tar AlexFili. that last chapter was a bit boring i know but it had to be done. anyway, back to Nox.
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CHAPTER 7
JAILBIRD
Pain…
Twinge of pain…
Sharp pain…
Stabbing pain…
Eventually, Nox’s stomach woke its master, reminding him undoubtedly that he hadn’t eaten anything for a day and a half.
“Arrrgh”, Nox groaned, soon realizing he was in prison, on the first day of his sentence. At least his head was much better now, but his stomach still felt painful. Not just hunger pains. Something else…
Nox cocked his head down towards his own stomach, whilst lying on the bottom hard bunk.
“Bloody hell…” Nox mumbled. Big blue and black bruising covered his stomach and bottom of his chest, from where he had been struck with a slig guard’s baton. Nox just hoped there wasn’t any broken bones.
He rolled painfully out of bed, and peered through the bars of his cell, looking into the row of cells adjacent to him. That’s when he noticed the clothing the prisoners were wearing. A mudokon standing idly in his cell, with his hands around the bars, was wearing typical black & white striped trousers and shirt, whilst a slig in the next cell (sitting on the edge of his bunk, smoking a cigarette) only wore the striped shirt. His robotic legs would tear any clothing, obviously.
Wonder when you’ll get your clothing?
Yeah, then you’ll be a REAL criminal! Eh Nox’y? heh heh, eh Nox’y noo! You’ll be the best of the best, wont ya’ Nox’y!!
“Shut up.” Nox muttered to himself.
A loud, echoing clang. The barred cell doors rolled open, as did all the others in the cell-lined hall. Inmates walked out of their cells to join others, and made their way down the metal stairway situated in the center of the hall, to the ground floor. Then sitting on wooden chairs at cheap, fold-away tables that Corrections Officer sligs (CO’s) had set up for breakfast. The only thing that told CO’s apart from slig inmates was the fact that they didn’t wear prisoner shirts, and that they all wore officer caps.
Nox made his way out of his cell, joining the huddle of inmates swarming around the stairway. He kept to the back, behind everyone; he didn’t want to be shivved just yet. During this thought, a slig inmate noticed Nox lingering behind them, and spoke to him.
“Alright mate?” The wiry old slig said to Nox, “I see yer new here, not got the old prisoner shirt on just yet, heh heh.”
“Err…no, that’s right, not quite yet.” Nox replied warily.
The wiry slig held back from the rest of the mixed inmates, so as to speak to Nox in a more relaxed manner, rather than directly.
“You know, newbies usually last longer in here when they mix with us scumbags straight away.” The inmate said solemnly, “You wanna’ make friends fast in here, its not a nice place – but hey! What can I say? I’ve learnt all my best manners in here!” He joked, giving Nox a sideways glance to see his reaction.
Nox relaxed slightly, and laughed, “Yeah, same here, except my manners were part of Slig Barracks doing.”
“Oh, you’re a soldier lad are yeh? Mmm…”
“What?”
“I wondered what that tattoo on your arm was, but now I know. Let me be the first to say, ‘welcome!’” The wiry slig finished with a dirty laugh, and held his hand out to Nox, who shook it quite readily.
“Names Glon.”
“Oh, Nox.”
First friend.
Aww, how nice. Get a fuckin’ grip kiddo! We’re not here to make friends! We’re here to HAVE FUN!! Heh heh heh…
Nox and his newfound friend made their way down the stairs with the others, soon sitting at a random table.
“In here,” Glon began, “They wheel the meals out on a trolley, and they serve it on your tray and give it yeh without you even having to stand up! Now that’s service! Ey?” Another dirty laugh.
A bulky mudokon approached the table Glon and Nox were sat at, taking a seat next to Glon, while eyeing up Nox carefully.
“Who’s this?” He asked.
“Now now Billy,” Glon eased, “This is Nox. He’s a friend of mine, the one that came in last night.”
“Oh!” The strong-looking mudokon exclaimed, switching off his defensive stance, “I remember! Last night?”
“Yeah Billy, last night.” Glon repeated with a slight shake of his head in annoyance.
“I SAW YOU!!” The mudokon yelled at Nox with a huge grin on his lips, suddenly standing over six feet tall with a scrape of his chair. Glon immediately intervened.
Fuck! He’s nuts!
Nox slid his chair back slightly from the display before him.
“Billy, come on now!” Glon whispered hoarsely, whilst pushing the large mudokon back into his seat, scanning the hall wildly to check if anyone was looking, “Your gettin’ excited! Bloody calm the fuck down!!”
“Sorry…sorry.” Billy replies sulkily.
Glon gestured Nox to lean towards him for something secret to share, and Nox obliged by leaning inwards also. Glon placed his hand next to his face on Billy’s side, and whispered.
“Billy’s a bit…you know…funny upstairs…a few fingers short of a Paramite Pie, if yeh catch me drift. That’s why they call him Billy the ‘bull-scrab’, ‘cus when he gets angry with summat there’s no stoppin’ him. I like to keep him close for that reason, a bit o’ protection.”
“I see.” Nox replied, nearly made speechless from the set of random events that had just taken place so briskly.
The food trolley wheeled in from a doorway at the opposite end of the hall that Nox had entered through the day before. Mudokons, supervised by slig CO’s, began dishing out dark coloured mush onto food trays and giving them to inmates.
“Ah,” Glon let out, looking at the food trolley, “There’s nothin’ like minced fleech first thing in the morning!”
Nox assumed he was joking, and braced himself.
Dirty bastards! That’s vile!
Soon enough, one of the mudokons working the food trolley came over to their table, giving Glon and Nox a tray each, then coming back to give Billy his share. A tin bowl full of grey-green mush was upon Nox’s tray, along with a bent up spoon. Billy immediately began his breakfast, much in contrast to Nox. If the food wasn’t enough o put you off eating, Billy certainly was.
“Whats this?” Nox asked Glon, whilst letting a spoonful of the stuff plop back into the bowl.
“I told yeh, minced fleech. Why? Think I was joking?”
Nox looked at Glon, then they both looked at Billy as he finished off his last spoonful. He noticed the two looking at him, and swallowed.
“You gonna’ eat that?” He asked Glon.
“The hell I am!” He replied, then tucking in, but more cautiously.
“What about you?” He questioned Nox.
Sharp pain…
Remembering he was no use dead and he needed to eat, he reluctantly replied, “Yeah, I spose I’m gonna’ have to eat it.”
A sulky expression.
Then someone else slammed their tray down next to Nox. It was a slig inmate.
“Mornin’ all!” He yelled.
“For fuck sake!” Glon scoffed whilst looking over both shoulders, “You wanna’ grab everyone’s attention?!”
The slig put a hand on Nox’s shoulder and said loudly, “You’ll have to excuse my friend Glon here, but he has clinical paranoia.” Finishing with a laugh. Billy didn’t abide.
“Stop it! Stop it! -”
“Yeah yeah Billy, ‘leave Glon alone’, fine!” The slig mimicked, making Glon smirk and Billy scowl.
Feeling at ease, Nox decided to take the first step for once, and held his hand out to the new slig.
“Names Nox.”
“Ah, a fellow slig with manners! Mines Rowl.” And he shook his hand.
Nox began to swallow the tasteless gunk when Rowl said,
“Fuck me, Billy! You eat your already? Again?! Jeez!” Then starting his own breakfast.
Glon had finished his by now, and the old slig proceeded to tell Rowl, the young and troublesome slig, how Nox was a war veteran.
“Are ya’ now? Well I’ll be damned!”
“HA HA, you said ‘damn’!” Billy interrupted with a chortle.
“Oh yeah Nox,” Rowl continued, “Billy here is a little potty.”
“Yeah, Glon told me.” Nox finished.
Rowl then began to taunt Billy, but in a way that Billy wouldn’t know he was being taunted.
“Your mad ‘aint ya’ Billy! Billy-boo! Nutty Billy-boo! Heh heh, mad mad mad, Bill Billy-boo!”
After every mention of his name, Billy laughed like a dopey child, clearly amused, but mentally disturbed. It would seem he acted at a low mental age, around that of a mudokon child. Rowl was being cruel, but Billy knew non the wiser anyway.
Nox finished his tin bowl of gloop, and their trays were taken from them. That’s when Nox noticed a ruckus in the corner of the hall. A mudokon was standing next to a table with his metal tray in his hands, trying to hold off three slig CO’s, wielding his tray as a weapon.
“Just calm down Bor! No one is going to hurt you, you and your pals are going to be just fine!” One slig CO carefully worded, edging closer to the crazed mudokon.
“No…n-n-n-n-no!” The mud stuttered, looking wildly around him. He lashed out with his tray, hitting the closest slig CO around the face with a metallic twang, letting the slig spin on the spot and fall to the ground, unconscious. The other two sligs pulled out their batons and moved in swiftly towards the mudokon.
The mud used his now bent tray, to jab one CO in the visor with the edge of it, and then throw the tray at the other slig CO, attempting to make his escape whilst everyone in the hall just watched. Two more sligs ran out of the corridor that Nox had walked down the day before, and bumped into the mud unexpectedly, their batons at the ready.
A baton whistled its way towards the loopy mudokons jaw, and he was out for the count. The madness was over as quickly as it had started. The two sligs in the corridor dragged the mudokon into a room from the corridor, out of sight, and the slig CO that had been jabbed in the visor was lucky enough to escape with just a scratched lens, whilst the knocked out slig CO was picked up by two mudokons working for the CO’s, and also carried off to a room off of the corridor.
“Well,” Glon began, turning back to Nox, Rowl and Billy, “That was fun!” He chuckled.
“Steady there old slig,” Rowl joked, “You might ‘ave heart attack.”
The group of them laughed a little, settling in to the fact that Nox was now part of their ‘gang’, their attitude currently being, ‘the more the merrier’, or more realistically, ‘safety in numbers’. Either way, Now was now part of a gang, and he would have to pay his due.
Nox tried to feel eased, like the others clearly were, but couldn’t help the fact that they had just witnessed a fight, and the inmate that had started it was now in a room out of sight. His capturers knowing they could do anything they liked to him now. Such is prison life.
You need to get used to not holding on to the past Nox, or you ‘aint gonna’ last in here.
It was one of the few things Nox knew the voice was right about.
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another chapter done. hope you like it.
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