Power Games

Chapter 5: The Prison

In the matter of the court, there is little that can be said beyond 'it is efficient'. The following is a truthful telling of my experiences following the coup, including my trial and subsequent treatment. After the forces of the rebels had taken the capital and the strikes stopped, I was taken to the Lahgard in Hlauhbaugs and I was made to stand trial the next day. Without food, without being informed of the charges, and without any sleep, I was put before the Deman asked how I pled. He would say 'On the first charge, how do you plead?' and I would give my answer, though at first I tried to ask what the charges were. I was warned that if I did not give my answer, I would be found in contempt and so I quickly stopped asking. For every charge, I pled not guilty. There were thirty-seven in total.

I was quickly hauled out of the courtroom and I found myself chained to the ceiling and floor of a room, others were put in with me and I did not recognise them. We conversed amongst ourselves and only two of them had been told what they were being tried for, the rest were equally in the dark. After seven hours or so, the area where we were being kept was full and at least three-hundred men were in that room. The guards came and I was removed, but due to my restraints I could not stand and so they dragged me. I was taken before the Deman again and now was facing a tribunal, no jury. The Deman began reading off his opinions and the 'facts' as he found them, before pronouncing me guilty on all accounts. The Deman then turned to the tribunal and asked that I be given twelve years in prison, followed by exile. The tribunal began deliberations and I was held up and made to wait as they did. At no point were the crimes I committed named, they just kept using the count numbers and so I was totally in the dark.

Thankfully, the tribunal did not agree with the Deman's assessment of the severity of most of the counts and so I was only given five years of prison and exile. After that, I was removed from the court and I was placed in a large square which had been turned into an open air holding pen. I was once more chained, though this time my manacles were attached to chains which came from a central post and formed a grid over the square. They had set it up with a large volume in mind and we were left there in the rain, though the day was fine thanks to the month. When I arrived there, a few hundred were already present but by the time I was taken out there were well over a thousand. We were kept there without any blankets or fires, still no water or food. Three days passed before we started being removed, but I was able to thankfully drink the rain that fell at night. Some of the others had trouble doing that.

It soon became apparent that which chain we were attached to had been deliberate as a naval officer came out and started calling out ranks and files, which the guards would respond to. The chains called out were unfastened from the posts and we in turn were led through the streets to the train station, where we were loaded onto cattle cars. Signs were hung around our necks, giving our names and pronouncing us traitors. Unlike in the square, the streets between our holding pen and transport were not kept clear of people and we were pelted with refuse and rocks. By the time the train came in sight, I was glad for it. On the train though, the conditions were appalling.

No amenities were offered to us and no water was given, only a thin bed of hay covered the floor and now our chains were fastened to positions on the ceiling. Even if we all went slack or tried to pull down, we would be kept upright. The lucky ones were able to stand on the floor with their feet fully down, but I was forced to stand on my toes due to my height. Even if we had not been secured in such a fashion, there was no space to sit or lie down, as more men were loaded in until the bodies blocked out all the light from the doors and then we were engulfed fully in darkness as the guards closed us in. The atmosphere inside was suffocating, with too many relying on too little ventilation.

We were like that for some hours, though I can not say how many, as the other cars were similarly loaded. I passed out before the train left and my next memory was hitting the floor when we arrived at our destination and we were let down. A third of those packed in must have died from the heat and lack of air, as I remember marching through a vast and expansive yard and noting how few were now on the chain. Processing went by in a blur, as we were stripped, washed, and shaved before finally being deposited naked in our cells.

The first week was the best, though I did not realise it at the time. They restricted themselves only to visual and auditory torture and allowed us to sleep and fed us regularly. I think it was done so we might recover from the journey over, as they quickly changed away from this after that time was done. My first taste of the reality that would be my life was when they dragged me off for my first of many interrogation sessions. The interrogators were not regularly uniformed, wearing insignia and patches totally foreign to me. Unlike the guards who were all from the Stuttijanags Fasthaidusvoltaum and covered their faces, these men did no such thing and I can not rightly say which branch or organisation they were from.

The first session was strange, with the man asking me innocuous questions and then torturing me regardless of whether I told the truth or not or knew the answers, though he made sure to let me know if he believed me and somehow he always knew when I was telling the truth. He then started asking me about the phase of the moon and who in my cell talked and I answered him as best as I could, but he would administer an electric shock through the beds of my missing fingernails regardless. After some time, some of his friends showed up, possibly trainees, and the questioning became more varied. The subjects changed to my past, to my family, and back to the moon and now the stars, but it always changed now. The questioning increased in rapidity and the torture changed too, though he returned to the questions about the moon and stars.

Throughout the whole experience, he never seemed to be interested in my answers nor in the work he did. I could not understand it and I almost cried, but thankfully held on. After some time, I lost the ability to comprehend what was going on and when I came to I was once more in my cell and fully cleaned of the by–products of my interrogation. My cellmates tried to whisper to me and comfort me, but I shrunk away and simply stared into the wall. They wanted to know what was in store for them, but I could not give them any answers. They soon found out and were similarly shaken. I heard some from other cells weeping openly, though none dared whisper or talk.

It is because of that event, that I started to keep track of time, as difficult as it was. I kept a mental note of the positions of the stars and moon, and I learnt to tell time by the guards. Even if I did not know who they were, I learnt how they walked. The dimming and brightening of the lights was certainly no indication of the passage of time, as I quickly realised it bore little to no relation to the journey of the sun. I realised that the interrogators liked to take me around the kalends of the month, while the guards took me whenever something frustrated them in life. It helped form for me a sort of rhythm and in time gave me comfort.

The worst sign of my captivity was in how I started to need the sessions, as they were the only times in which I was allowed to talk. I would gladly answer any questions asked, even if I did not know the answers, and they did not always torture me the same way. Sometimes they would not torture me at all, with the sessions taking on the form of a friendly coffee with a co-worker and I would play my role as best as I could. The worst times though, they did not say anything. They would sit me there and then they would watch me, and I would feel this building urge to speak, to confess, to answer questions that did not come. One time, I broke and I made a vocalisation, not even a word, and they all stood. It made me cringe and hide my head in fear of the punishment they would mete out to me. Instead of torture and beatings, they grabbed me and took me back to my cell and threw me back in. I broke down and I cried. I did not want to be back.

The best days were those spent in solitary isolation, as for me it meant comfort. Maybe it was because I never tried to communicate with my cell mates and never spoke unless I was meant to, but I did not find it terrible. Instead, the soft padded cell and straight jacket gave me the only pleasure I truly had in that place and I could not, would not fall asleep! I needed to savour the feeling of not being on hard concrete as much as possible, so I could take it with me out of there. The muzzle did nothing to me, as I never tried to speak even when alone. The others must not have found it as enjoyable, as they always tried to console me and give me comfort on my returns, subtly reaching out and resting a hand on my arm or on my side as I lay with my face firmly planted into the place where floor met the wall and enjoying the darkness that my body provided there. Although I liked it, I did appreciate the sentiment and I took to comforting them in the same fashion whenever they returned from solitary.

The food was by far the worst aspect, as we could not store it and were thus forced to eat as much as possible when given the opportunity to. The guards were ingenious, in that they fed us the most powerfully pungent and foul smelling soup through a device like a watering can. They would have us kneel at the entrance to the cell and we would receive our meal through that, which gave us no way to save any for later. They seemed to derive some sort of pleasure from the times when they would feed us our fill and then feed us too soon again, as we would be forced by necessity to try and eat as much as possible, even if it was too much. The desperation of the times without could not be ignored and thus we ate until we retched or could not move anymore. During the times without though, I had dark thoughts about my cellmates. Others fed on what they could, though the source was unspeakable. No man may condemn us for our thoughts and actions, for there was nothing we could do. I am proud to say that not one us indulged in the dark thoughts, no matter how hungry we became.

Years passed in that sometimes bright and sometimes orange light, few of us were fortunate enough to expire during that time. After the first few months, the number of instances of the guards needing to punish someone for trying to speak, doing an activity, exercising, or just trying to communicate dropped off drastically. We all became very accustomed to the deafening silence and the world we lived in. While I know academically that my sentence was for five years, I promise you it lasted centuries. There was no time before the sentence and there would be no time after it, for this was the nature of existence and existence itself. I had a nice numbness fall over me and I soon joined the expanding ranks of the living dead in that place, as I could only live for the few perverse pleasures that could be had in torture and in solitary.

It was like this that my time was spent, with the odd interrogation also serving as a medical examination and trip to the barbers. Sanitation in that place was remarkably good, as I doubt anyone ever became truly ill whilst interned there. Some developed nervous conditions, but I never saw a plague whilst in there. I should thank that first interrogator though, as it was only through his odd choice of subjects that I was able to remain sane and survive. If he had not taught me to keep track of time, I am sure I would not have made it out. Even in those last days when I knew intellectually that my sentence was coming to an end, a large part of me rebelled and told me that this was all there was. He is still telling me that I have gone mad and that I am in that cell, but that is fine.

I was pulled out of the cell and then paraded. I was given clothes and in sight of everyone I was informed that my sentence was complete and that I would be going into exile. The not-quite-corpses of some reanimated at this and I heard some make noises, which earned them punishment. The majority though were sane enough to keep quiet, though I could not bare to look into their faces. They stared at me and I know they watched me for as long as they could before I finally left their fields of view. Walking back over that vast yard again was unlike anything before or since, as my senses became overwhelmed.

At once it was too quiet and yet too loud, as the noises and auditory torture I had grown accustomed to disappeared and was instead replaced with things I had not heard for half a decade. The light also blinded me, it was so different from what I had been living under and so the sun was punishing me for my time inside. My journey to the colonies took a few weeks after that and it took me a long time to recover some of the muscle I lost, but it was worth it to finally be free. Even now, I can not speak without some effort and I look decades older than anyone my age ought to.

I doubt I shall ever be free of that place and my time there.