My peaceful sleep was interrupted by the eerie sound of the morning bell. The cops were going around to each cell, banging their electric batons against the metal bars. Every single time I heard that noise, the burning urge of throwing whatever I had at the cops inside me grew. I groggily got up from the bed, barely keeping my balance as I slowly climbed down the towering bunk bed. Paul Elliot was already awake, sitting on his bed. Alexei Riverspire however, was extremely deep inside dreams that he was still snoring in the comfort of the prison bed. How? I mouthed to myself as I stared at him in amazement. How is he so carefree even though he is in prison? I refused to believe that he was anything more than a psychopath who did not care what happened to him. Paul stood up suddenly, a cop was coming over. He touched the screen on his remote as the door cell started sliding open.

“It’s breakfast time, wake that filthy man up!” He commanded us.

Paul went over to Alexei and slapped him on the cheeks. Alexei let out a few filthy words but got up nonetheless, and he sure didn’t look as happy as he was asleep. I walked out of the cell first, while looking at the cops like I was about to throw daggers from my eyes. I hated this social construct, this justice system, anything and everything that landed me here. I wouldn’t have minded spending time that was given to me by an honorable judge, but I didn’t think there was a chance for me to get a trial anyways. I was a fool to believe they would give me a trial, and for that, I would then have to burden myself with a plan to escape. Let’s scan the area again. Through my eyes, I was able to see 108 prisoners male prisoners, through the windows, there were different types of gym equipment, in the cafeteria, there were twenty-five guards, all armed with guns with magic bullets. The only information I had on magic bullets was from overhearing the bodyguards at my old job, apparently, they fire bullets based on the type of spirit the user has. If fired by a person with a Physical Spirit, the impact was to be so powerful that it could split someone in half instantly, the higher the user’s score on the Importance Scale, the stronger the Spirit, the stronger the bullet. However, when fired by Magical Spirits, they have an enormous amount of effects, too many to count. It all depended on the user after all.

After thoroughly scanning the surroundings, I concluded that my chances of escaping were somewhere along the line of my Importance score. My chance of failure was almost certain unless I had another person helping me. A cop disrupted my thought as he nudged me to move toward the breakfast line. I hurried to the line despite the fact that food wasn’t the thing I was hungry for, but freedom. Everyone in this prison that I could see was diverse, ranging from scrawny men to absolute monsters under human skins. I didn’t want anyone crazy to help me, but someone with a decent mind and have skills relating to the matter of prison break. Even if I broke out of prison, I didn’t know if anyone would care. Who would exactly care about a Zero running away from something, even my parents didn’t give a crap about me. Strength-wise, I was inferior to anyone who had a Spirit, but at least I had my mind, a mind that I knew was higher than average. Maybe that was my key to finding a person that could help me escape, and the ultimate tool that I needed.

Breakfast was a disgusting piece of bread with a disgusting piece of ham. I loathed eating it, but I needed the energy to come up with a plan to get the hell out of this excessively disgusting place. As I was shoving the food down my throat, Alexei sat down beside me and Paul in front of me. I never thought my life would come to this, sitting at a blue cafeteria table in prison with my two new criminal friends, what a time to be alive. They greeted me as any other person would, which felt a bit out of place, especially when we were in a prison. When I thought about it, maybe these guys could help me. Alexei had extensive knowledge of explosives, if we could only find some ingredients, maybe he could come up with something. Paul was freakishly huge, and something told me that those scars on his chest that the prison uniform failed to cover weren’t just for show. But there were a few problems, of course, Alexei was a psychopath and nothing told me that Paul wouldn’t strangle me in my sleep, so I wanted to get closer to them more, just to know if they weren’t all that I thought they were.

“So, how’s the morning?” I asked both of them. They didn’t look to be immensely interested in the conversation, but Paul spoke up anyway.

“Good, God has brought us another day, we should cherish it.”

I didn’t take him to be the religious type. I was caught off guard, I thought he was a cold-blooded murderer, but maybe I wasn’t wrong when I noticed regret from him yesterday after all. Alexei never responded to my question, he just sat there, quietly chewing the bland, soggy piece of bread. It was rare to see him this quiet for a while.

“You a believer?” I asked the man in front of me, and he nodded with his big head.

Now that I paid more attention to him, he wasn’t built like a street fighter. No, he was more than that, his body was well-built, and it had a certain discipline to it. I wondered what he did that led him to murder someone. I turned to Alexei, as I was about to ask him a question, a guard came over to us. No, not to us, to Paul.

“Hey, after you finish that, come over to us, someone needs to keep this place from getting any filthier.” The guard said with an annoying smile on his face.

“Why me?” Paul replied with visual distress. Everyone in a fifty miles radius could tell that he did not want to go.

“Listen, pal, I would go if I were you. Your kind should listen to people like me.”

Even I was mad at that.

“And what exactly is my kind, huh?” Paul stood up rapidly from his chair, his hand replaced with a hardened fist. “You got a problem with my Score?” Paul screamed, towering over the police officer.

The entire cafeteria went into silence. The cop wasn’t exactly smiling anymore. They were locked in time for a while, dead staring at each other, but the cop said nothing and left. The other cops were just laughing at the commotion, they didn’t even seem to take their jobs seriously. Paul sat down, his skin as pale as the wool of a sheep, shaking his head while holding hand fingers on his table.

“That was amazing! I love people that stand up for themselves like that!” Alexei finally spoke up. “You killed that man on the inside!”

Alexei was certainly a failure at reading the atmosphere, but I couldn’t help but admire him a bit as well. If I were going to escape this prison, I didn’t think I could do it without this man's help. Maybe he wasn’t just a cold-blooded psychopath, or else that cop wouldn’t be walking right now. Maybe he was just a person, a decent person that made a mistake that cost him his freedom. The cafeteria soon erupted in chatter again, but I didn’t think anyone would forget the event that took place just then. As I finished my breakfast, I was about to ask Paul if he could talk to me in private. But then, a voice suddenly appeared in my mind.

“Arthur Thester, inmate #104, please report to the visiting room. I repeat, Arthur Thester, inmate #104, please report to the visiting room.” The voice appeared itself in my mind.

Amazing, they must have had a proficient magic user, a highly scored one, one quality enough to replace an entire P.A system. If they had an individual that could use magic to send voice messages to anyone anywhere at any time inside the prison, I wondered what else they have in store. My chances of escaping could be affected by this newfound knowledge. But what troubled me more was that I was called to the visiting room? Maybe it was my parents, who decided to actually be responsible for bringing me into this cursed world. A part of me truly hoped it was them, that they would get me a lawyer and get me out of this filthy prison. But that hope was soon replaced with a feeling of surprise, as I never expected her to come.

Behind the glass was Hano Emiko, the Easher girl that had the same calculus class as me, the only person I had that I could almost call a friend. What is she doing here? I sat down on the small chair in front of the glass window in absolute shock and amazement. I wasn’t sure how to feel about this. Happy? Confused? I was definitely more confused than happy. I awkwardly placed my hand onto the communication plate, and the noises from the other side came into my ears.

“Uh… Hello?” I said timidly. I couldn’t even read anything on her emotionless face.

“Hey Arthur, how you doing?” She said with a slight hint of concern. Well at least somebody cares.

“Oh just great, you know. Just another Thursday.” She did not react to that joke in any way. If anything, her face screamed out how can you make jokes at times like this.

“Listen, I don’t have much time, there are things I can’t exactly say here,” said Hano. I glanced at the six fully armed prison guards and five cameras in this room, what is she trying to tell me? She slid a small book through the hole of the glass window. “You will understand. This is the key to your freedom.”

She left as soon as she said that. A few guards came and escorted me back inside the prison. What did she mean? What is this book? I held the book out. The title was March 18th, 2070. I hastily left the guards that were escorting me and ran back into my cell. Alexei was smiling at me creepily as I made my way up the stairs, and I was not comfortable with it, but I chose to pay it no mind. On the long way back to my prison cell, I could see an inmate, he was as big as Paul himself, mopping the floors near the entrance of my room. I see they found an alternative for Paul. I mostly ignored that man and climbed up the bunk bed to where I slept last night. At least here, I had some privacy. I scanned the room to make sure there were no cameras and proceeded to open the book. March 18th, 2070, the date of the first protest against the Nation Enhancement Bill that turned into a violent riot. The riot turned so violent that the military was called, killing almost a hundred civilians. It wasn’t a riot, it was a whole battle. Because of the violence that occurred on that day, the government created laws to limit specifically the lower scorers and public opinion on the matter leaned forward on the supporting side of the Bill. The protest ended in a disaster, and from there on, there wasn’t any other protest on the matter. But I was still confused about why did she give me this. Was she trying to start another protest? I opened the book. There were a few words that were circled. Academia, Bail, Eager, Tax, Extra, Hi. I didn’t understand, these are just random words. I read them over and over again, but I still couldn’t find the meaning of them. I decided to try a different approach. I pictured the words in my mind, along with the images that could be associated with them to find there weren’t any significant connections among them. I tried a different approach, grouping the first letter of each word together, ABETE. Abete, Italian for fir tree. I didn’t think that was it, so I started grouping the last letters of each word together. ALRXAI. That just didn’t mean anything, but it did look familiar for some reason. Alrxai, why is it familiar? A thought appeared in my mind suddenly, it was so simple yet so genius that it could slip a message through the prison’s security easily. I grouped the first word of one letter, and the last word of the next letter together. A,L,E,X,E,I.

Alexei.