Jax was startled awake when he heard a loud sound going off, and found himself surrounded by a curtain of pitch black darkness.
Following the loud alarm, came the rattling of an iron baton upon its contact with the steel door of the room he was sleeping in.
It was then, that dawned upon him that he had fallen asleep in his sitting position after the two overbearing guards left him in his new match box or should he say this cramped room of a prison cell of his?
Soon, he heard someone twisting in the key to his room and before he knew, he was already walking in a line with other inmates of this seemingly dark dungeon like prison.
Several guards were busy monitoring the prisoners while the recipients were busy finishing their morning routine before they could start their not so different day in here.
When it was Jax's turn to wash his face, he found himself staring at his reflection in the almost foggy mirror. The expression on the young lad's face that greeted him was unreadable, even to himself.
Brown eyes stared at their own lifeless reflection before focusing on his dirty brown curls which now almost turned into grey because of all the dust that he hadn't gotten a chance to get rid of during the past few days.
Jax didn't even want to bother about his sunken eye sockets as he splashed water on his face roughly as if he just wanted to get done with it as soon as he could.
Then, they were left to roam in the clear premises surrounded by high walls, after being fed with a non palatable plate of breakfast, which wouldn't even satisfy a toddler if it was indeed cooked to be something edible.
The guards almost made themselves scarce after leaving them under the blazing hot sun in this vast ground which might be located at the heart of this prison.
All the inmates were busy doing something and anything to pass their time. Some were talking, some were formed into small groups before they sat on the ground without bothering about the scorching heat or the dirt.
While some were staring at something with their eyes wide open. This caught Jax's attention and the latter followed their line of sight only to be greeted with a scene that almost made him grimace in pain.
A thin man was being beaten up by at least five burly men, surrounded by another five who were acting as if they had formed a human barricade around them, it wasn't clear whether it was for not letting anyone interrupt the first five or restricting the nearly dead man's possible escape chances.
The man that was being bashed was shouting at someone, who was standing not too far from them. The subject of the former's attention was a rougish man, with a weird but satisfying smile on his face.
"Someone got trapped in their nasty games again."
"It's nothing new, right?"
"They would always find someone to brawl with, who would then end up with a bruised body."
"I wonder what led them to treat that man so harshly, so early in the morning."
"You don't have to ask it out loud, it's just his sh*t luck which got that poor man to get embroiled in this."
The whispers of the several onlookers, in this case, the whispers of the other inmates, came from behind Jax. So according to them it was a once in a while affair, but why weren't they being stopped by the guards?
Jax lifted his eyes and looked around to see what the guards were caught up with, yet, to his surprise, he saw two of those aforementioned guards standing not too far from this attention grabbing squabble, but they seemed to turn a blind eye to whatever these bunch of people were doing as they busied themselves in a small talk.
His focus shifted to the loud wails of the thin man and when Jax concentrated a bit, he realized that the latter was actually pleading to not beat him up anymore instead of shouting profanities at his attacker.
It was understandable. After all, he was shouting at his top of his lungs as if bashing someone with curses.
When Jax was busy conflicting whether he should feel pity or sad for the thin man, his line of sight was cut off by a burly figure, who was now standing in front of him, less than three steps from where he stood and staring at the commotion. It was none other than the weirdly smiling rougish man.
"New to here?" asked the man, eyeing Jax with a look that switched between interest and curiosity.
However, to the former's dismay Jax chose to answer him indifferently with a curt nod of his head. That was it.
No fear, no apprehensive looks, no hostility not even a judgemental expression on his face.
This successfully ruffled the rougish man's hairs.
He didn't expect such a reply from this seemingly weak human being of a twenty year old lad. However, he chose not to ruin his first day here for reasons unknown to the former himself, well it seemed that he could be tolerant at times too.
The rougish man, nodded his head once as if bidding the latter a goodbye and left the scene after warning the bunch of burly men, his minions, to tone it down.
Jax couldn't be blamed for this curt reaction of his either, from what he had seen from the moment his eyes laid upon the actions of all the people surrounding him, he concluded that involving himself would literally become another meaning for trouble.
When even the guards chose to stay out of this and maintained a distance from this weird man, he wasn't thick in his head to get tangled with them.
No thanks! He was fine just being himself and having everything in order in his life or should he say his now messed up life?
Anyway, he didn't want to have anything to do with them, period.