The cold air Sinn'ous sucks in works to cool his lungs and refresh his mood. While his eyes travel to the track marks littering the thin inner arms. It’s a skeletal irritation wrapped in flesh. One he doesn’t want to spend his time locked in a cell with.
He is moving before his feet feel the ground. Hands digging into the collar of the man he wishes to erase. A startled squeak is all he gets, before Sinn'ous is shoving forward, forcing the man backwards out of the cell.
He locks eyes with the drugged-out prisoner who has no business in Sinn'ous’s cell. And discards him over the metal balcony of the second story landing.
A smirk tugs his lips as he releases his grip, and slinks back into the shadows before the satisfying crunch resonates throughout the cell block.
A silent air follows. A lull in the chorus of trapped animals. Until there isn’t, and guards are yelling, demanding answers they don’t receiveover the hooting and hollering of excited men.
Sinn'ous strides past the onlookers who are peering over the railing, smoothing his features from the smirk he naturally wears during a kill. All their backs are to him, a buffer from the free air between the cells on the opposite side.
Two levels of cages stacked on top of each other to squish in as many bodies as humanely possible. Pushing the boundaries on how small a space the human body needs to survive in.
“Get to the cafeteria, now,” a guard bellows, and the flood gates open, prisoners stream out an opening to a corridor that darkens as it fills with dozens.The cell block must hold a hundred, at least.
So, suicides don’t merit lockdowns?
The air in his lungs tingles when the thought occurs. No lockdown. Is this the normal outcome to a suspected suicide? It’s information to keep on hand. You never know when you’ll need it.
It’s gloriously lacking in empathy, and it tickles Sinn'ous own. Calling to him as a mother would a child.
Sinn'ous gives the room a quick once over, eyes scanning the moment his foot hits the ground floor. A rushed count uncovers fifty rectangular cells. Two bunks per human shoe box. So a hundred men cramped together in this cell block. If the guards abide by the max capacity and don’t stuff in an extra body here and there. Bold letters stuck high on the wall announce the block as A-Wing. The same letter written on his orange prison shirt, his prisoner ID number. A-11800.
His prison clothes are the only threads in vomit-orange, every other body is dripping in grey. It’s as though he is the peacock bustling among the duller lessers.
Scratch that, there are a few incarcerated men in black, the allocation of which is unclear but something he will easily learn. And then there are the guards, their dark navy-blue uniforms are an easy spot. Four of them huddled around the dead man oozing blood onto the concrete floor, which sucks it in like it’s parched powder in need of liquid courage to hold its place under roughened men’s prison shoes.
The center aisle between the two levels of cells is a collection of cold uninviting tables punched into the dry concrete floor. The sight flickering as men weave around them to abide by the guard’s authority and funnel out of the Wing.
The thick stench of bodies trapped in close proximity lingers in the dwindling numbers. A flick of the eye over his shoulder presents him with a door very obviously locked tight—a guards’ entrance and nothing more.
Stuck in the landslide of rolling grey, he follows the crowd to a large open archway connecting a corridor multiple men can walk side by side down.
His senses fan out, scanning and spreading their wings to touch on the men around him. On high alert to any quickened movements. Dumping adrenaline into his bloodstream.
He wants someone to make a move, he wants a shiv to be pulled.
The voices rising from varying mouths are all different and all the same. Every pitch speaking the same tune of ‘did you see that’.
His kill is chum to their waters. Stirringthe pool of small fish to pick at the floating decay.
Sinn'ous bypasses the cafeteria, and glides along the corridors, mentally mapping out the prison structure. With next to all the prison’s occupants in the cafeteria he is left to investigate the different cell blocks—orWingsas this prison calls them. Each new Wing is announced by a large label drilled into the white chunkily painted brick walls.
As far as prison expectations go, he isn’t too displeased by this one. It’s spacious, if somewhat lacking in funds. The lighting whitewashing the already white surfaces. And best of all, it’s easy to follow, his mental map piecing itself together without strain.
It pays to know your way around, to know where to go to avoid being seen. To find the shadows in each corridor to slip into.
A muffled grunt chased by sharp words and the unmistakable sounds of a fist hitting flesh, shortens his strides. His head tilts, his curiosity caressed, invisible fingers lacing into his hair and tugging him forward.
He tracks the noises to an ajar door and a room fitted with washing machines. The stopper—preventing the doors from closing—is a shining black weapon he recognizes as a handheld taser all the guards have clipped onto their belts.
Tsking at their mistake of misplacing something so fun, he stoops to scoop it up, pocketing the weapon. And slips silently into the room, where the voices grow in strength. Derogatory slurs of an uneducated mind, like a drunk who can only think of curse words to express their distaste for the barkeeps cut off.
There are several grey-clad men clustered together in the tight squeeze between dryers, and they don’t even notice him. But he can’t really blame them, for their prize is a fine one indeed.
Pinned to the floor is a guard with a grey prison shirt stuffed into his mouth, and a shirtless man sitting on his chest. His shoulders are pulled taunt behind his back, clearly cuffed and going nowhere fast.
How these junkie prisoners got the jump on any guard is a miracle of itself.
