“H-how?” Still gasping for air, I muttered those words.

Ethan looked at me with his eyes half-closed. He pulled out the Anti-Suppression device. My eyes widened, did he take the gun? What happened to Alexei and Paul? He lowered himself down with a squat at me.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t take the gun. Your buddies gave this to me as a precaution, we were wondering why you were taking so long in the kitchen.” He said while waving the device around. “I told you, I’m on your side.”

He offered a hand, and I took it. When I stood up, the world was spinning around me, and I would have fallen back down if it weren’t for the stoves catching my back. The chef’s head was bleeding oceans, however, he still let out a few moans. I couldn’t say for sure if he was conscious or not, it was hard to concentrate, especially with a new problem presenting itself. The chef knew who attacked him, and he would have reported us to the prison guards.

“Are you going to kill him?” Ethan asked mercilessly. “If you won’t, I will.”

My eyes widened in surprise. I thought this man was a coward, a little boy who got scared out of his mind by a few threats.

“How are you so calm right now? You almost pissed yourself back in the jail.” I asked

him in absolute amazement.

“That doesn’t matter, you killing him or not?” He asked me.

He needed to die, I wasn’t going to let him speak a single word about us to anyone. I held the knife in my hand and did my best to concentrate. Ethan went to the front to check if there was going to be anyone near us, but there wasn’t. The cafeteria was empty, all the cops were mostly in the jail area as prisoners that weren’t working were prohibited there, and it was just me and the man lying on the floor. I held up the knife into the air. Am I really going to have another man’s blood on my hands? He could have a family, someone waiting for him at home. I shook my head. His families didn’t matter then, what I needed to focus on was my own freedom. If I wanted to change the world and lead the revolution, I must be able to do this much.

“For the revolution, for the resistance.”

I whispered triumphantly as I penetrated the knife through his skull. Fuck, his blood got all over me. Ethan ran down to the back and hurried me to get out of here. I ran as quickly as I could, leaving the blood-soaked corpse on the ground. Another man died because of me, however, his life shall be a stepping stone to my freedom. I needed another prison uniform, this one was soaked in blood. But how was I going to do that? I couldn’t get back to my cell, there were cops there. Couldn’t go to the yard either, it was lined with cops. I had an idea, but it was extremely luck-based for my comfort. However, that was the only idea I could think of at this critical moment, so I decided to go with it.

“Hey, Ethan,” I stopped him in the middle of the cafeteria, it was only because of our luck that there weren’t no cops.

“Wha-?” Ethan yelled out as I ran back to the kitchen. “What are you doing, Arthur!?”

“My shirt is soaked man, I don’t know where to dump it without being seen, and the cops would know if they see me walking around with a blood-soaked shirt. I need you to take the knife back to them, don’t worry, I will see you soon.”

I said as I lay down next to the lifeless chef and stabbed myself in the legs. Ethan didn’t say anything but shook his head, grabbed the knife, and ran away. Being stabbed felt like a nail gun driving into the body, an excruciating sensation that felt like Hell itself. I suddenly looked at the body next to me with sympathy, but then again, he should have died instantly because I stabbed him in the brain. It was just a matter of time until the prison guards show up, then, I could play the victim. The luck-based factor of this idea was because I was a Zero, the guards could just kill me to save them the trouble of having to treat a prisoner. But then again, they need me alive to give them information on who stabbed me and killed the chef, and I would lie when they ask me. It was an unanticipated risk that I improvised on the spot, but it was the best I had. Argh. I let out a small yelp as my head was starting to get dizzier. I was losing blood faster than I was comfortable with. That time, I actually hoped that the cops would come sooner, so I wouldn’t die right there and then. The good news was that I could still move my legs, even though I knew that I shouldn’t have, so I just lay down in the pool of blood, in hope of preserving my energy. I started gasping for air soon after, I had way too many near-death experiences in such little amount of time. Did Ethan successfully get the knife to them? I truly hoped that he did, and I truly hoped that the revolution would come to fruition and that there would be a place in the world where discrimination doesn’t exist, legally or socially. I looked down at the pool of blood, I didn’t even know if it was mine or the chef's. The color of crimson and the light of the ceiling were the last things that I saw before there was nothing but darkness.

“Hey, wake up.” Someone slapped me with great force on my face. Ouch

I opened my eyes in fright. I looked at the woman in front of me with squinted eyes in unfamiliarity, I tried to speak, but there were no words that came out of my mouth. I assumed she was a doctor or a healer of some sort, based on her white uniform. Behind her was a red-head woman in the orange uniform that I was so familiar with, she was preparing something with a syringe in her hands. I looked around me, I was on a patient bed positioned perpendicular to the wall. There were other beds as well, but none of them were occupied, I was the only patient in this room.

“My name is Kath, you can just call me nurse. Can you speak?” She asked me with seriousness in her tone.

“Y-yes.” It took me almost everything I had to speak those words.

“Good, I was getting worried because you lost a lot of blood.” She said, not even paying attention to me, but to the hologram she had in her hand.

“Ma’am, it’s ready.” The girl behind her said.

“Took you long enough, now bring it here, hurry!” The nurse snapped at the girl, and she just took it, like it was a common occurrence.

The nice, timid girl handed her the syringe without fail. I could feel my leg perfectly, there was barely any pain in there. She must have been some genius nurse, or an extremely potent Spirit dwelled inside here. Chances are the latter, that must have been she scored high on the Importance Scale as well. She didn’t look like a prisoner, but a hardened, wrinkled woman that had an experienced feeling around her.

“So, I have a Magical Spirit and I scored a 70% on my Importance Scale.” She said with pride, straightening her back and lightening up. “My magic is Molecular Manipulation of Liquids, a fancy name for Enchanting Water.”

70% was certainly an impressive Score, one that some people would kill to have. But my intuition told me that it wasn’t going to be good for me.

“I have enchanted a truth serum, which I would be injecting into you now, for quality purposes.” My eyes widened at that.

I forced myself to stay calm, if I panicked or freaked out, that would just have made me suspicious. The only way I could get out of this now is to try to bend the truth somehow. She injected the needle into my arm, causing a sharp pain up my entire body. My arms shook a bit afterward, but the pain slowly faded away into an ache.

“So, what’s your name?” She started with a basic question. Strange, I didn’t feel anything compelling me to tell the truth.

“Arthur Thester,” I answered immediately

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“How did you end up in prison?”

“I assaulted my boss.”

She checked my answers with the information on the hologram. There shouldn’t have been any problem, because all of these were the truth.

“Do you know who stabbed you?” She finally got to the questions I was afraid of.

I expected there to be something, some strange force that would force my mouth to tell the truth. But to my absolute amazement, there wasn’t. Did the serum not work? It was certainly a miracle.

“No,” I answered without hesitation. The disappointment was visible on her face.

“Can you describe his appearance?”

“He was wearing a police uniform with a black mask,” I said, thinking I could divert their attention to the police instead of the prisoners.

She noted that down. I was still confused about how I wasn’t blurting out the truth right there and then. Could it be? The girl, who I assumed to be the assistant to the nurse, winked at me behind the nurse’s back. Who is she? Is she an ally? A spy from the resistance?

“That’s all the questions I needed to ask you, you should be able to walk back to your cell after a few hours,” the nurse said. “Clean up the lab, that’s all you can do properly anyway,” She said to her assistant and proceeded to walk out of the door.

“Oh yeah, your new uniform is right under the bed, get it before you leave.”

Right after she left, my attention turned toward the red-head woman. She looked like a college student, a few years older than me. She had brown eyes, but they were almost as dark as the night sky.

“Why?” I asked

“Can you help me?” She said, her voice almost breaking.

“What?” I asked again, shaking and putting my hands on my head.

“I saw you running away after taking the gun from that cop! I know you are trying to plan an escape, I have to get out of here!” She finally explained.

“And I assume you want to join us?” I said.

“Yes, please. I can be useful, I have medical knowledge.” Why is this girl so desperate?

She started to get closer to me.

“Ok, calm down, I never said no,” I told her.

“Thank you, thank you!” She held my hand as she said that.

Desperate times called for desperate measures I guessed. I never said yes either, but considering what she just did for me, and how she would place herself at risk in helping me, I couldn’t just say no. Her responses made me become alert. If she saw me running away from the scene while taking the gun, then somebody else might have seen me as well, and that would have been disastrous.

“Did anybody else see me running away from the scene?” I asked carefully.

“No, not that I know of,”

“Ok, if we let you help us, how exactly are you going to do that? You would be on the female side of the prison, while we on the male, how would you become useful to us?”

“I will be here at curfew after the nurse leaves, if you had anybody that is injured, you can come to me, also, there are no cameras in this room, the nurse doesn’t like to be watched,” She explained timidly as if she was nervous that I wouldn’t let her join.

That certainly could be useful. After all, phase II of Operation Jailbreak was recruiting more people.

“Do you have any surgery experience?” I asked her.

“I- I assisted doctors on surgery, but never did it myself before.” She explained.

“What’s your Spirit?”

“It’s suppressed like every other inmate’s but I could make you immune to a poison for one day.”

That would have to do it. I couldn’t exactly call her Spirit useful regarding the situation, but her expertise in surgery might be a great advantage for us. There were no possible scenarios on this green planet that I was going to let Alexei get that TNT out by himself.

“Tomorrow, I will bring you someone that is hiding something in his body. Whether we escape or not is depended on whether you successfully get said thing out of his body without killing him, got it?”

She paled for a moment but nodded nonetheless.

I got out of bed. The scenery around me was spinning, but I was able to hold my balance.

“What’s your name?” I asked, putting on my new uniform as I prepared to leave.

“Cecilia,”

“Well then, I will see you tomorrow, Cecilia.”