"El Cerro De Oro?" Why would they want to know about that? I'm sure they don't know about master, nor could they know about the guardian: that's information I personally made sure not to be leaked. I'm certain none of the prisoners who escaped were dumb enough to share my story, not after my performance back there.

"Yes!" he answered with a cheer. "So, what about you tell me how it happened? I love the tales of my heroes!" he laughed with an innocent smile.

I kept silent.

"Hey, that's your cue to talk, if you didn't get it." His smile vanished. "Hey, I said it's your cue to talk, are you deaf or what?"

"I won't," I answered shortly. "What will you do, kill me? Then you will never have the story." I spat on his shoe. Now he was angry; veins akin to magma wrinkled his face as he glared at me.

"You know what? You truly are like the stories, you don't know when to give in." He repeatedly punched me in the stomach, making me desperate for air and groan in agony, leaving burned skin sizzling a morbid melody. "Now, tell me about El Cerro De Oro."

It hurts. It hurts so much. I felt like throwing up, my head spinning relentlessly. I couldn't contain my laugh any longer.

My tormentor looked at me strangely. "What. Why are you laughing?" His incomprehension turned to worry, "did I say something stupid?"

I looked straight in his eyes, a smirk escaping my lips. "I'll tell you one thing about El Cerro De Oro."

"Really?! I knew I could count on you! You truly are the best, now tell me!"

"We used to be woke up with a bucket of iced water and a taser, so if you think you'll make me speak with your excuse for a torture session, let me tell you how wrong you are." Bullshit. I am spouting complete bullshit.

He seemed dumbfounded for a little while, then slightly angry, but resolved on sighing. "I don't understand why you do this, really! Out of all people, you should be the one understanding us," He emphasized by pointing to his torso. "The world has trampled you down since you were a child, but you fought back - and you won at that! So why can't you understand us!? We want the same thing, you and I: to devour the world. Because then, we'll be able to shape it just like they did back then. Because of the Daemons, our world has ended; they weren't worthy of devouring the world, that's why it has ended in such a sorry state."

"Because you think yourselves worthy of shaping the world like you see fit? A bunch of lunatics eating each others will make for an awesome third apocalypse, can't tell you how excited I am to see that. And even if that's what you people want to do, I still don't see how could sharing my story help you out."

"You still don't understand?" he said, thinking to himself. "Well, I guess it's okay if I tell you. See, you were able to stand back up when the world tried to trample you down: you have the power to devour the world, and we want that power - no, we need that power. The problem is, if you were to eat the world, it wouldn't come out like we want, so we decided to make our own hunter: an exact replica of you, having surpassed the same hardships life put you against, who fought the same dangers you once fought, who grew with your scars. An exact replica, except for one thing: its beliefs.

Yet, no matter how much we tried, regardless of how many kids we abducted, despite how exact we made the tests to your life, they never ended up like you! They just became broken pieces! None survived the testings! So that's when we understood our mistake, a simple one at that! When you were seventeen, you didn't exist! We tried to read documents, listen to tales drunken men loved to share, see if you had committed any crimes,but nothing came out! Until recently, when someone stole official documents concerning the legendary prison - we didn't even know it was real until that day! I can't tell you how excited we were when we saw your name on the list of prisonners; the hunter, Jacques Austin, escaped from Hell itself! Of course we couldn't make the right replica, we had forgotten the most important ingredient!"

"You sick people," I muttered under my breath. So it was true, I knew it was true, but I still held on to a sliver of hope, that humanity hadn't hit rock bottom. I was wrong. "You make me want to puke."

"I don't really care. Anyway, now that I've told you about our story, you will tell us about yours, or else I stop the beating and kill you. If we can't have a hunter devour the world for us, we'll gladly let Tezcatlipoca do it his way."

I looked at him with shock; for a second I had forgotten the tovernen had allied with that monster. "And what's his way?"

"Total annihilation of the human race. He does not want to devour the world, he only wants to get rid of humans. Now tell me about El Cerro De Oro."

I struggled a bit, trying to find a way to get out of this situation, but there was none. I'd have to resort to my last card: bullshiting my way out of this. "Alright, I'll tell you all about it, just tell me what you did to Leolio."

"The guy who was with you? Tezca wanted to talk to him, so don't expect to see him anytime soon. Now start the story, I can't wait anymore!"

I looked at him, taking my time to find the right words, then spoke. "I don't remember much about the day I was brought in this prison, just that we were searched and we were brought in the prison in a heavily armored vehicle that rode for hours till our destination."

I was a member of the Sinless at that time, although not for long. I remember one of the older kids betrayed me, probably because of my eye, in exchange for a big fat load of money. Sneaky bastard. Not that I don't understand him; I'd have done the same at the time were I in his shoes. There were other people with him, all already blindfolded and with wax in their ears. I had the same fate when I was seated - a little too abruptly, not that it was surprising - rendering me deaf and blind.

"After that some guards searched us a second time and we could finally enter the prison."

It was night, everyone looked at me with despise, and I looked at them with defiance. I remember the cold air pumping through my nostrils, letting me smell the fresh scent of wet dirt and piss.

"What about the cell!" the crazy man asked, interrupting my tale. "Was it like the rumors, was it painted with the blood of ancient cellmates and a jungle with its own hierarchy?"

"Nothing like that, I don't know where you got your sources, but that's bullshit. No, we had a color that signified our threat level, it went from light green to red, and we were put in a cell with another inmate who had the same threat level as us. It was done so they could always keep us under control. Letting enough inmates inside a cell for us to create a hierarchy of our own would have probably been the last thing they wished for."

I was threat level red, not because of my dangerosity, but simply my eye. As for my cellmate, he was an old, famished, frail-looking man who looked like he was about to collapse at any moment.

"Life there wasn't so different from the rumors: guards vented their anger on the more weak and starved convicts, and you had better not talk too much, or else you'd be gutted by some asshole who didn't like the way you talked. I can't tell you how many times I saw new guys coming in, thinking they were the new shit, and getting offed in the matter of a night."

Most of the guards paid no mind to us, the few who talked with us explained how their system worked by points - I hate points, and so did they - so that the less efficient guards were fired or on the better cases sent off to a less important post - a great way to make the few brave souls ready to accept this job flee without looking back knowing guard was considered almost worse than being jobless by most - without much chance of ever being offered a better position afterwards. Also I don't think they were paid good enough to chat with the scum of the city, daily at that. As for the inmates, we were mostly bored out of our minds, so we liked to share stories; the most well-liked story was how no one had ever come out of the prison - not that you couldn't escape it, just, if you did, your corpse would come back inside the next morning. A sweet reminder that El Cerro De Oro was a sentence for life.

"What about your cellmate? How was he like? Did you beat him up the first day to assert dominance?"

I looked at him with a sliver of concern: having such imagination surely was dangerous. "No," I struggled a bit to make up a story, but I found a convenient lie before my composure shattered. "It would be trying my luck with the devil. Think a little, it is the most secure prison containing all of the worst of society. I'm no hunter there, just a man with some reputation to his name. I had luck, what with my cellmate not looking for trouble, it made for easy nights where I didn't have to sleep with one eye opened," at that, he seemed a little disappointed.

When I first arrived, I still was untamed, my feelings and emotions a maelstom I was not the master of. After all I lived through, I couldn't trust, I couldn't show sympathy. All I had left was rage. My cellmate was the complete opposite; a still pond ignoring raging tempests. No winds strong enough to create swirls in his mind.

When I first arrived, I saw for the first and last time the still pond in his eyes swirl for a second, but I ignored it, instead mocking his frail apparence. He simply responded with a laugh, asking if he really looked that old. The swirl died down.

Our first encounter wasn't so good; I despised his kind, and he probably thought me an idiot who only showed hate and understood not much except fight. To be honest, he wasn't wrong to think that; I was an idiot living by brawls and violence. As for his kind, he was of the people who took no action; he would not bat an eye when a fight broke out; he would never respond with violence or anger, be there an insult thrown at his name or a plea for help. Overall, he reminded me too much of the passers-by who tried their best to ignore me roaming the streets, my head drenched with blood hiding tears and an aching heart from a fight I had won, my prize a mere piece of bread and scars I'd never forget.

"But now, you could beat him, right? You could beat them all, right?" he asked with pleading eyes.

I sighed, more so because of his never-ending questions than because of my situation. "I could beat them all, as for him, I don't know."

The old man was unique. It took long for us to bond, but at the end I received great enlightenment.

I remember the first time he engaged a conversation; I had kept on with my taunts, which were mostly me asking how an old man like him ended up in such a place. At this point it was half to get a reaction and half because I was actually curious about his story. A day I was too tired to play the incessant game of taunts, he answered me. He told me he was once young, but let the flame of desires burn his life away; he had a family, however the wife left, tired of his daily consumption of drugs and scared by her own son, and there was only him and his sole child left to uphold the title of "family". This harrowing situation was, in his eyes, a call to start anew. And it worked, for some time at least; the drugs he hadn't touched since his wife had departed slowly crept up the back of his mind. Each day he felt like going crazy, suffering more and more from a withdrawal that seemed to never end. One day, he finally gave in his cravings and left his child alone for the allure of drugs. He simply finished by saying that, since the day he first touched that drug, it had been relentlessly burning away his life, and without realizing it, he had become a shriveled old man who felt like having only lived thirty years. In the end, his daily search for another dose led him to this very prison.

But he wasn't the only one to share his life and mistakes. I didn't talk to others and life there was boring, so we soon bonded, for each scar we showed the other we would respond by showing yet another one. It wasn't for the sake of display of strength; we just wanted to share all the weights we had kept to ourselves. And so, just like that, I, too, told him everything: from the happy days to how I ended up here all the while explaining how everything went downhill and even more.

He taught me everything. He was the one who helped me go past my scars. The shadow of my father, of my friends, of what was once my family no longer haunted me. He also taught me how to live in society, to accept others and be accepted by others. One day, he told me he was blind, yet he could see; the wind let him feel everything, from the footsteps of the guards to the pores on one's skin. For him, it was like hands filled with eyes; the sensation let him see what his eyes refused to uncover. Yet others would only see his ailment, thus he wore lens to avoid being picked on too much.

After that day, he gave me one of his lens for me to wear.

"What about your daily life? I want to know about it!" he said, stars in his eyes.

"We passed most of the day outside, there was only a mere fence with barbed wire preventing us from escaping, yet no one could."

I remember passing most of my day daydreaming and playing cards with others. There were often times when cellmates stood in front of the fence, talking with an outsider; it was because the guardian did not care of innocents trespassing its area, only of convicts trespassing it. It's where I saw Teresa back... wait, no. I couldn't have seen her, she betrayed me. But she gave me food, she was there! No... I can't remember what happened. It's all fuzzy. My memories from El Cerro De Oro clash against those of my time at the institute. I can't remember what is true from what is false...

"Hey! Don't stop there, you were just getting to the interesting part! Why couldn't you leave the prison? Why! I need to know!" He jumped in place like a child about to get an icecream. "I need to know!"

His incessant chattering brought my mind back to the present. "It was because of the guardian." As I said these words, his eyes lit up in excitment. "It stopped whoever tried to escape the prison, bringing back the man's corpse the following dawn."

"Then, how did you escape?" He asked in a whisper of both anticipation and fear, crouched right in front of me, tilting his body back and forth like a child addicted to sugar.

"I rallied the inmates and we killed it together. It was a bloody battle, one where many died. I still remember the distinctive clink of its fangs snapping, how a single swing of its limbs was able to bring a dozen of us to our end. In the end, it was our number advantage that allowed us to come out victorious, and finally escape that Hell."

El Cerro De Oro is a sentence for life. Life is boring there, that's why so many inmates tried to escape, ignoring the dangers of trespassing the guardian's territory. Now that I think of it, they probably knew they'd die, but couldn't endure the long hours that ticked endlessly in the clock of time. Just like them, I longed for a day where I finally could escape the terrible fence, for the day we could escape our golden cage. However I wasn't like the ones who lost all hopes and in a desperate move tried to escape alone. No, I had the perfect plan to escape Hell.

I woke up before the first rays of light could shower us and waited in front of the fence. After waiting for what seemed to be an hour, but really must have been no more than twenty minutes, a corpse was brought back inside. I approached the two guards transporting the fallen inmate and started conversing with them, mostly curious about how they could endure this morning routine, they explained that there were turns for who would bring back the corpses, so it wasn't that bad. I thanked them and went my way: I had everything I wanted to know. The conversation was just a means to have a closer look at the corpse; it was maimed with hints of blunt injuries dancing with cuts going past the bones. It was a horrid sight. But there was no bullet impact and the damage seemed to have been done by the same person, two at the most. It meant we had a chance. At least I thought so

The following days, I started speaking to the most credules inmates, telling them one of my friends escaped and didn't get caught. I simply had to describe how this friend of mine looked like, and upon seeing no corpse fitting my description, they would share the story to others. By the time some voices started to arise, protesting the rumor, it was already too late; most wanted to believe it, they needed to hear they could one day escaped; I simply was the one to tell them it is possible.

Although he didn't protest my doings, the old man disapproved of my ways. To him, we were there for a reason, and this golden cage was the price of our wrongdoings, escaping it would only stoop even lower. In a certain way, he was right, but at the time I was just like these men I lied to: I couldn't endure it anymore, so I threw away all the old man's principles and did what I do best: deceive others.

It worked.

I was hiding in the middle of a crowd of enraged convicts screaming in front of a fence. We were all armed, and even the old man was with me, when I asked him why, he simply answered losing his family once was already one too many time. We tore out the fence; the guards screamed for us to stop. Their cries were deafened by our excitment; finally we could escape our golden cage.

What greeted us was desolation. Dirt that cracked from a simple footstep extended in the horizon, burnt trees darker than charcoal spread out in the horizon and ashes whirled in a ghastly ballet. All I could think of was the scenery that hid beyond Netema. We all stopped, paralyzed by the sight. Then someone exclaimed that we were finally free, and the charm was broken.

We continued running.

The same scenery passed before our eyes, the ashes making us cough and tear up. But we kept on going; the ones who couldn't run anymore were left behind: no one thought of others in this situation.

It was exhilarating. For the first time I felt like truly breathing; I felt new, reborn, happy, determined: I felt alive.

But all dreams must come to an end sooner or later. We saw a glimpse of fresh grass, one that was not like charcoal nor oozing toxic ashes. It was a prelude to a new life, one outside our golden cage, and with it came a beast.

We heard it before we saw it. A deafening howl to the soon-to-come dawn burst our ears, then a loud thud elevated a cloud of ashes, blinding us.

The Guardian had arrived.