Andre was right, we had one hell of a job to do in the morning. A few of the guards waited for us on the ground floor, with supplies such as body bags and mops. I didn't catch any sleep, understandably enough, and I could see many faces in the crowd of inmates telling a similar story.
The ground floor looked like a tornado of angry teeth and barbed wire ran through a herd of cows. Blood coated every surface, with the occasional body part or length of intestine thrown into the mix. A few of the weaker willed inmates just passed out at the sight, and the rest of us didn't fare much better. My stomach was empty, but I still felt like throwing up through all of it.
But we cleaned the gore in a few hours, we had no other choice. The doors to the ground floor cells were locked again, yet we could all see how many people perished last night. Every other cell was empty, waiting for new inmates to fill the vacant spots. The guards watched us like vultures, waiting for the slightest slip up. No wonder no one dared step out of line, I finally understood the full gravity of our predicament.
At any rate, we got done around lunchtime and the ground floor looked spotless. You couldn't tell what utter carnage took place there only hours prior. The serving window opened and they served us lunch, but most people passed. Their stomachs wouldn't be able to handle food for a few days at the very least. Me and Chris weren't among them, however. We took our trays and, with a healthy dose of paranoia and skepticism, we went outside to eat.
I looked around for any signs as we walked, finding nothing out of place. The sand on the ground was raked, the doors were back in their hinges, even the trail of blood on the perimeter wall was gone. They likely had the inmates in block B clean up the courtyard.
Few other people were outside, so finding seating at a table wasn't hard. Chris put his tray down and started eating with a shell shocked expression, but I was in the mood for getting some answers. I'd not get a better time than this, we were alone so if we kept our voices low we could talk freely.
"What exactly went down last night?" I asked.
Chris looked up at me, then he batted an eye towards one of the guard towers. I didn't turn my head, catching sight of the guard in the corner of my eye. It was hard to make out details without looking directly at him, but I saw the headphones on his head. Did they have listening devices trained on us? Bugs under the tables or in our trays? Did I fuck up big time?
"Nah man, you can keep your mashed potatoes. Don't worry," Chris said nonchalantly. Something in the guard's hands moved, pointing in a different direction. It was a listening device after all. "Some other time, they're on high alert right now," he whispered.
I took my L with a sigh and we ate in silence. Answers were hard to come by in this place, you had to fight tooth and nail for any morsel of information. Chris was the only person I trusted fully, and he was too afraid to talk. My only option was to gather whatever I could through my own observations.
The guards monitored us closely for the next few days, and they were much more severe with the rules until they filled up the ground floor cells again. Anything and everything could land you there, if you as much as looked at someone the wrong way you had a decent chance of getting fucked over. All four of us somehow managed to avoid that fate though.
Things calmed down after that, and we returned to our previous routine. More or less. Chris was still in a state of shock, jumpy at everything around him, and Mason somehow managed to shut himself in even further. We had trouble getting more than a few sentences out of him on any given day before, but now he went days on end without speaking. I myself was probably not faring any better than them, but it's a hard call to make when you have to analyze your own behavior objectively.
Andre was the only one of us unaffected by the ordeal, and he helped me understand what Chris and Mason were going through. I was the newest inmate in our cell, obviously, but it turned out the two of them hadn't been there for long either. Chris for less than six months, and he'd lived through two prior blackout events, making this one his third. Mason was brought in shortly before me, so it was his second event. Andre, meanwhile, had been locked up there for a few years so he'd seen plenty of them and they didn't get under his skin anymore.
I wasn't sure what to make of that information, to be honest. And I didn't care much either, especially about Mason. Chris was a pal, sure, but I had no idea how to help him cope. In there, it was every man for himself. That's what I tried to tell myself in an effort to keep going, anyway. In reality, I couldn't practice it. When Chris stopped leaving the cell, I tried to convince him to come outside even for a little bit. When he stopped eating, I brought him his ration like he'd done for me.
But it didn't work, nothing I tried did. With every passing day, he got worse and worse. His deterioration was slow at first, to the point I didn't even notice it happening, but it soon became obvious. He stopped eating out of the blue and lost a lot of weight, withering away visibly each day.
His eyes lost that shine in them, that hope that things would be okay. You'll often hear tall tales of how the human spirit prevails, how our deep rooted survival instincts carry people through the darkest of times against the most impossible odds, but you rarely hear of the times it fails. Of just how brutal it is to see it shattered before your eyes.
"Come on, man," I pleaded with him one evening when I brought him dinner. "You can't do this to yourself."
"Why not?" He said with melancholy. "What's the point? I'm serving a lifetime sentence, it's just a matter of time until they send me to the ground floor as well. We're always just one mistake away from being torn apart by fucking monsters."
I sighed, knowing full well that he was right. None of us would make it out of there alive. We all had long sentences to serve, so it was inevitable. We could survive for years and it wouldn't matter. We had to be lucky each and every time, a million times in a row, but the guards only had to be lucky once. And even if we managed to pull it off, to survive the full length of our sentences, I doubted they'd just let us walk away. They'd pull some bullshit to get us killed, to keep the truth from getting out. And for people like Chris who served life sentences, there really was no hope left, no matter how vague and distant.
After a while, I just…stopped trying. There was no point in it, I couldn't force food down his throat. I somehow managed to hold on myself, though I'm not sure how or why. Maybe the full gravity of the situation hadn't sank in properly yet for me. One or two more blackout events though, and I was likely to break just like Chris had. But that was a distant prospect, for the time being my mind was taken up by his worsening condition. Each day I expected to wake up and find him dead in the bunk below my own.
"Eh, look on the bright side," Andre said one evening as we ate dinner in the courtyard. It was just the two of us at the table, Chris hadn't left the cell in about a month at that point and Mason stopped hanging out with us long ago. "If he croaks, the bottom bunk is yours."
That remark angered me, and I didn't try to hide it. I looked up at him with rage, ready to punch his jaw right off his stupid face. But Andre wasn't phazed, or much less intimidated. We both knew that even if the guards didn't intervene, I had no chance against him in a fight.
"Don't lose your shit, Jacky boy," he said with a shit eating grin. "It's cruel, but it is what it is. You have to hang on to whatever silver linings you're granted in here. Chris will die, and so will Mason eventually. They'll bring other people in, and those will die as well. I've had about twenty cell mates by now and they're all gone. Do I feel sorry for them? Sure, but I won't throw my own life away over their asses."
"Just…forget it," I said, dropping the half-eaten burger back on the tray and getting up.
Andre didn't say anything else, and neither did I. I walked away while I could still keep my cool and avoid causing a scene. After I returned my tray, I planned to go back to the cell and check if Chris had touched his own food, but I froze at the base of the stairs. Screams came from the third floor, followed by the sounds of a struggle. I rushed up and towards it, against the crowd sent into a sudden frenzy as they tried to retreat, recognizing Chris's voice.
Up on the third floor, I found two guards dragging him out of the cell in handcuffs. Chris screamed and thrashed in their grasp, too weak at that point to put up much of a fight.
"Let me go, I didn't do anything!" He pleaded as they carried him towards the stairs. "You can't do this to me, I didn't break the rules! Have some basic fucking human decency and let me die on my own terms!"
The guards didn't care, they didn't speak as much as a word to him. Just kept walking. When they reached me, one of them made eye contact, silently provoking me to try something. But I wouldn't, torn as my heart was for Chris. I just stepped out of their way, head down and my eyes pinned on my trembling feet.
"Please!" Chris kept trying to reason with them, to no avail.
He looked back over his shoulder for a final time before they went down the stairs. We made eye contact, and the desperation in his was clear as day. But I really couldn't do anything. At most I could've rushed in, to deliver a surprise punch and break Chris's neck to spare him his fate, but that would've signed my own death sentence. So I only watched as they took him away, down to the ground floor and out the main doors. He was sent straight to block C.
Part of me wanted to follow them and confirm that for myself, but I knew better so I didn't. I returned to our cell instead, finding Mason in his bed, back turned to the room. My heart nearly exploded with rage at the sight, he ratted Chris out and caused all of this.
"You piece of shit!" I yelled and rushed him before I realized I was on the move.
Mason didn't expect to be assaulted out of the blue, but he didn't fight back either. I stopped myself at the last moment, arm still raised and ready to punch his lights out. He looked up at me, the collar of his jumpsuit held tightly in my hand, but his eyes were vacant.
"What?" He asked.
"You did that!" I said and pointed at the cell door. "Fucking rat, you got Chris killed to save your own ass!"
Mason slapped my hand away weakly. I let go of him and took a step away from his bed, and he simply turned his back to me again.
"I didn't, I'm not one of the rats," he answered. "Now shut the fuck up before an actual rat hears you."
"What? Then who…"
"Everything alright? Trouble in paradise?"
I turned on my heels, finding Andre leaning on the cell door. The blood in my veins went a degree colder as reasoning returned to me, shooting into my brain like a speeding bullet. I'd been stupid, I allowed my emotions to get the better of me. Mason wasn't the rat, Andre was, and he caught me red handed as I broke the rules. But maybe there was still time, maybe I still stood a chance to save myself.
"No, everything's fine," I answered.
"You sure, Jacky boy?" He asked. "I heard you screaming all the way down the stairs."
"Yeah I'm sure, I just…got worked up about Chris. But I'll get over it."
"Mason?" Andre asked, moving his attention onto him instead.
If Mason talked, if he told Andre that I nearly attacked him, I was a gonner. And we weren't exactly buddies, so he had no reason to cover for me.
"Let it go," Mason said, leaving me dumbfounded. "You heard the man, he got worked up, but he didn't do anything."
Andre eyed us with suspicion, but he shrugged his shoulders and entered the cell.
"If you say so…"
He went to his bunk and laid down, so I did the same. In that moment I couldn't stand to be in the cell with them, but I knew that walking away would only make things worse. I had to stomach it, to process my emotions and let them run dry so I could clear my head. I placed my hands on the top bunk, ready to hop up, but Andre stopped me.
"The bottom one's yours now, don't you want it?" He asked.
He was trying to irk me by that point, no doubt about it. To get a first hand reaction out of me so he could get me fucking killed as well. But I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
"Yeah, I forgot. It slipped my mind," I said and laid on the bottom bunk.
I won't lie to you, I cried myself to sleep like a little baby that night. Hot tears that had no business coming out of my eyes. But I managed to keep it hidden, and nothing happened to me so I was in the clear. Andre didn't rat me out for whatever reason, and I had my theories on why, although I couldn't confirm them. Either he was satisfied with just Chris, or he saved me for later, knowing I would slip up again eventually. Maybe the rats had quotas and no reason to go above and beyond, who knows. All that I knew for sure were three things: I was safe for the meantime, I couldn't afford to fuck up again, and I couldn't rely on anyone anymore.
I was on my own.
Time kept passing, and I soon found I had isolated myself as much as everyone else around me. I wasn't a social butterfly before by any means, but I'd never been that bad. Most days, the only words coming out of my mouth were the thanks I gave to the cook behind the security glass. Some more inmates came and went to our cell, none lasting very long. I was lucky to get help from Chris when I did, and without the same courtesy extended to them, the new guys had no chance. Repeat offenders fared the worst, they tried to tackle this prison like any other and that just didn't cut it.
The next blackout event wasn't far off. From what I gathered during that conversation with Andre, they came every two months almost down to the day. I wasn't sure what to do when it would come. The temptation to hide with a pillow around my head like everyone else was huge, but I needed to know, to understand. I could've been sent down to the ground floor any day, or worse yet to block C. Knowledge wouldn't necessarily improve my chances of survival, but it was better to have it than to lack it.
'Chris was right, this is hopeless,' I lamented to myself. 'Maybe I should just get it over with, punch Andre in the jaw and get sent to block C to die.'
I was outside in the yard eating dinner all by myself, and absorbed by the dark thoughts that wormed their way into my brain, I missed Mason approaching from behind. He placed his tray down and sat opposite of me, starting to eat in silence. I had nothing to say to him, so I tried to ignore him.
"Way back when, you asked me why I'm in here," he said after a while. I looked up at him, somewhat surprised.
"Yeah well, I don't really care anymore."
"Just…hear me out. You're not a rat, so I can trust you."
I sighed and spun a hand around in the air, telling him to hurry up. At that point, I really didn't care what he did on the outside to land him in here. It was irrelevant.
"They got my brother," Mason continued. "Arrested him and sent him here. Thought he didn't have anyone so he'd be easy to erase."
"And let me guess, he has you," I nearly spat out with a chuckle. "So what, you barged in here to break him out? Rescue him?"
"Yeah, actually," Mason answered with no amusement in his voice. "But I can't find him anywhere. He's not in our block, and he isn't in block B either. I've been watching those guys for a while, they're the ones with the orange jumpsuits."
"Well in that case it's simple, he was sent to block C. And you know what that means."
"No, Jack, we don't know what that means," Mason contradicted me. "No one comes back out, sure but we don't know what's in there. He could still be alive, and so could Chris."
I frowned.
"That's where the monsters come out from, they're dead alright."
"Do you know for a fact that they're monsters? Have you seen one with your own eyes?" Mason pressed. I wanted to bring up the evidence, stuff like the banging too heavy to be done by a human or the fog that accompanied the event. But I guess he anticipated my words. "What if they give drugs to the inmates to send them in a frenzy? What if they have fog machines all around the compound? It doesn't have to be supernatural."
"And why would they do any of that?"
Mason shrugged his shoulders.
"How the hell am I supposed to know? They're fucked up in the head. But it's not like they haven't tried dark shit on humans before. A place like this could be a perfect playground for whatever messed up tests they have devised."
They being the government I presumed, or some shadow branch of it.
"Okay, fine, it's a possibility," I admitted. "So what? It doesn't change anything if they're inmates high out of their minds instead of monsters. Why even come to me with this?"
"We're due for another blackout event soon," Mason answered. "Any day now. And I…" he said, rummaging through his jumpsuit to pull out something, "...have the key to our cell."
"You want to go out during one? That's…"
"...suicide?" Mason completed. "Maybe. On my own, definitely. But not if we work together."
I was dumbstruck. Was he for real right now?
"Andre will rat you out," I said when I regained some composure.
"That's why I need your help. We can get our answers and get rid of Andre at the same time. It's a win-win."
I did a quick check of our surroundings, finding few guards in the towers nearest to us. And the ones that were present weren't paying any attention, with a blackout event inbound they wouldn't care about us for a few days. Mason planned this talk out in advance.
"With or without you, I'm doing it," he said when he noticed I was indecisive. "But think about it. This is your chance to pay Andre back."
"The guards will just send another rat to our cell."
"And we'll take him out as well when the time comes," Mason said and got up from the table to walk away.
I didn't follow him, I needed some time to process all I'd heard. The offer was tempting, but I wasn't ready to go through with it. It was all too sudden. I mulled over it until the sun set, getting no closer to making a decision. So I returned to the cell, finding Andre and Mason in their bunks. The latter shot me a questioning look, but I got into my own bunk and turned my back to them.
A few more days passed like that, with Mason's plan bouncing around in my head. He didn't pester me about it, just shooting me glances now and again that went unanswered. We didn't know when exactly the next blackout event would hit, we just knew it would be any day now. And when it finally did come, when the lights went out one evening, I was still unprepared.
Andre reacted like last time, bending his pillow around his head. Mason didn't lose any time though, he shot up from his bed and took off towards the cell door.
"You in or out?" He asked in a hushed tone.
A hundred thoughts raced through my mind. Of what would happen if we failed, if we got caught by the guards, or worse yet by whatever the fuck would come out of block C. But on the other hand, I wouldn't last forever anyway.
"I'm in," I said and got up to join Mason by the door.
He pulled out the key, but didn't get to unlock it.
"What are you two up to?" Andre asked.
"Keep him busy for a bit," Mason instructed.
Andre didn't hesitate, it didn't take him long to put two and two together. He jumped out of bed and rushed us, barging in like a bull. I spread my feet and tensed my body, trying to catch him, but fat chance. He pushed me back like nothing, slamming me into Mason and the door. Something clattered on the floor as Andre took a step back and we slid down against the bars, Mason had dropped the key.
"What the hell are you two doing?!" Andre screamed.
"Ah man, fuck me," Mason complained and pushed me away.
Andre pinned his gaze on him, walking over me as I squirmed on the floor. Nothing got broken, or at least I didn't think so, but I still hurt all over. I spotted the key though, so I went to take it. But Andre expected as much, he kicked the damn thing out of my hand and further into the cell.
"You trying to get us killed? That it?" He asked.
As he grabbed onto Mason's collar and got ready to lift him off the floor, I took my chance. I swiped Andre's legs and dashed away on all fours as he came crashing down like a sack of bricks. On top of Mason, of course. They let out curses, but Mason caught on, both figuratively and literally. He latched his arms around Andre's neck and kicked his legs out from under him when he tried to get up, keeping him pinned down.
"Get the key!"
"On it!"
I rushed over to the key and grabbed it off the floor, hearing the sounds of Andre punching Mason behind me. Even though the position was awkward, he still managed to put a lot of force behind each and every strike. The sounds of banging on block C's doors joined the meaty thuds as I got back up my feet.
"Fucking let go!" Andre screamed in Mason's ear.
I was about to go back and unlock the door, but I stopped. Andre tensed up his body, pulling the jumpsuit taut over his skin. His muscles rippled and he nearly foamed at the mouth as he forced himself up, with Mason around his throat like a scarf. The dude was a monster himself.
"Give me that!" He demanded, walking towards me slowly as he tried to pry Mason off.
When it didn't work, he grabbed a fistful of Mason's hair and turned his head. Andre pulled back, tensing his neck, and headbutted Mason so hard that he broke his nose. But Mason still held on.
"Unlock…the damn…door…" He stuttered.
Andre headbutted him again and again, until Mason's arms went limp. His face was a bloody mess, and when Andre pushed him away, he crumpled to the floor like a ragdoll.
"Come on, Jacky boy, don't be stupid," Andre said, wiping Mason's blood off his own forehead with his sleeve. "Give me that, and I promise nothing will happen to you. We can put this behind us, blame it on Mason going stircrazy, and we'll go on living."
"Like I'd believe that," I shot back, although I trembled in my jumpsuit.
"Hey, I didn't rat you out before, did I?" He pointed out, taking a step towards me. "And anyway, if I wanted that back, I could've taken it already. You can't stop me either way, I'm being generous here."
I was trying to come up with another idea. Something, anything to get me out of that pinch. I could give in, side with Andre and betray Mason, but for how long would that ensure my safety? If at all. The banging from outside got louder and louder, until the doors gave way. Andre took another step towards me, arms fanned out, as the skittering of feet filled the courtyard.
"What will it be, Jacky boy?"
"I…"
Mason jumped him from behind and bit into Andre's left ear. They both screamed, one in rage and the other in agony. Mason pulled his head back and forth, biting deeper and deeper as Andre bucked under him. Blood went flying everywhere, and Mason pulled his head back one final time, taking Andre's ear off.
"Motherfucker!"
Mason spat the mangled chunk of flesh and went for another bite right away. One that landed on Andre's left cheek. As the two of them brawled, I took the chance Mason bought me and ran around them to the door. I shoved the key into the latch, fighting back the trembling in my hands as I tried to turn it and unlock the damn thing. It released with a click, so I threw it open and dodged out of the way just in time to avoid Andre's charge.
Him and Mason flew out onto the catwalk, crashing into the safety railing. Andre tried to throw him over the edge, but Mason held on too tight. In their mad brawl, they ended up falling down, with Mason on top. He punched Andre in the face once, twice, three times, but it did next to nothing. On the next punch, Andre caught his fist and spun his arm around, throwing him off. Mason landed face first into the wall.
"Fine, I'll kill both of you," Andre said as he got up. He was missing his left ear and his left cheek had deep teethmarks in it, but the pain didn't seem to bother him. He was too pissed off for that. "Starting with you!"
He grabbed onto Mason and lifted him up over his head like a twig. I was frozen in fear facing this behemoth of a man, I couldn't move a muscle. Andre shot me another glare, making eye contact and pinning me into place. Then he turned his back to me, walking towards the railing to throw Mason over.
"Hear that?" He asked. The sounds of beeps filled the building as the electronic locks of the ground floor cells released. Banging on the main entrance doors followed, and they opened a moment later. The skittering of feet invaded the ground floor, mixing themselves in with the cacophony of screams from the doomed inmates. "You'll find out what's down there first hand. That's if you survive the fall"
He got ready to throw Mason over, then he'd come for me. I snapped into action despite the fear, rushing out of the cell, arms in front of myself. Andre didn't expect that, and he didn't get to dodge me. I pushed him from behind, hard enough to make him stumble and hit the railing. Tall as he was, it only reached up to his manhood. Another push would send him over, but Mason would go down with him.
'Fuck it, no choice.'
In a split second decision, I went for the second push. With his center of gravity above the railing, Andre rolled over and fell head first. He let go of Mason in the last moment though, so I jumped forward and grabbed his hand. His weight, and the momentum of his fall, nearly whisked me off my feet as well. But my stomach caught the railing and I avoided falling.
I looked down, past Mason and into the sea of fog that covered the unfolding carnage taking place below us. It was too thick to make out anything in most places, but Andre's fall created a small hole. His body was sprawled on the concrete, limbs clearly broken and bent in awkward angles, but he was still alive. He groaned and tried to move, to turn on his belly and crawl to safety, but an arm shot out of the fog and grabbed one of his legs. Andre let out a wheezing scream, then he was dragged out of sight.
"Pull me up already!" Mason yelled.
"Right, sorry."
I did as told, pulling him up and helping him over the edge. We both collapsed on the catwalk side by side, but Mason didn't stay down for long. The mad man went to get back up and walk towards the stairs.
"Don't," I tried to stop him. "You're in no shape to go down there."
"But…that's why we did all of this," Mason retorted. "To find out the truth, to see what's in the fog."
"I didn't save your ass so you could go and get killed anyway," I said forcefully. "Get back in the cell. With Andre out of the way, we can wait for the next blackout event. For now we should think what lies we'll spin for the guards in the morning."
I could see Mason didn't like it, but his shoulders deflated as he turned around and walked back to the cell. I got up and followed him in, locking the door and putting an end to the madness for the meantime.