The alarm rang loudly once again. It had been just some days that Casper was there, but he was already starting to hate from the bottom of his heart that alarm. It was so loud, that it seemed to be right next to his ears.
Probably it was also because of his headache, that was killing him all night. Just then the pain was decreasing little by little, but he needed to pass for approximately 7 or 8 hours of pure torture before being spared.
He got up from the floor, which was his bed from that night because he could not find the will to go to his actual bed because of the exhaustion of his body.
He looked to the side, and his cellmate was already sitting on his mattress, with his eyes darting around, as quiet and stealthy as always.
"Good morning, Anton…" He groaned, rubbing his neck while dragging his feet to his bed and laying there.
"Morning…" The man replied, hesitantly.
Casper thought that whatever happened with Anton, it was a pretty harsh thing, probably.
His skin was all pale, he seemed to be struggling to breathe. His hands were trembling. His eyes were reddened and dry which were strange since he had slept last night.
"Hey, man… Say to me, what happened?" Casper heard the cell's gate opening, but he could not find the strength to make his legs move and go there.
He gave a brief look to Anton. The middle-aged man had already stood up and was trying to walk past the gate. He seemed to be ignoring Casper completely.
"H-hey…"
He turned to the soldier and gave some knocks in his mask. The same signal he gave to Casper whenever he wanted to say that the mask forbade him to do something.
He sighed hard, urging the body to get up and start to walk, even if his legs were trembling.
"These damn masks…" He cursed in his mind.
"Ok, I got it. You don't need to be stressed at all…" Casper reached the old man, walking next to him.
"Anton is not stressed. Not because of you, at least… Anton thinks that there will not be a single person in a good mood today."
Casper looked around. It seemed that that morning a lot of prisoners were staying for some more time inside their cells. Some of them could not even get up to go to the canteen and have their breakfast.
It seemed that, if a prisoner did not leave their cells in some minutes, the gates would just close.
"So… It's more flexible when it comes to the meals… However, it doesn't help me so much. Would be way better if I could just stay at my cell during the outdoor activities… Maybe they are doing an exception today too, since the prisoners are so worn out… I still need to study more about it."
Casper was trying to find openings in the schedule to pass more time inside the cell, and get the opportunity to walk around the complex as well.
It was not easy, but he certainly would come up with an idea.
There were some places that he needed to go if he wanted to accomplish essential parts of his goal. Places where a prisoner could not visit at all. Because of it, that matter was so important.
"Well, I think I will eat and try to regain a bit of my energy. With the way my mind is acting now, I will not be able to think in something so soon."
Casper and Anton sat together with their food. They started to eat slowly while talking about trivial things.
The Ridires were already trying to overhear what they were saying, but after some time without noticing anything strange going on they started to stop to pay attention to them.
"Ok, now we can talk about that matter," Casper said. "First of all, I think I can understand more or less what is this Dark zone. At first, I thought that they were torturing the prisoners as a way to discipline or something. But I rethought it, and I remembered what you had said in my first day here…"
Anton nodded slowly with his head, looking to be satisfied with Casper's line of thought. It motivated the soldier to keep talking.
"You said that everyone here is nothing but guinea pigs. That was not just some way to belittle yourselves, but also a hint, right? You all are precisely guinea pigs. And the Dark zone is the time when they get the prisoners to pass through all sorts of experiments."
"That's right. You got it. I can't talk much about this matter, since it's something very restrictive, but everyone here is the same… And it seems that they want to take a look at you as well, Casper."
The soldier got restless on the bench, eating his food with huge bites. That anxiety in his heart was not something without basis. He just had come back from a sort of experiment, and he did not know what kind of thing it would do with him.
"I don't know about you, Anton, but I can't remember at all of what happened with me when I was in the laboratory. And it's not something because of trauma, I don't think so at least." Casper stroke his chin, in deep thought about that question.
"Your symptoms?"
"I have a huge headache, and last night the inside of my head was burning, it was really hot. I remember vaguely to be touched in the face a lot of times, and there is this thing that they put in my head's right side as well."
After Casper's explanation, Anton looked at him with worried eyes, even if for a second. He crossed his arms and leaned on the top of the table.
"They are starting already, buddy. Anton is certain about it."
Then, Casper realized what it could be. He looked at Anton with his eyes widening.
"Could it possibly be that…" He passed his fingers on the face slowly. He thought it was not so good to keep saying the word "mask" so often because it was suspicious.
"Yeah, that's exactly what Anton meant. They are starting already, and nor Anton or you knows how long it can last. I don't want to frighten you, but if everything goes well and the Forger is in a good time, they can make a mask for you in one day."
The White warrior gulped, still with his fingers touching his face, as if to confirm that it was still uncovered.
"It's a shoot in the dark, I guess… I have a deadline, but I don't know exactly when it will be, how much time I have to spend with our plan…" Casper hit the table slightly with both hands, trying to suppress his frustrations.
"If that's the case, we can't lose more time with this, right? Anton thinks that it's better if we already start it right now."
The soldier kept looking intently at his plate, which at that point was already without any food.
Casper did not like the idea of rush things, but there was nothing they could do to help it. Both Anton and him knew that his "freedom" was the only thing that could trigger an escape soon.
"Ok. We will start it right now. But first, I will need to do something crazy at some point, ok?"
"Something crazy?"
Anton stopped to eat his food. He saw Casper doing crazy things before, and every time they were the most dangerous things.
"We have an early step that needs to be accomplished, but I can't pull through it if I don't do what I have in mind." He explained but being vague about the actual thing.
"Just don't kill yourself or be stuck in a difficult situation, buddy…"
"Yeah… You will see, don't worry. Just trust me. Tomorrow you will see it happening. For now, to make things keep going, we will need to start to build a partnership with the other prisoners here. Since you are here for more time than me, do you have any idea of who I need to talk to?"
"Hmmm, I have. Besides that guy I pointed to you at the courtyard, we have someone that's also good to keep contact in our block.
"The name of the guy is Olaf. He is very influential here, but not with the prisoners in specific, but with some Ridires."
"The masks don't prevent corruption among the Ridires?" Casper whispered, being cautious about his surroundings.
"It depends on the action itself. There are some ways to be more discreet and make the brain order some kinds of things that can dribble the barrier that these things impose."
Anton explained it all, then pointed with his thumb to someone that was sitting behind him.
Casper saw that it was a man with brown and curly hair. The most flashy feature that he had was his left arm, which seemed a type of arm that someone with all his muscles messed up would have. He did not use that arm at all. His left leg seemed to be about the same.
"I think that it has something to do with the experiment they are doing with him…" Casper concluded.
"Ok, let this with me. I think I can bring him to our side."