The guard looked down at 3109, casting him a hateful glare, "You know the way." He said without further elaboration before walking up the stairs.

3109's haggard black eyes followed the guard briefly then moved to the entrance of the hallway that was directly to his left...

Without further ado he headed there.

Unlike the hallway from which he came, this one was leading to different locations and to reach his first destination 3109 didn't have to go very far since after walking barely ten seconds in the hallway, it was on his right.

The first destination in question was a canteen of sorts, the importance of the words 'of sorts' here being that this 'canteen' was basically just a room devoid of fourniture except a large cubic machine mounted on a circular pole and equipped with a trap door from which was coming portions of a thick, lumpy green porridge of dubious composition exclusively.

Of the two meals of the day, the canteen was guarded only during the evening meal, that meant that the prisoners were almost autonomous in serving themselves food for the one in the morning and in other words that people who were constantly hungry were left alone to deal with the distribution of their food at that moment...

It couldn't go well from the start, and unfortunately, it was often 3109 who was paying the price of this circumstance.

---

When 3109 scanned the room he saw that all the prisoners had already served themselves and were gulping down the contents of their bowls as if they were participating in a speed contest...

Having a bad feeling, he was almost reluctant to look at the corner of the floor where all the bowls that the prisoners used to serve themselves were usually piled up because he was almost sure that there were none left.

Unsurprisingly, there was indeed nothing where 3109's gaze stopped and as soon as this realization went from his eyes to his brain, a far too familiar scenario which was explaining what happened took shape in his mind; one of the prisoners had taken two bowls and therefore two portions.

3109 was ignorant in a general way but he wasn't stupid, at least, far from stupid enough not to have understood that in the case of the morning meal the number of bowls put at disposal corresponded to the number of prisoners, that the machine contained a total number of portions equivalent to one portion per prisoner and that the machine could recognize the bowls that had already been used and didn't serve a portion when this was the case...

All these elements added together formed the scenario 3109 had arrived at after a short reflection the first time he had to face the fact that there was no more food for him and the fact that at that time the culprit didn't even bothered to hide the bowl he had 'stolen' from 3109 immediately made the latter realize that his first deductions were simply the truth.

Now, he knew why some of the prisoners were inclined to do this, they were hungry and from what 3109 understood, every man who was imprisoned here was so because he was a bad person, not that he could tell what a good person was in the first place, but still, he was hungry too and in the same way that violence was prohibited between prisoners he would have liked it to be the same for viciousness.

3109's stomach was already painful before because of the malnutrition, and the envy he was feeling while seeing the prisoners eating was making the pain even stronger now, since he knew that he wouldn't get his food back, he decided to do what he was doing every time something like that happened, endure and move on...

He looked down until the only thing he could see was the floor and his battered feet, turned around and walked out of the canteen, after which he continued down the hallway toward his second destination of the day.

---

It was a much longer journey to do to reach the second destination of 3109, it gave him time to ponder on his life, something he was doing less and less lately because his thoughts were more gloomy than ever...

In general, 3109 was far from positive for obvious reasons, but right now it was an all time low for the simple reason that he felt that his body was going to fail him soon...

It could be today, tomorrow, in a week or two but 3109 was confident that it would be no more than that, he was on his last leg, that much was a certainty, he was proud to have fought against death for so long but on the other hand, he couldn't help but think in retrospective that his life had been nothing but suffering and waste of time.

The appearance of a figure in the distance snapped 3109 out of his state of mind, the person he thought he was recognizing was the guard who was supervising the work that was being done in his second destination; mining.

After advancing further 3109 saw that the figure belonged to a middle-aged man of about 6'2 feet tall, the slightly marked wrinkles on his face and his thick, greying beard suggested that he was between 45 and 50 years old, there was no doubt anymore, it was the guard of the mine.

When 3109 saw that the guard had noticed him he was less tense than in the presence of the one who came to wake him up in the morning, unlike the other one the guard of the mine didn't have a strong predisposition for violence and wouldn't do anything to the prisoners as long as they were productive...

For this reason he was one of the people that 3109 disliked the least.

***

Seeing that 3109 was the first to arrive, the guard immediately understood what happened and expressed his surprise with a barely audible grunt which showed just how much that said surprise was small...

It was far from the first time something like this happened to 3109 and he was tempted to say it was far from the last until he saw the boy more closely.

3109's body was in very bad shape, which wasn't new, but contrary to usual the guard couldn't see in his eyes the slightest bit of motivation...

'Well, this on the other hand is quite surprising.' The guard thought with a raised eyebrow, wondering what could have changed the boy's mindset.