the darkness, I was practically blinded. Especially with the prison guards walking around with their Vinight headsets that allowed them to see in this darkness, patrolling the prison at night. The moonlight was non-existence, and the windows did not reflect any light through them whatsoever. The cops made loud noises with their boots as they patrolled the prison, so as soon as we heard anything coming our way, we would pretend we were sleeping.

“Alright, so what do we do exactly?” Paul was the first person that spoke up. That was a damn good question, one I had no answer to, yet.

“So the most logical location to find something sharp, like a knife, would be the kitchen wouldn’t it?” I replied with confidence in my answer.

“Why can’t we just use that window in our room?” Alexei asked.

“That wouldn’t work, the windows break into little pieces, like sand,” Paul answered the question. “I heard someone tried to kill himself in this prison with the sharp pieces but was only disappointed when it didn’t break the way he wanted it to.”

Well, this prison certainly was not the best place in the world, but the thought of someone trying to take his own life is sickening. There was no point in death, for the world could only be changed by the living. We all stayed quiet as we heard the lousy footsteps of a guard near us. He looked at our cell for a moment and quickly walked away. After making sure that he wasn’t near us anymore, we came back to the discussion.

“I really think that the kitchen would be our best chance at succeeding,” I broke the silence.”

“The kitchen is connected to the cafeteria, which is usually heavily guarded. On what earth would we have a chance bypassing all those guards?” Paul asked, his voice strained, he was irritated.

He got a point, it would certainly be a difficult task to complete. Our only chance was to go at night, but they would instantly become alerted after the patrol guards found us missing in our cells. Not to mention that the guards check the cell every morning for roll call and to wake us up. There was no way for us to sneak back into our cells at night because the cells were locked by the control room run by the Prison Master themself. Speaking of which, we never saw the Prison Master, no idea who they were, their abilities, their Spirit, nothing. That made me uncomfortable, if the Prison Master was an individual who had a powerful spirit, they could thwart our plan when we blew up the wall.

“Oh, I got an idea!” Alexei called out. “There are prisoners working in the kitchen to reduce their sentences, we can recruit them and make them help!”

Not a bad idea, but also a risky one.

“What if instead of helping us, they report us to the cops to have their sentences further reduced?” I spoke up, but right after I asked that question, my mind instantly sent me the answer, I continued. “What if…one of us volunteers to help out at the kitchen?”

I couldn’t see in this darkness, but I swore Alexei was showing his teeth through a huge smile. Paul didn’t object to that idea either, the only question is, who to send? I would have asked Paul, but since he had some trouble with the cop that died earlier that morning, I didn’t think he would be the best choice, so that left me and Alexei. I wasn’t so sure if I trusted Alexei enough, not because I thought he would betray us, but because I wasn’t so sure the mission would be accomplished properly with his personality, I wasn’t so sure about his capabilities. So that left just me. I was fine with it, it was the most logical choice. Because of my Importance Score and me being Spiritless, I had absolutely no power, physical or magical, to be considered a threat to the prison. And I was the person I trusted the most out of this group, so if I failed, I only had myself to blame.

“Since I came up with the idea, I volunteer,” I said.

“Well then, good luck, while you are doing that, we will try to recruit some people,” Said Paul.

My eyes were now adapting better to the darkness, I could faintly see Paul nodding in his bed. Alexei didn’t say anything to object to that idea either, so it was final.

“I will ask the kitchen if I could work there tomorrow, silently steal a knife and bring it back at night.” That was the best plan I could come up with, plain and simple.

There was no doubt going to be cameras inside the kitchen as well, so I would have had to improvise when I get there. Hopefully, there were blind spots so I could stay hidden from the cameras, otherwise, I would just have to be extremely stealthy. I lay down on my bed, and I heard the others do the same. I needed to get some sleep, couldn’t afford to be tired tomorrow. However, I was restless. Restless to actually do something, restless to take any action that could help my situation in any way. I kept rolling in my bed, but before long, the fatigue of the day eventually caught up to me, and I was asleep before I knew it.