Page 7 of Babalon

Darkwater is absolute mayhem, and I love it.

Nadia

Present Day

Sirens are wailing to the point it’s giving me a damn headache, red and white lights flashing in the corridors of cell block ‘C.’ Sounds of guard boots slapping on the concrete floors echoed as we all ran toward a cell that had smoke billowing out of it.

“Jesus!” Officer Clark grunted when we skid to a stop outside the glowing cell.

Heat poured out of the hold that was, quite literally, ablaze. Excruciating screams accompanying the roaring flames and the rancid smell of burning flesh.

I stared, my mind quickly disassociating from the horror happening before me. This place is a black hole.

You come in, you don’t get out.

I can’t believe I was genuinely excited two years ago, to come and work for a shit hole like DWCI. What a fool I was. I am too far into the trenches now to back out, so I learned how to turn off my emotions and let the shock value roll off my back.

Darkwater Correctional Institute; a maximum-security prison where the worst came to serve until the end of their lives. Apparently, today was execution day for the man that was locked in his cell, shrieking from the pain of being burned alive.

A few other guards ran up with fire extinguishers as the pained sounds began to cease.

Death’s coming.

The extra guards deployed the contents of the fire extinguishers, clouding the cell block, and blotting out the lightfrom the flames, snuffing them thoroughly. We stood there for a moment, staring into the blackened, flame licked cell, waiting to see what was going to happen… if that inmate was still alive. Though we knew he wasn’t, he couldn’t be. The smoke inhalation was enough to end his life, never mind the fire.

“Lock the block down, get the medic team in here, and get this shit cleaned up,” Clark grumbled out with an exasperated breath. He was an old fuck who reminded me of my dad half the time with the way he spoke to people and treated some of the inmates. He didn’t give a damn about them, not that they cared about us either. He was just mad at life, mad he was here, which I could understand, but he was even more upset over the fact he had to write a report for this incident. I sympathized with him; reports were the most mundane and boring part of this whole job. At least he could be grateful that he was getting to go back to the office and not deal with other people.

“What in God’s name happened!?”

Fuck, I know that voice.

Warden Durden.

Turning slightly, I peered over my left shoulder at the frumpy man as he rushed down the hall. It’s funny seeing him here, Farquaad-looking ass.

“Thought he was in fuckin’ New York?” I asked, leaning over to Officer Zurita.

“That’s his clone, Pierce,” he replied with a sarcastic eye roll. If I wasn’t a guard, and with the shit I have seen over the past three years, I’d pluck those mud-colored eyeballs right out of their goddamn sockets. He knew what the hell I was asking, I don’t know why he always tried to push my buttons. We trained together for the first few months I came to DCI, and he got tired of me real fast. You and everyone else, buddy.

“He got back this morning. The missus was spotted out and about, and he flew off the handle,” Zurita added. “You knowhow he is. Flaunt his trophy wife around, but if she’s anywhere without him, he thinks she’s fucking someone else.”

“Just peachy,” I replied.

Straightening up as Warden Durden stomped up to the rest of us, someone tossed me a roll of ‘crime scene’ tape so I could begin roping the area off. I was grateful for the task that way Durden wouldn’t try to interrogate me instead of Clark. I was off in a different area of the prison, nowhere near my post, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Clark! If you don’t open your mouth and start explaining what the hell happened in my prison, I’m going to throw you in a cell with one of the inmates in ‘B’ block,” Durden shouted.

“Sir,” Clark grunted, quickly rattling off what we discovered and the details as the both of them walked off.

I busied myself with getting the area secure while waiting for the medics to come up from the basement. This was inmate Brooks’ cell. Inmate #776924. A chomo. He won’t be missed, and I am surprised he had lived this long, to be honest. Chomos don’t make it very long in Darkwater. As you can see, they are murdered quickly, and usually in a way that sends one hell of a message. They are not welcome here, they are so low on the food chain that they will not be awarded the pleasure of breathing very long.

Between us, he deserved it. After living the life I did, I would do the same thing as an inmate— examine, control, execute.

You won’t hear me telling anyone that however. I’d get my badge taken and Internal Affairs would descend upon me. IA never finds anything incriminating, since the system is crooked as fuck, but they’re still a hassle to deal with.

I remember jumping through so many hoops just to make it to where I am at now. School, guard training, defense tactics, firearm training, weapons training, background checks, mental evaluations… fuck, the list is exhaustive.

All I knew was that staying off the IA’s radar was the best thing to do. When I gave in and started fucking with the inmates, like the others have, I needed to keep it on the hush-hush. Which is how it was so easy to play with Inmate #524997, Kace Patton. Pretty boy who was brought up in one of your normal, cookie-cutter, neighborhoods. Missing daddy but still had enough of daddy's money laying around that mommy could spoil and baby the poor thing when he was sent to Darkwater. He was simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and killed some poor girl.

---