Stars, massive bodies of self luminous gas. Most were born before civilization came to be, and will last until our world dies. But some die sooner than others, and even a terminally ill person may witness the death of a star before their time, impossible as it may seem.
………
Birdie headed straight to the jail store upon finding himself back in the common room. The only source of goods from the outside world, the store had everything one in jail might possibly need or want. Even freedom or weapons were up for grabs if one could save enough. Not that anyone was even close. Mac and Birdy were more wealthy than anyone who ever came to be in this hole, and they had not even gotten a tenth of the way there. Beth preferred to spend every point collected on drugs and betting. She threw a party whenever she won, which wasn’t much. She didn’t bet on Mac, “too little gain that way.”
Birdie had won his bet for the day, always betting on Mac for the physical tests, and a roommate for the intelligence ones. The roommate had won, and he would be handing Mac a prime rib dinner for shortening Bill’s lifespan. Mac had kept his promise after all.
After paying with the barcode carved into his bomb collar he paid for another notebook and pen, then asked for the newspaper and an Internet Hour. He left after he was done, going to his cell to find the book and pen sitting on his bed and a timer on the wall. The newspaper would be coming with his food, as he’d previously written into a request at the store. Irritatingly, it came with an extra cost, but he could afford it. Previous roommates had stolen his paper, and he’d come THIS close to strangling them to death, not that he could stand roommates anyways. The memory of a previous roommate put him in an even worse mood.
Birdie quickly threw the thought away and tapped the timer on the wall. It was time for another practice he used to keep himself sane, research. Birdie had always known that his internet search history was monitored, and so for his 1st year he learned history. He would read through anything and everything. Important events, wars, inventions. They were all interesting subjects, but what he really searched for was the history of codes. After the sixth year, he had secretly come up with a code that hopefully wouldn’t flag the thing that monitored his notes. The seventh year, Birdy looked at the science behind past inventions. He used present knowledge to understand why certain things didn’t work, and how others were either improved, or could be improved. The 8th year, he wrote down information that had entered the annals of history, mostly forgotten except to the unthinking internet. He had ideas on how to use these pieces of information, if he ever got out of this jail. The third year, the announcer had been singing praises of their army, having conquered Birdy’s country. The newspaper had given the same information, and reluctantly Birdy gave up hope. However, he had gotten into a routine, and instead of caring about ever being free, he continued researching for years. He drew diagrams using the latest research and technology and hid it as math practice.
Birdie’s previous routine: reading newspaper, studying history, working out.
Of course it was futile. Of course his plans were flawed. But it kept him sane, and made him want to research even more. So he kept at it, making more and more diagrams and plans. He became paranoid. He was grouchy towards the rest of the world and wanted his own private space, as private as possible in a small, cramped, totally monitored prison. The thing that kept him sane, had caused him to go slightly insane. Mac was an adrenaline junky, Beth was a druggy, and Birdy was paranoid.
Birdy’s Internet Hour ended and he piled the now quarter filled book in the locker he had gotten from the store. The large locker held his treasure, and so he had bought the best one, spending nearly seven years of saving to get a nigh indestructible case. Making sure the three locks on the box were properly locked, for the third time he made his way to the common area where he would hang out with Beth and Mac for the rest of the night.
When he got there Beth was dazed, and Mac was looking at a large group with a predatory glint in his eye. These were the newbies, most likely to die first thing tomorrow. One of the men, panicked, tries to pull the bomb collar off his neck.
“Warning, do not attempt to remove your collars.”
The man ignores the voice, trying to pull it up over his head, as he does, the necklace explodes, blowing the man’s brain everywhere. The closest prisoner to him screams, and from his position, Birdy can tell she has lost an arm.
“That was awesome! He must have been pretty crazy not to have listened to instructions planted in his BRAIN!!!” Mac cackles.
“Yeah, crazy.” Beth slurs her words, looking at the mess of guts in a dazed awe.
“Now I have to clean that up.” Birdy looks at the mess with dead eyes. “I have already cleaned enough guts for today, can someone else do it?” He looks around, eyeing the frightened newcomers, a few of which are passed out. Seeing no other prisoners besides Mac and Beth he sighs. “Of course not.”
Birdy gets up and drags newcomers two at a time towards empty cells, leaving the armless girl for last. As he starts dragging her, another man appears with a collar around his neck.
“Hey, I’m not going to drag you, you stay in the room with this dead weight while I clean up. OK?” Birdy gives the last man a death stare. The man looks around at the headless body and the guts all over the room. He numbly nods, and does as he was told.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Hey, hey, did you see Bill’s face when he WON? That look was priceless. I wish I could see it every time.”
“But then you would be a failure of a champion, and you would never get to see that face.”
“I wanna watch it again.”
“Help me clean this up, and I’ll pay for you to see it again.”
“Nah, I won’t help. I have threee more shots to take, and moving around will mess it uuup.”
“If it was possible to overdose on those, you would have done so every day for the past 3 years. Maybe you should try stopping? It would be something interesting to do while we wait to die.”
“Yeah, but it’s noot. Ask me again in a moonth, and I’ll agreee. Maybeee I’ll smooke instead.”
“REALLY? You’ll QUIT? You sound stupid when you take drugs and it gives me a headache.” Mac’s eyes light up hearing that Beth is actually willing to stop after years of doping herself up.
“Oooh, you should tryy it Mac, it feeels goood.”
“*sensored* No. I will not spend all my riches on a waste of time. I need it for food. The thing that brings me the most happiness. Well besides a challenge. That gets me fired up.”
“I LIVE”
A man appears with a large eagle wing sticking out of one shoulder blade, a bat wing on the other side.
“What happened to YOU? Looks like they were testing if they could make a human fly with biology instead of technology. INSANE!”
Mac walks over and picks him up in a hug. “WHOA, and you are SUPER light. Can you fly?”
“Hell yeah, it’s a bit awkward, but this’ll be a blast in the colosseum.” They both start laughing.
“You should see what happened to Alex though.” A slim woman appears in the room. “Speak of the devil.”
“Hey Alex, you became a woman?”
“I WANT TO GO BACK. GIVE ME BACK!!” the woman’s voice is high pitched, the opposite of the former bulky man’s deep baritone.
“It’s liike they maade an opposite. I dub tthee ALEXANDRIA!!” The gathered group laughs. Beth falls to the floor with a needle sticking out of her arm.
“Stop it. It’s not funny.” The group laughs some more.
“Stop it.”
“Wait. Can you have children now?” Mac asks
“I HATE YOU!!!” Alex down a corridor, away from the group
“You didn’t aaansweer.” The group starts laughing again, the winged man hiccuping after not being able to breathe.
“Who else survived, Steve? If it was just you two, I feel bad that I didn’t say goodbye to Samantha.” Birdy asks
“Nah, Samantha survived. They were trying to make her become anything organic with her mass, but it wasn’t working. Something about stem cells running wild after inserting whatever they injected her with. Last I saw, she was goop on the floor, but still moving. When the lab guys are done with her, she’ll likely be sent back here to die.” Steve takes a breath. “Some of the new guys lived as well, but most weren’t very lucky. Some new substance burst open outside of containment. I think all of the cleaners are dead, but I’m unsure. We’ll probably know in a couple hours.”
“So Samantha’s lost. Does Alex know? It looked like they had a good thing going.”
“Poor Samantha. Poor poor Samantha.” Beth starts crying, a smile still on her face.
“I think Alex knows, but if they don’t, I am not going to tell them. Someone else do it.” He looks at Birdy.
“Haha. No, I won’t. I am going to get my newspaper, do my crossword, and just sit here for the rest of my night. I might be the “Jail Nanny”, but I’m not an emotional support animal.” Birdy turns and walks to the food counter. When he gets there he picks up the prime rib dinner, grabs his newspaper, and walks back to the table. “Here. Yours.”