Penitentiary

It all happened so fast. Or at least it seems that way. It’s all a blur between joining my local gang (unknowingly affiliated with the Dark Cloud) and getting arrested for harboring crystals for the Dark Cloud himself. Or is it herself..? Themselves. Nobody really knows who the Dark Cloud really is. Nobody, except for me, of course. I’m Joey Novena and I just became the most important person in the world. So here’s the story. I came straight from Darkwood. Located southwest of the Dark Woods themselves.

People from all over have always considered kids from Darkwood, the kids like me, criminals. And that’s not necessarily true for everyone. Now, I’m currently getting imprisoned for what seems to be the rest of my life, but I know some good ones out there. I was only a low level criminal though, a lookout, then the muscle, not enough for this. But I’m guessing my refusal to reveal the identity of the most wanted criminal in all of the realms had something to do with my sentence. And being a deep brown skinned man must’ve topped it all off. (And they say The Magical Realm is more progressive). My little sisters both said to just work with the insufferable ‘realm protectors’ (or pigs as I call them) and tell them what they want to know, but they don’t understand. They couldn’t.

Who is the Dark Cloud you ask? Well, that’s the thing… I don’t know. Yes, I know, I’m contradicting myself but here’s the deal… I forgot. Or I must’ve. All I know is that I went to sleep in my bed one night and the next morning I woke up on a couch in some apartment and there were ‘protectors’ outside the door. Not too long after, I went to court and was tried for all my Dark Cloud related crimes, then the stupid truth seeking fairy asked me if I knew who the Dark Cloud was. I said no, which I thought was true. And now, here I am. Getting locked away forever. That’s the Dark Cloud’s perceived power, though. Mind erasing. Nobody has or will ever know who they are. But apparently I do. Sucks that I know something so important, yet I can’t remember it. I do get these weird dreams and visions of a man, though. But I can’t make out his face. Could that mean the Dark Cloud is a man? Not sure. All I know is, I can’t worry about finding lost memories. I need to find a way out of this prison.

I walk gracefully down a hall towards nothing, I'm at the front of the line of eight misfits through a bright white hallway followed by a ‘protector’ pig himself. The eight of us are walking slow because there seems to be something wrong with the gravity in here. I feel a lot heavier than usual. We all just came out of a ginormous door at the other end of the hallway that is closing at a glacial pace. I’m wearing an all black prison jumpsuit with PD in big white lettering on the back and my name in cursive on the front. I’ve got my white low top Air Force Ones on that I… Forcefully acquired from the Mundane Realm, and I have long honey blonde cornrows in my hair. I also have a bright red bracelet that the pigs gave me. It fits perfectly on my wrist. Surprisingly, they didn't make me take out any of my piercings. I have five in total. Both my ears, a helix on the right, an industrial on the left and a hoop on the right of my nose. All of them are gold, real gold. My old buddies and I found some gold in the basement of an old witch's house. Some would call going into a house without permission trespassing but I say that… Is most likely true.

While we walk down this hallway, I turn my head left to right to get a look at everyone in my peripheral vision. These are true capital C Criminals. There’s a short ginger man looking on the floor behind me that smells of bologna. He’s probably the least intimidating out of the bunch. I look down to see he has heavily bruised knuckles. This man must throw down. There’s a brunette woman behind him, but not directly. She’s off to the side a bit, out of line, which gives me a full view of her piercing blue eyes and her full teeth smile. It’s making me extremely nervous. She knows where we’re going, right? I hope she’s not planning to end it all here and take us all with her. I can’t see the rest of the lot's faces very well, but I can see that they’ve all got the same uniform as me on and all their hands are free. As are mine. This seems idiotic considering my hand-to-hand training, but something tells me these pretty glowing bright red bracelets we’re all wearing aren't just to make us all match. Not that the all-black prison uniform isn’t doing wonders with the red bracelet. The glowing tops it off.

We almost reached the end of the hallway and I have no idea where to walk. I'm considering trying through the wall. I think back to my old friend Freddie's secret magical room through the wall of our dumb life skills teacher 's class. I'd skip all the time. But this probably isn't a secret entrance but I'll still walk into the wall. Maybe they'll think I'm coocoo like the brunette chick behind me. Suddenly, the door at the other end of the hall shuts, it moves us all an inch with its vibration and stops us all in our tracks. The pig continues walking until he reaches me, he faces me and snaps his fingers. We all turn to face his direction simultaneously. He’s kind of cute. He’s got a whole bunch of gear on, but he’s also got a chiseled jawline and big muscles. He's got dirty blonde hair that's gelled up way too much and his eyes are dark brown.

“This is the entrance to the rest of your life. The Penitentiary Domain!” The pig yells, hurting my eardrum. I think he has some sort of megaphone voice power on top of whatever we did to make us turn.

“Quite an extravagant name for a prison if you ask me. Just say prison.” I laugh. He ignores me. “ By the way, is your power like making people deaf?”

“You will wait here until the warden comes to speak with you” he commands with a raspy deep voice as he turns his back and begins to walk away.

“You know, if we were in a different scenario” I flirt, “I would have totally hit on you.” He stops for a second and then continues walking. Suddenly, the short ginger man next to me in the line jumps on his back. He bangs the pig’s head against the wall, turns him and punches him in the face three times, but the pig unfortunately eats those hits. He swings the misfit over his shoulder on the floor and leaps on top of him, elbowing in the chest. The pig gets up from on top of the misfit and hovers over him. The misfit is down. Or so the pig thought. The misfit swoops his leg and kicks the pigs ankle knocking him over. He jumps up and starts to laugh maniacally, as if he’d just discovered what laughing was.

“Well, I’d love to stay and chit-chat, but I’m not feeling a life sentence at the moment. So, it looks like I’ve got to make like my third ex-wife and… DISAPPEAR.” He waves his hands in the air over his face and smiles with his eyes closed. He opens them, believing that nobody can see him. I try to wave at him to warn him before he tries something stupid. But he starts to walk, ignoring my signal. The pig grabs his leg and swings him down, bashing his cheek against the floor. That bruise definitely won’t be invisible. Just as I suspected. These bracelets must take away our powers and magic somehow… This might be harder to escape than I think. All the six others in the line, just stand there looking at the failed escape attempt on the floor.

“I guess you’re all thinking what I’m thinking…” I chuckle. Mr. Visible who tried escaping slowly tries to get up, but he’s clearly in a lot of pain and plops back down. The pig pops back up as if nothing has happened to him. It’s like the fight had no effect on him at all. What are they feeding these pigs on the farm? A woman at the other end of the line steps out. I hadn’t noticed her before, but she’s got pasty white skin and long platinum blonde hair.

“Hey” the pig shouted, “Step back in line and wait for the warden. Did you not just see what happened? You have no powers. Anything you try is useless. So be a good girl and step back in —“ he stops talking and starts to levitate in the air. Mr. Visible is so astounded, he steps back a few steps with his jaw practically on the floor.

“Okay.” She says softly and grins. She takes a step back in line and in unison the pig falls to the ground and unconscious. That was so cool.

“Well, looks like someone’s bracelet isn’t working.. “ I say in awe. “I want to trade for whatever brand she’s bought!” I wave my right arm in the air. The woman starts to laugh, then continues her escape attempt. She bolts towards the big door we came from. I slightly raise my hand, but my arms go no further than a penguin’s can so nobody can see me. I face my palm outward and push it forward. Nothing. No powers. Guess her bracelet was just faulty and now she is home free! Lucky bitch. I look back over at the platinum blonde haired chick and realize what she’s wearing on her feet. She’s wearing 6-inch black heels. She is doing this in heels? Super speed may not be her power, but she’s making good distance. They let us keep our footwear if we wanted. I’m guessing that’s their idea of humanity. So I’m assuming she kept hers. And they’re fierce, but RUNNING in them? What a revolutionary woman. She runs through the door and I begin to clap. Suddenly, someone bumps into me from behind. I trip over Mr. Visible and fall into the next misfit. And just like dominoes, they all tumble down. I catch myself before I meet their fate.

I look to see the platinum blonde haired chick's progress. She's at the other end of the hall with a puzzled look on her face. The look quickly turns to anger. I’m guessing her attempt was just that. The pig bounces up again.

“I don’t know how you did that, but I know how to handle troublemakers like you!” He charges towards her.

“That’s enough.” A woman comes out of nowhere behind me and walks towards the platinum haired chick. She must've been the one who made me trip. She has a long black pencil skirt on with a yellow blouse and maybe 3-inch heels. But she’s still as tall. She’s got a really short, clearly magically dyed red bob with bangs. Barf in my mouth. I open my mouth to comment, but she starts talking and stops me before I can.

“I’ll take it from here.” She grins. The pig looks at the woman and then back at the platinum blonde haired chick. He gives her a stern look, a look that says, ‘this isn’t over.’ He salutes the woman, then walks away towards the door from which we came.

“So… you’ve caused us a bit of commotion.” the woman laughs but is interrupted

“I don’t give a flying fuck what I caused! Looks like this place isn’t what it seems after all. Where’s The Penitentiary Domain that’s inescapable?” The platinum blonde haired chick smirks. The woman stares at her with a bland face. The hallway stays silent for about 10 seconds while the two of them have a staring contest. I almost chime in with my comment from earlier about the woman’s hair, but then the woman starts speaking slowly.

“I was not finished.” Her entire tone has dropped, and she’s clearly not laughing this time. “I am the warden.” She begins to smile again

“Now you didn’t know, so I’ll give you a pass. So… you’ve caused us quite a commotion. And we can’t have that now, can we. Not from any of you, in fact.” She smiles at all of us.

“As I said before, I don’t give a flying fuck what I’ve caused!” She holds both her hands out palms up and the hallway begins to shake. The warden starts to levitate in the air just like the pig, but she doesn’t look startled one bit. She’s still smiling. She holds out her finger and everything stops. She slowly plops to the ground on her feet and her smile fades. She snaps her fingers and the platinum blonde haired chick vanishes into thin air. Okay, now that chick was badass, but this warden is a badass bitch. Maybe I should leave her hair alone and let her say what she has to. I don’t know where she sent that chick, and I don’t want to find out.

“Anyway,” she pushes on, “The rules are plain and simple. Don’t cause trouble for me, and I’ll extend the same courtesy to you.” She gives a smile that everyone knows means, 'You'll end up where I sent her.' the longer I'm here, the less I think there's a chance of me breaking out of this place.

"Now your living assignments and all other duties will be given to you once you've entered The Domain." She turns around to face away from us and snaps her fingers. Big red books appear in front of all of us. Handbook is written in gold on the cover.

"Anything you need to know should be in there but right now are there any questions?"

"Yes, I have one" I say proudly "When will we be entering The Domain?"

"Great question. You've already entered. Just turn around."

We all follow her orders slowly and face the opposite direction. The white wall that was there before is gone. Standing before us is a large black building with a red door, birds fluttering around it as if the school was made of bread.. I turn back around to see the warden and ask what's going on, but she's gone. All there is now is a large field that goes on forever. Spooky.