COLLAPSED ᵀᵂᴰ¹ ✔

04. riots

A sudden silence fell, as if the whole prison was holding its breath but then the silence was cut off by the high shriek of the alarm. It was a loud, horrible noise that echoed through the kitchen like another one of the ghosts that was haunting the hallways. Milo covered his ears though it did not do much to keep the sound out.

"All prisoners, please return to your cells," a voice sounded through the intercom.

Milo turned to Oscar who stared back at him with wide eyes. He knew what the man was thinking but it couldn't be true. It was probably just a riot or something. There couldn't possibly be dead people walking around. But as the alarms kept on blaring he suddenly felt himself doubting.

The door was thrown open, making him jump up with his hands raised, ready to fight. When he saw it was one of the guards he lowered his hands. He made a quick scan of the man, noticed the panic in his eyes, the sweat on his forehead and the way he was tightly holding on to his weapon. Something was very wrong. 'Follow me,' the guard barked.

For just a single second he doubted, his mind going through all the possible scenarios that could play out next. He could almost hear Aiden's voice in his head telling him to think things through and be careful. Out of the two of them Milo had always been the first to head into danger, especially when it came to Quinn.

'Now!' The guard ordered again.

He shared a glare with Alex and Oscar but knew they had no other choice. And so he quickly removed the gloves he'd been wearing and took off his apron, before running out of the kitchen with Oscar and Axel on his heels.

The guard turned right and ran down the hallway with the three inmates behind him. They went around a corner and Milo's eyes widened when they ran through the hallway. Prisoners were attacking guards, screaming in anger. Others just sat in their cells, their head in their hands. He felt himself at loss for words as he looked around. It felt like the world had gone mad all at once.

They ran up a set of stairs and turned into the hallway to the left. They hurried through the long corridor and it felt strangely freeing to be able to run again. The guard threw the gate into Milo's cell block open. But here the chaos was just as bad as in the hallways. Prisoners still in their cells were banging against the bars, demanding to be let free. The guard looked around once, genuine guilt on his features. With wide eyes he looked at Milo. 'I-I don't have the key to these cells,' he stammered, as if he had to explain why he wouldn't open their cell doors.

'Then let's go!' Oscar shouted.

As if that shook the guard awake he suddenly nodded firmly, grabbed a tight hold of his gun and hurried into the hallway on the other side of the cell block.

Milo forced himself to keep looking forwards, knowing he would feel the same guilt as the guard did if he were to look back. He knew most of the men in here were criminals, murderers, but so was he and no one deserved to be unable to protect themselves when death came knocking. His heart was beating painfully loud in his chest, his stamina had worsened during his time in lock-up. It felt strange to not know what the danger was he was running from, still he felt the need to run as fast as he possibly could.

A window flashed past him and he came to a sudden halt. With his eyes wide and his breath burning in his lungs he stared outside. 'What the hell?' He mumbled.

Axel and Oscar joined his side and as they stared outside Milo felt everything he had ever believed in fall apart around him.

The window showed them the meadow that surrounded the front side of the prison. It was encircled by a fence and at the fence stood people, though they barely looked like people. Even from this distance it was easy to see the weird gray color of their skin and he could hear the horrible growling noises they made as their hands grabbed at the fence. They pushed themselves against it, as though they were starved and the metal hardly bothered them.