Casper opened his eyes. That was the second time in a day in which he was doing it. He never slept so many times on the same day.
Apparently, he was still with that crap of a bag in his head. They did not bother to get that thing out of him when they threw him inside of what he guessed was a jail.
He was frustrated because he could not assess the surroundings and be aware of where he exactly was and what he could start to do now.
His hands had handcuffs on them. The warriors had put it on him when they arrived in that place. As it seemed, they were just being jerks with him, since nothing good would come from that measure.
It was no wonder that they were doing this sort of thing with him. He had beat their leader and injured many comrades after all.
He stayed like that for so many times, that he gave up in wait there awake and decided to take a nap.
He, then, woke up with his body all achy since he slept on the ground. He was already feeling that it was getting more troublesome to breathe with that thing covering his head.
"Those damn bastards… If I see them again…" He murmured to himself, sitting on the floor and forcing the handcuffs. At the same time as he thought and try to wear off those things, a shock wave was sent through his body.
"Damn it! I forgot about what these handcuffs do…"
"If Anton was in your shoes, he would be quiet, buddy." Someone said to him, his sympathetic voice cutting the silence that Casper was immersed in before.
The soldier knew the exact moment when that person talked with him, that he was a cunning guy. Casper could not hear, or feel, any presence in that jail until now.
"Anton don't know if you realized it, buddy… But these things will punish you if you ever think in free yourself from them."
"I know that much, man…"
"If you know, then Anton would like you to be quiet. Anton wants to sleep."
Casper sighed. He did not have the time to discuss with someone about it. The least he needed was to argue with another person.
"Sure, sure… Hey, can you get this bag out of my head?"
"Will you let Anton sleep after this?"
"Maybe."
This time, Anton was the one sighing. Casper waited for a while, not hearing anything at all. He could not say for sure if that guy was approaching him or not.
The last thing that he heard was that slight sigh, then nothing more.
He wondered if that guy just went to sleep and let Casper talking to himself, or if he was pondering on helping or not.
Just when the soldier had given up and threw his hopes aside, suddenly the bag got removed from his head and he was able to see again.
He looked at that man first, ignoring any other relevant things that that jail may have. Casper was amazed, yet alarmed about how Anton could approach him without doing any sound, and afterward even untie the knot of the bag and get it out.
Casper was perceptive and focused. It was very difficult to go through his radar. But that man had what it takes to do it.
"This Anton isn't any ordinary man… He is skilled. A normal person can't be so stealth and meticulous doing these things, and he seems to have done it as if it was the most natural thing of the world."
Casper looked at Anton, who was on his left side. He was skinny, at the point of look malnourished; around 163 cm tall, which was pretty short for a man, particularly in District 42, where the standards were about 176 cm as long as Casper had noticed. He had blond hair, with a few white strands.
His eyes were blue and were always darting around, never stopping at the same point for more than some seconds.
It gave the impression that he was being attentive to every centimeter of space around him, which made Casper wonder what was going on inside his mind.
His eyes got pretty agitated when analyzing Casper, particularly his face, which was without a mask as per usual.
However, he did not say anything about that matter, and soon his eyes lost interest in Casper's face and he started to look elsewhere.
"Thank you." Casper got up on his feet, which was painful due to his still injured left ankle.
"Something wrong with the ankle, boy?" Just then Casper noticed that the sympathetic voice of that man was also an indication of his age. He was probably older than Casper.
"I have a dislocation, and my bones are cracked as well."
"That's tough." He walked towards one of the two beds that had in that cell, laying on top of it with his back turned to the wall.
Another bed was on the opposite side, also next to the wall.
Beside the bed, there were just a sink and a toilet.
It was pretty small but had enough space to keep two people living there reasonably.
It was pitch dark inside there, so he could not grasp any major details. Just to analyze Anton was extremely difficult.
After looking around for a while, Casper turned to Anton again. He was with his eyes closed, but the soldier was sure that he did not fall asleep yet.
"Anton, where are we?"
The old man opened one eye, looking at him annoyed.
"Anton and you are in Halden, an exclusive prison of the Third Lab for the most dangerous and crazy criminals of the district… Or, then, guinea pigs." He answered in a tired voice.
"Basically, everyone here is a guinea pig somehow, and the ones who aren't sinking in madness yet, soon or later will be, and that includes you, of course."
Casper sat on the bed behind him, never avoiding his gaze from Anton's opened eye, which was darting around.
He was starting to understand why he was there, and what could happen to him if he stayed enjailed for more time.
"Will they get these handcuffs out of me?"
"Not the guards… But the prisoners."
He did not get what he meant. Will the prisoners help him? Or take off those handcuffs meant… something else?
Casper was being cautious about that man. He surely was a dangerous criminal. Someone that needed to have so many feats enough to be put in a jail exclusively kept by the military personnel, and have his humanity thrown away, being reduced at the level of a guinea pig.
"I can't just go and trust a criminal, anyway. I already committed a lot of mistakes, I can't keep up like this." Casper had decided to be twice as sensible than he already was.
He would keep for him the bit of information he got from Anton, but mostly he would try to sort things out by himself.
After the brief exchange of words, both kept laying on their beds quietly.
Anton never really fell asleep. Casper could suppose it by paying attention to his breathing, which was unsteady, not deep and calm at all.
Casper would not call for him, whatsoever. He needed some time to take note of everything that happened until that point and look closely at the most important points.
Then, he just looked to the mask of Anton in that pitch dark cell, lying on his side and lost in deep thought.
Soon, the cell gate opened with a loud noise. Casper stood up hastily from his bed, nearly falling.
He did not notice, but Anton was already waiting in front of the gate, patiently looking at its opening.
"What's going on, Anton?"
The man looked at him briefly, then pointed to the right side of the corridor.
"Lunchtime now. We should head to the canteen." He replied nonchalantly.
"Hmm… So we have a canteen here… I thought that our meals would be served inside the cell. What kind of prison with so much dangerous people would let them walk freely through the place?"
The corridor was filled with numerous other cells, and all of them were opened.
Casper's cell was the last one on the corridor, and it looked like all the other prisoners had headed to the canteen.
When he and Anton entered the corridor, finally a place with some light, Casper noticed something.
"Anton's mask… It's not brown or white… It's black. I couldn't notice in that pitch dark but it's entirely black…"
He walked behind Anton, dumbfounded.
Casper was deciding if he should ask him about that mask.
However, he had not so much time to think about it. They arrived at the canteen.
There, a lot of rectangular metallic tables were lined up on the right and left sides, along with benches that had the same length as them.
Deep down, there was the place when they would get their food.
Nobody was sitting at a table. Each prisoner was standing between each line of tables, making a semi-circle.
Each one wore a black mask as well, and they were all looking to Casper.