Prisoner 3432c - A Hunted Short Story

Blurb

Dead at the Enclave’s hands—but what was his life?

Prisoner 3432c, real name Alfie, lives a quiet city life under the tyranny of the Enclave.

But when his little sister goes missing, and with curfew descending upon the night, terror strikes his heart.

And to ensure her safety, Alfie makes the ultimate sacrifice.

A new short story from Muslim writer S. H. Miah, showcasing the thrilling backstory of Prisoner 3432c from Hunted’s tantalising first season.

Chapter 1

The day that Prisoner 3432c (real name Alfie Jenkins) was taken by the Enclave, a singular month before his inevitable death, had started as regular as a day could be under the Enclave’s tyranny.

Alfie had turned sixteen a month prior—though they hadn’t had a birthday celebration for it. Instead, his mother and father had hauled themselves to work their twelve-hour shifts for pitiful wages, faking smiles all the while, whilst Alfie remained home to take care of his little sister Lily.

He’d wanted to start working as soon as he hit sixteen, where the Enclave forced those not capable enough of studying to leave and join the slavefor—workforce. But his mother and father had told him to enjoy his freedom—well, as much freedom as the Enclave’s rule would give you.

Because they were trying to protect him from the harsh world outside. And for their sake, and perhaps for his own too, Alfie decided to listen.

Lily, now seven years old and properly starting to talk, was an absolute menace set onto the world. Though the dark skies outside had clouded over the world ever since Alfie was born, and though the Enclave’s shadow wreaked havoc on every part of their lives, Lily’s smile and innocence had a way of lighting up the world that no amount of hyper-electricity could.

And if Alfie could bask in her glow for a little longer before he, too, had to join the workforce, then he’d take it.

Alfie fancied himself a bit of a philosopher, even if his accent gave the impression of someone who’d never excelled at anything remotely academic. And he believed that humans had something deep inside them, something special, something that made them, well, human.

And the Enclave—they lacked that humanity in some way. Lost it long ago, when their founder (whoever that person really was) had opted to take over and destroy Britain, all for their own gain.

And it was only that humanity, and fighting for that humanity, that would return the world to the utopia Alfie’s grandfather had described—before he, too, was killed by the Enclave.

Alfie thought of his grandfather for a few more moments, remembering his face and eyes and wrinkles etched into every part of his skin.

Then, someone crashed into his day, as she always did.

“Alfie…come play with me!” Lily said, rushing over to where Alfie sat on a ragged sofa that smelt of some mould or other, with the edges of the armrest fraying as though split ends of elderly hair. Felt thin, too, like the fabric wished to wisp away against his fingers.

He breathed in the musty scent of air. Let the stale taste brew in his throat for a while. Before letting it all back out.

Lily was tugging the sleeve of his torn apart t-shirt, as though threatening to tear it if he didn’t entertain her for a while.

Despite the fact that he’d already played with her for hours today. And that tiredness (not that Lily cared, she had bounds of energy after all) was beginning to wane on him, cause an ache to stir in his bones, cause his lower back to stew in some cauldron of hurt.

And a headache, too—Alfie couldn’t forget that. Though he’d had them for years now, and there wasn’t much he could do other than ride the storm and hope he came out the other side fine.

“Not now, Lily,” Alfie said, rubbing his temples with both hands, causing Lily’s grip to switch to his elbow. “Go play with your little dolls or summat, and leave me be.”

Lily didn’t like that answer, and tugged his t-shirt harder. “No. I want t’play with Alfie!”

“’Course you do,” Alfie muttered beneath his breath. He leaned over the back of the sofa, and brought out the little horse doll that his mother had gotten for Lily’s birthday. “Here, take this and play with it, why don’t you? And give me some rest.”

Lily accepted the doll, since it was one of her favourite toys out of her limited collection, but that didn’t quell her cute rage. She dropped the doll beside her and continued her onslaught to rival the Enclave.

“No. I want t’play with Alfie. With Alfie, with Alfie, with Alfie!”

“Well, I don’t want t’play with you. How about that?”

Anger had caused him to utter those words, yet Lily took them to heart in a way that Alfie hadn’t meant. Tears welled up in her eyes, lower lip trembling and shoulders shaking, before she took off across the living room and bolted into their shared bedroom. And Alfie could hear her wailing, growing louder by the second, and that guilt mixed with the staleness on his tongue to create a concoction that churned his stomach far worse than headaches and pains.

He’d lost his cool…again. It was a bad habit of his, lashing out when he felt under pressure, when he felt his loss in an argument imminent, even against his seven year old sister who didn’t deserve that treatment in the slightest.

Innocent humans like her, who still had the innocence of pure humanity in them—they didn’t deserve Alfie’s treatment. Didn’t deserve it at all.

He’d have to apologise later when Lily had calmed down enough to accept it. That girl could be well stubborn and hold a grudge if she wanted to, however.

“It’s gonna get ya in big trouble, that habit of yours is,” his father had once told him, hand on the shoulder just to drive the point home. “We don’t live in a world where ya can say what’s on ya mind all the time. Gotta keep it in check. And that goes for at home as well as work. Ya never know when they’re listening.”

It was never the Enclave or the government or the tyrants. Always they or them or their.

“I get it,” Alfie had said at the time.

But in terms of implementing the lesson itself—Alfie was about as behind with that as the Enclave was with their apparent benefits system…that never worked, of course.

Alfie rested on that sofa for some time, body aches ever-present, probably even falling asleep in the middle though he could never tell when he was really tired yet not really at the same time. A paradox of the world—there were many such paradoxes that had fascinated Alfie his entire life.

One being how a loud house, or even a loud person, could at once present themselves as quiet. Could fall silent, such that you could hear a pin drop. Silent like the house was now, with not a sound perceptible beyond Alfie’s own breathing.

Which irked Alfie. Because Lily was never quiet. Never calmed down. Had this constant source of energy that, whilst brightening their lives, tired them out too.

Alarm shot into Alfie like a shot of hyper-electricity from an Enclave guard. He scrambled off the sofa, felt the world dizzy around him before balance, and his vision, restored itself to full clarity.

“Lily?” he called, panic shooting fireworks in his chest from his stomach. His head span for a second, before he regained himself and trudged to the living room door. Yanked it open—when had it even closed?

Lily hadn’t closed it when she’d stormed out, had she?

The hallway, similarly, was empty.

And silent.

That silence ate at Alfie’s skin, like a nail chipping away as though wishing to reduce him to bones and ligaments. Air tasted heavy, tasted of guilt, and Alfie pushed that emotion down to focus on finding his sister.

Wherever she’d went.

Their shared bedroom was empty. Silent. Yet the noise of guilt in Alfie’s ears drowned everything else out.

You did this. You pushed her away, like the bad older brother you are. And now she’s disappeared God knows where.

It’s all your fault. All of it.

Your fault.

Your fault.

Alfie scratched his hair in frustration, strands pulling out, before rushing to the front door. Breathing the stale air that sat heavy on his tongue and in his throat.

Your fault.

Your fault.

Your fault.

“Shut up,” he told that voice, though knowing it would never work. That voice, as it always did, would continue its onslaught until Alfie managed to find Lily again.

The spare key, always kept beneath the wilting flowerpot on the left side, was gone. Lily must’ve taken it. And, judging by the skies outside, curfew was descending across the country.

If Lily was outside after curfew—it didn’t matter how young she was, Enclave guards asked questions after the person was killed.

Despite their talks about morality and justice during public appearances and speeches addressing their people.

A paradox, certainly.

And if Alfie didn’t find Lily in time…

She’d join the Enclave’s endless death counts.

Chapter 2

Dark skies, especially above New Enclave, entailed harsh winds that whipped the streets into a frenzy. Alfie always thought high-rise buildings and houses would block the wind’s path, but the chills of Enclave tyranny always found a way to reach them, even if they were in an air-tight container with no escape.

That darkness appeared, tonight, to wrap over the world like a blanket of death. Endless darkness, with not a star in sight, not a twinkle or sparkle. Not even the moon’s glint shone above. The Enclave’s tyranny, and hyper-electricity’s pollution across the country, had caused that.

Of course, in school, the Enclave stooges they called teachers all explained that it was previous generations and their pollution and their industrial revolutions that had caused the sky to turn an endless dark at night.

But Alfie knew the truth. As much as the Enclave denied it, hyper-electricity caused hyper-pollution, and nothing an Enclave stooge said would change his mind.

Cold air attacked his bare face and hands as his feet led him across cracked concrete to the end of the road. Shoes nearly catching on a pothole as he turned. He checked the watch his father had bought for him a couple years back—broken watch face, but it told the time fine.

Twenty minutes before curfew.

Twenty minutes to find Lily.

Or lose her forever.

Heat snaked up his spine to the back of his skull. Shivers coursed over his body, and he sprinted to the other side of an adjacent road.

Poked his head in, eyes scanning the deep for a hint of humanity.

No sign of Lily.

“Not prowling around, I hope,” a voice said.

Deep growl of a voice.

Enclave guard’s voice.

Behind him.

Alfie whipped around, heart snatching in his chest. “Nothing of the sort,” he quickly said, both hands shooting up to show he didn’t pose a threat. Bowing his head a little, just to show enough fake respect for the idiot to let him go.

The guards weren’t just soldiers for the Enclave. They themselves believed in the Enclave’s tyranny, whole-heartedly. And that was why they’d joined in the first place.

And instilling that fear within the general population was their favourite hobby in all the world, perhaps only coming second to actually causing physical pain through hyper-electricity.

The Enclave guard leaned down, wearing that customary red mask that blazed crimson despite the dark skies and limited street lighting—lights that turned off at curfew.

The guard’s eyes searched him, as if able to strip his mind bare and take a deep look at the emotions, fear mostly, lurking beneath.

Since fear was the greatest weapon of the Enclave, of course.

“Hmm…I’ll let you go for now,” the guard said, smirk on his lips, in his eyes. Still leaned in. Words centimetres away from Alfie’s face. “But if I see you again, you’re dead. You understand?”

“Understood, sir,” Alfie said, words like sandpaper in his mouth, dribbling out like dust. “I understand,” he added just for good measure.

“Good.”

And the guard disappeared around the corner. Waving his hyper-electricity baton around like a toy.

Alfie checked his watch.

Fifteen minutes left.

And if the guard found him again, he’d be true to his word. When it came to terror, the guards always kept their word.

Alfie would be dead.

And if Alfie couldn’t find Lily, she wouldn’t find her way back in the blackness, with the streetlights turned off.

If Alfie died, so would Lily.

He quickened his pace as he rounded another corner, starting a jog, heart hammering, stale air turning sharp as he panted it in, body aching with fear, mind jarred from panic, darkness enveloping him entirely.

And found Lily in that next road.

In the worst position imaginable.

Being restrained, both shoulders, by an Enclave guard.

Chapter 3

“Let go of me!” Lily screamed as the guard trapped her shoulders in a death grip.

For a second, Alfie let the gusts of death-wind circle him, his body frozen in place, the scene before him so utterly hellish that he didn’t know what to do.

What to say.

How to act.

He stood stock-still, concrete rooting his feet to the ground, arms in mid-air, worst case scenarios flooding his brain.

But he remembered another piece of advice from his father.

To always act, regardless of how paralysing a situation was.

Because those that won in the end, whether for good or evil, were those that were proactive.

And remained that way ‘til their final breaths.

“Get away from her,” Alfie shouted, sprinting over to the guard and Lily.

Before doing something he never thought he’d do.

Forming a fist and lobbing it at the Enclave guard’s head. Cracking a guard with a vicious punch carrying a power dwarfing that of a typical sixteen-year-old.

As though some divine force had helped Alfie with the impact. As though every bit of rage he’d ever harboured against the Enclave fused itself with his muscles for that singular punch.

Amazingly, the guard staggered backwards. Reeling from the blow. Staring at Alfie with death in his eyes, one hand already reaching for the electric bolt pistol.

Not the baton.

The baton was to torture, was to cause pain.

The bolt pistol was to kill.

Without thinking, Alfie grabbed Lily’s hand and pulled her to a narrow alley to their left. Thanking his lucky stars that the alley was there in the first place.

Dirt piled up around them as though spectators to the scene, to this gladiator match to the death. And the stench was absolutely horrifying—a mix between rotting vegetables and rotting flesh, bashing into Alfie’s nostrils with a vengeance.

What on earth had happened here?

Typical waste from houses nearby, or dead bodies—

A flash of blue whizzed past his left ear. Smacked into the wall beside him. Dust crashed into his nostrils, and every ounce of energy banded together to prevent him from violently coughing.

Adrenaline pistoned his legs further. Sweat now forming where his palm and Lily’s were connected.

Another shot of the bolt pistol.

Aimed at Lily.

A sixth sense spoke out to Alfie—protect her, save her, since it’s all your fault.

He pulled her closer to himself.

Bodies meshed together for a second.

The bullet flashed past.

Hit the wall at the end.

Dust rained down.

And Alfie realised the predicament they were in.

As he and Lily separated and continued running.

Not that it would amount to anything.

It was a dead end.

Wall about a metre above Alfie’s head.

An end as dead as them.

Chapter 4

And it seemed as though the Enclave guard, crimson mask blazing fire as they sauntered down the alleyway, recognised the fact of Alfie and Lily’s doomed fate, too. Because the guard now slowed down, wind whipping his uniform to and fro, darkness framing him as a death reaper stalking the night, stench of flesh causing the atmosphere to resemble something out of a fever dream.

Alfie stepped back, foot scraping the concrete, torn shoes allowing chilling air to slip into the gaps between his toes.

“Don’t come closer,” Alfie shouted, voice loud as he could muster.

It could invite more guards. But it could also ward off this one—

The guard just chuckled, wielding that electric bolt pistol as though a plastic toy that shot rubber bullets. It was a demonic chuckle. A chuckle that spoke of intense pleasure at the fear in Alfie and Lily’s eyes.

Alfie always knew that the Enclave guards were just as bad as the regime itself. Whether brainwashed or the evil put into them, Alfie didn’t know.

But to see it in person—and directed at him and Lily—sent shivers coursing over his body. Hot shivers, not cold ones.

He reached out a hand and gripped Lily’s fingers. Warm fingers. He needed the warmth perhaps more than her.

“I’m not leaving you,” he promised.

A promise he didn’t know he could keep.

And Lily, boisterous girl thought she was, latched onto him with terror as her glue. “Don’t leave,” she said, trembles slipping from her skin to Alfie’s.

But with a dead end behind them—what was he supposed to do?

Charge at the Enclave guard and receive a bullet between the eyes? Stay back and…well, receive a bullet between the eyes?

Attempt to scale the wall behind him?

But the ledge was a metre above his head, with no objects around them which they could use to get over. Other than rotting vegetables and bits of dried blood splattered on concrete.

As the guard edged closer, bolt pistol dangling from a finger by the trigger, Lily tucked herself in behind Alfie. Both hands now gripping the back of his torn shirt, tremors contagious, gaps in his shirt letting in an iciness that threatened to kill him from the inside.

All whilst the taste of a nasty end sat atop his tongue, ready to be gulped down once that trigger was pulled.

Patters of rain began to fall, smacking Alfie’s head as his mind whirred. As the guard got closer and closer. As the rain grew heavier, droplets turning to splashes smacking his face, wind hardening the water’s whips.

Feet scraping concrete as he, and Lily, stepped backwards together.

“Why do you kill?” Alfie shouted over the rain.

Buy yourself some time. It’s probably the only thing you can do.

The only thing you have to do.

Since this is all your fault in the first place, after all.

“Why do we kill?” the Enclave guard said, tone mocking. “A stupid question from a stupid dissenter.” The Enclave guard raised his pistol. Barrel pointed straight at Alfie, whilst an idea bubbled in Alfie’s mind. “We kill because those we are killing deserve to be killed,” the guard continued. “Because it is natural. Like breathing, we kill.”

The answer sounded rehearsed. Scripted. Implanted in a way. But evil people were evil through and through, their morality non-existent, and these guards were no different.

The cause of it didn’t matter to Alfie. Only the effect.

“And you do not deserve to live,” the guard said, finger tight against the trigger, about to end their lives. “So you shall die, now.”

The electric bolt pistol fired.

It’s all your fault.

And Alfie enacted his last resort.

Chapter 5

Wind whipping rain into his face, taste of death on his tongue, pangs of rot nesting in his nostrils, feet nearly slipping in the wetness, vision flashing from the electric bolt pistol shot—

Alfie turned and knelt down.

First to shield Lily from the shot in case he got hit.

Second to grab her by the armpits, tight grip, and hoist her up high.

And third to throw her over the dead end wall, so she landed on the other side, safe from bullets, safe from the guards.

In a heap with injuries, perhaps, but she’d be alive.

That was the main thing Alfie hoped for.

The bullet, since Alfie had rapidly knelt down, missed his head by inches. Smacking the brick wall before him. Causing a cloud of dust to erupt in his face. Lighting up the world in a flash of evil blue.

But the bullet had missed.

And Lily had flown over the other side, as though growing wings like an angel, before a thump signalled her landing.

Alfie prayed, to whatever higher power there was, that Lily wasn’t so injured she couldn’t—

“RUN!” Alfie screamed as hard as his lungs would allow. Knowing that, any moment now, the bullet to end his life would crack his skull open. And he wouldn’t get a chance to convince Lily not to stay. “RUN! RUN AND DON’T LOOK BACK, WHATEVER YA DO! RUN BACK TO THE HOUSE, BACK TO MUM AND DAD. BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!”

Despite the guard behind him, the pressure behind his eyes, the panic in his voice—Alfie didn’t say Lily’s name. Didn’t want the guard to identify her. Didn’t want her to be the object of some search across the neighbourhood.

“C’mere, you,” a grave voice said.

And instead of an electric bolt shot to the spine, the guard grabbed Alfie by the scruff of his t-shirt.

Hauled him up.

The holes in his t-shirt sprang open, torn apart like they were mimicking Alfie’s pained heart. As though laying his intentions, and his resolve, bare for everyone to witness, as bare as his chest.

It was Alfie’s fault, as that voice had reminded him, that Lily was out in the first place after curfew.

And Alfie wanted to pay the price.

Even if it was his own death—to save Lily’s life, Alfie would do anything.

But the guard didn’t kill him. No, the guard hoisted him up to eye-level, glaring from beneath that blazing mask, smirk vanishing for a straight, serious expression.

“You’re a tricky one, aren’t you?” the guard said, voice completely different, more dangerous, from when it had been reciting the reasons why the Enclave killed its citizens. The bole pistol was away now, replaced by a crackling electric baton. “You deserve to be killed, that is correct. But there are far worse things than death, are there not?”

The guard posed the question as if it was a statement. As if the Enclave held secrets of the world, of things worse than your life ending, and would enact those punishments to whoever they saw as the worst offenders.

And Alfie—at least according to the guard—fit that bill as well as the Enclave fit evil.

A sliver of fear entered Alfie, before giving way to his confidence, his resolve. That habit of his which his father said would get him in trouble one day.

How’s this for trouble, that voice within Alfie said.

“I don’t deserve to die,” Alfie said, defiant in the face of the Enclave guard. Holding his head up high instead of sinking low to join the rotting flesh.

If he was going to die, if he was going to go down—he’d go down fighting. He wouldn’t take their abuse and curl his spine whilst they pummelled him with hits from the electric baton.

He’d take it standing up—he’d take it with pride. Because he’d sacrificed himself so his sister could stand a chance at life.

And that was a decision he’d make again and again, a thousand times over, no matter what the Enclave threw his way.

Worse than death?

Nothing was worse than dying like a coward.

“Interesting,” the guard said, stepping forwards.

Alfie stepped back accordingly, sniffed the air charred with hyper-electricity’s scent. “So what’re these things worse than death, then? Bet ya can’t tell me, can ya?”

“You would like to know, would you not,” the guard said. Not a question, but a statement. Just like they’d done before. “For you dissenters, death is a sweet escape from the world, is it not. You hate this world and its goodness. Death would make it too easy for yourselves. It is something you yearn for, because you are ungrateful for the blessings the Enclave have bestowed upon you. These are blessings they do not need to bestow, but only do so through the kindness they exhibit. It is a kindness that citizens rarely repay.

“But more than that, for those such as yourself, the worst existence is helping the very cause you have unfairly hated your entire life. For those who hate the Enclave, how suffocating must it feel to aid the Enclave in their various charitable endeavours. How terrible must it feel to contribute to that which you claim to despise. That is a punishment worse than death, in the eyes of those of your like. And that punishment starts now.”

Now?

What on earth was the guard on abou—

Alfie didn’t have time to breathe.

Time to blink.

Time to think.

The electric baton smacked his skull.

And moments later, he was out cold.

Chapter 6

Blue and green lights danced in front of Alfie’s eyes…closed eyes, most likely, given the black void…black void that…that felt so close yet so far…so far away…that distanced itself…growing larger…growing smaller…and those circles of random lights danced…danced like Mum and Dad sometimes did round the rickety dinner table…and those lights blinked…Alfie tried…tried himself…to blink—

Couldn’t even inch his eyes open.

Not even a centimetre, millimetre, or any unit smaller than that.

Though his eyes were basically non-functional, except for those blue and green and oddly purple lights shining behind his eyes, the rest of his senses remained, for the most part, intact.

His hands were tied behind his back by binds restricting his blood flow, making his fingers colder than the ice of Old Scotland. The taste of something stale rested on his tongue, as though taking a long nap there, and he smelt nothing but the headiness of hyper-electricity that had previously been crackled.

The hum beneath him signalled that he was in a vehicle of some kind, though his sense of touch gave no indication as to what sort of vehicle it was.

Or, more importantly, where he was being taken.

And the panic that had earlier overtaken him in his drowsiness subsided. Made way for another emotion—utter dread.

Despite the natural confidence Alfie had, being so incapacitated would tremble even the hardest amongst humanity. And Alfie, at only sixteen, felt more than anything terrified.

And fear, after all, was the greatest weapon of the Enclave.

And fear of the unknown was the greatest of all fears.

He didn’t know how long he waited like that. Minutes. Days. Hours. Weeks. Time melted into a kind of stew—the nasty ones his mother cooked sometimes when other, more tasty food was scarce. The type of stew that Alfie hated with a passion, yet gulped down anyway because food was food at the end of the day and they never had enough of it. And Alfie was swimming in that time-stew, drinking some of it in at times, letting other parts of it roll around him, whilst all of it in some way consumed him.

Only catching brief seconds here and there when his consciousness would return to bring back those blue and green lights, musty smell and taste, and an infinite dark void.

Eventually, he was taken out of the vehicle after God knew how long. Put on solid ground, though Alfie couldn’t tell what kind of shoes he was wearing. As though he wore socks that compressed his nerves so much he couldn’t feel as much as a tingle.

How did he even know the ground was solid, in fact?

“Move him there.”

“Okay.”

“Then to where you see fit.”

“Okay.”

Gruff voices. Neutral tones. Guard’s voices.

Alfie made out the words, just about. To be honest, considering his mouth and eyes were tied up, as well as hands and feet, he was surprised they didn’t block his ears with some kind of ear muffs or plugs.

The Enclave didn’t make mistakes like that, and their guards didn’t either since they were meticulously trained to eliminate any risk of mistakes.

If they hadn’t blocked his ears, they wanted him to hear their conversations. As if it was all an attempt to heighten his fear, make his heart tremble, make his resolve waver.

Everything calculated, cunning, cold.

But Alfie knew his resolve would never waver.

Never ever. Because he’d made the right decision—to save his sister, someone innocent, someone who didn’t deserve death.

And he’d never regret that decision, for as long as he lived.

And he prayed that now his sister was with their mother and father again, safe and sound at home—well, at least as much as one could be in the tyranny of New Enclave.

“Over there,” another guard said.

“Confirmed.”

“One on the island?”

“Confirmed.”

The guards then spun him around three times, disorienting him until he couldn’t tell his right leg from his left. Nor his right hand from his left. Black void with blue and green flashing circles swirling as though an image of how his empty stomach felt.

But they didn’t walk him out on that solid ground.

Instead, hands grabbed at his armpits and hauled him up, ensuring his feet didn’t make contact with the floor. Ensuring he was completely incapacitated—not that Alfie had the energy to move in any case.

Whilst the wind picked up around them, sending shivers and chills across Alfie’s skin, along with that stale taste in his mouth, Alfie recalled reading about the technique in an old news article somewhere.

That, in prisons of old, they used to disorient the prisoners in maximum security before taking them inside. So they couldn’t plot an escape route from even before they’d entered.

They also took random routes so prisoners couldn’t memorise step counts or anything else. And then limited contact with the outside world—no visitors, no money sent in or out, utter solitary confinement if need be.

A shot of fear slugged Alfie’s heart like a well placed electric bolt pistol. He was boisterous and loud, and loved speaking with people, especially his family. Loved being the life of the party, even if it did get him into a little trouble here and there.

To be completely alone, for hours and hours, day after day—he’d be swimming in that stew of time for life.

And he wouldn’t be able to handle it.

His resolve at saving his sister would never fade.

But his resolve to continue living another day—that would quickly extinguish.

But from here on out, there was no escape.

Not at all.

Once the Enclave captured you, it was a done deal.

Alfie would have to await his fate.

Chapter 7

From there, Alfie was hauled into the back of what felt like a truck. Not that Alfie, who’d never been inside a car except for the odd governmentally sanctioned taxi in the capital city Clave, would know what the back of a truck felt like.

But still, the metal chills against his spine and the stench of something metallic all pointed towards a truck. As well as the breaths of other prisoners, all huddled up, all probably blindfolded, all headed to a fate the Enclave called worse than death.

And Alfie, slowly but surely, was believing what that guard had said. That there were fates worse than death. And that he’d be send hurtling into such a fate.

That fear within him grew.

And fear, after all, was the Enclave’s greatest weapon.

Since he was sixteen, the minimum age to be tried as an adult in New Enclave, Alfie wouldn’t face a lesser punishment. Though he’d known that, and readied himself for it, since before saving his sister.

He’d face the full brunt of his actions—full brunt of the Enclave’s tyranny. And there was nothing to stop that from happening, bar some divine miracle of God.

Eventually, after what frankly felt like millennia yet a few minutes at the same time, Alfie was hauled out of the truck. Seemingly alone, since those other prisoner breaths didn’t circle him anymore.

Cold metal replaced by an even colder wind, blindfold pressing that iciness into his eyeballs as if imprinting its touch onto him. He shivered, more and more, as the Enclave pushed and pulled and even went as far as batoning him a few times, hyper-electricity shots stabbing pain into every corner of his soul.

Just for good measure, or just for the guard’s own twisted pleasures—Alfie would never know.

What he did know was the pain, unadulterated pain, and the screams that had left his soul bare for them to torture.

At least he was suffering those screams, and not Lily. At least he had done the right thing, and not succumbed to his cowardice.

After some time—though Alfie’s sense of time was soon slipping from him—he was led into a large building. Of course, he couldn’t actually see the building, given the binds tight against his eyelids, but every noise in the room echoed, banging off the walls before smashing into his eardrums again.

No natural noise—wind or rain or anything of the like—reached him. Only artificial, man-made, tyrannical.

Several guards shuffled around him, each individual step causing a shiver to overtake his skin. And he waited as they twisted and turned him, couple baton strikes thrown in the mix when he didn’t move fast enough, then locked his hands onto a chilled wooden table with metal cuffs and forced him into a similar feeling chair.

Then, the blindfold was ripped off.

And the world plunged into a deep, dark, disturbing colour of crimson red. The walls, high and curved towards a singular point at the centre of the room, were painted red and tapestried with curtains stretching across its entire length. The room must’ve been, in Alfie’s estimation, thirty metres long and about seventy metres wide, with a high ceiling causing his head to crane just to glimpse it.

Like he was staring at a bloodshot night sky, squinting for stars amongst the sea of red and finding nothing.

The guards, all clad in crimson masks, stood tall on guard, whilst a raised platform on the room’s other side revealed more chairs for more guards. These wore special uniforms, however, beneath those masks. Uniforms closely reminiscent of the pictures Alfie had seen of judges before the Enclave took over Old Britain.

Of course, the Enclave claimed those judges were corrupt, and disagreed with the Enclave’s suggestions of a just rule. And that was why they had been ousted, before imprisoned as a consequence of proper justice.

Alfie, for obvious reasons, doubted that play of events, though he couldn’t prove they were false. He just knew that the Enclave had probably killed the judges off before they could speak.

Curious, Alfie turned his hea—

A guard smacked both sides of his face. Hard. Then held his skull forwards, death grip squeezing his cheeks and stopping blood flow to his face. He stared, involuntarily, at the main three guards sitting on that raised platform.

The three judges, no doubt, ready to deliver his verdict.

Alfie had thought he’d be going straight to prison. But it seemed even the Enclave wanted to pretend they had a justice system in full effect. An easy PR exercise for the rest of the country to follow, to be brainwashed by.

The chill of the metal cuffs sunk into his skin, so deep it reached his pounding heart. The wooden material scratched at his wrists as if wishing to give him splinters. He felt more scared of this room and this trial (if only in name) than he did defending Lily from that guard in the alleyway.

Because at least back then he had choices to make, a right choice and many wrong ones.

Yet here, in this large cold room with his racing thoughts his only companions, he was helpless. There was no right or wrong choice to make, no good or bad decision he had to decipher.

There just wasn’t a choice at all.

In every sense of the word, he was utterly at the Enclave’s mercy.

A fate he now believed to be worse than the quick death a bolt pistol shot to the head would’ve offered him.

Heck, if Alfie had the chance he’d shoot himself in the head, if only to avoid whatever horrors the Enclave had in store for him.

Horrors that would now begin.

As the head judge, sitting in the middle of the three chairs on that raised platform, with their beady eyes gleaming behind their mask, said, “Let us begin with the trial of Alfie Jenkins, sixteen years old.”

Chapter 8

The trial was far quicker than Alfie had anticipated. Yet that didn’t make it any less fearful. His heart curdled as the judge read out a report generated of the incident that had taken place. Alfie fighting a guard and resisting arrest (death, actually, but they neglected to mention that part), along with an underage accomplice that they hadn’t identified.

If they ever asked Alfie, he’d never give up his sister’s name. Would take any torture in the world than letting her be taken by guards. Letting her reach a worse fate than being a normal girl at home with her parents.

The report then created random details that had never actually taken place. Complete and utter lies, rampant fabrications to paint Alfie in the worst light imaginable.

Alfie threatening the guard with torture, with death, stealing the guard’s pistol, attempting to use it against him, attempting conspiracy, arson, random charges that scarcely made sense.

Read out as though a list of all the crimes Alfie was being accused of. Crimes that had never taken place, of course.

And Alfie, with that bad habit of his, tried to speak out. Tried to say his piece. Tried to enact justice in a system where justice didn’t inherently exist. Tried to challenge the lying scumbag of a judge.

But that gag over his mouth muffled his words, and the crackles of hyper-electricity to his spine tucked his protests back into his throat.

A fate worse than death, that Enclave guard had said. And Alfie was now living that reality—at the Enclave’s mercy, instead of the mercy of death. And death was a more lenient punisher.

That crackling baton sizzled behind him, and despite the large room he felt very, very small in the centre of it all, echoing noises reverberating in his mind, each sound like a shattering of his resolve, his bravery, into tiny little pieces.

This was the issue with tyranny over people too battered and weak to do anything about it. The government, the tyrannical government, could make lies and deceive whoever they wanted, reading out charges that scarcely made sense for a sixteen year old boy to commit, without giving that boy a fair chance to defend himself.

A chance that Alfie, stupidly, had been waiting for. Patiently. Thinking, in his naivety, that he could convince them of his innocence. Convince them that the guard was making things up, that his eye witness testimony was just as valid as theirs.

But that chance fled the scene as soon as the judge hammered down with his final verdict, Alfie not saying an entire word during the trial, and nor was the guard ordered to be examined, and nor was Alfie given a lawyer like he would’ve been in the old world.

“For these crimes, Alfie Jenkins has been deemed irrefutably guilty. The evidence speaks for itself.”

What evidence? that voice in Alfie’s mind wished to scream out, to bellow at the top of his lungs.

But he wouldn’t be able to say a word, as the guards then removed the cold metal cuffs on his wrists and replaced them with barbed-wire sharp cuffs restraining his arms behind his back. The room, large and spacious, felt suffocating, walls laughing at him, red curtains burning into the back of his eyes, mimicking blood.

Instead of a blindfold, a bag was placed over his head and then tightened at the neck with straps rougher than sandpaper. As if he was being strangled, freedom taken away like his breath was being snatched. And he could barely breathe through the bag, except for little spurts of near-poisonous air that wished to infect his lungs.

Disorientation struck him like a guard’s baton, and that sense of timelessness flooded his brain again. Minutes, hours, days, all blended into a blur that he couldn’t make out the details of. He couldn’t tell where he was, or where he was being taken, or if he was moving at all.

All he knew was that it was a worse fate than death—something he was now accepting as true, despite doubting it before.

The Enclave, though they were deceitful and cunning, remained true to their word in that regard at least.

Perhaps the only time they were truthful with him this entire process.                         

Eventually, after what felt like seconds yet weeks, Alfie found himself in a new area, an actual prison, one that the guard dragging him along touted as the most secure prison in the entirety of Enclave, the worst kind of prison, only useful for criminals like him to be detained and worked to the bone with no chance of freedom for the rest of his life, day after day after day of monotonous work until his mind bled out before his heart could.

At this point, that sickening feeling within Alfie caused everything in his stomach to churn, to bubble, and to threaten release down his throat. Yet nothing came up despite the dread burning in those pits—he hadn’t eaten in God knew how long, and his next meal likely wouldn’t come for a while later.

“You get starved for good here,” the guard had told him—his ears hadn’t been blocked, thankfully, though it felt like every other sense had been. “You got some chub on you. The Enclave’ll burn that off before you can say a word.”

This guard was the talkative type—far from the typical robots Alfie was used to throughout the entire hearing and trial process. As though some guards were more brainwashed than others. As though sometimes the guards had pre-set words to say, whilst other types their minds operated independently.

Alfie didn’t know what to make of it, if he could make anything of it at all, but the details caused his mind to churn regardless.

Guards were, of course, on the side of the Enclave. But why were they on the side of the Enclave? Though Alfie had never seen a guard take their mask off, the way some of them spoke—they were normal people through and through. He wouldn’t be surprised to hear this guard’s voice belonging to one of his father’s friends.

And yet this guard was here—escorting someone innocent to a fate worse than death, and all for the pleasure of…what, his tyrannical overlords?

Did the guards not, deep down, know that what they were doing was wrong? Or did they justify it all in their heads to avoid the guilt? Or did they not even think it was a wrong thing to do in the first place?

The more Alfie thought, the more questions flooded his mind. And thinking wouldn’t save him now anyway. In this prison, according to the guard, thinking was the only free thing he could do.

Alfie was bundled into a room, more guards swirling their voices around him like snakes waiting to bite. He was stripped of all his clothing, then every hair on his body was shaved down to the bone. They didn’t care how rough they were being with the razor, and blood began leaking all across his body and his head, dripping down his cheeks as though he was crying red.

But he didn’t cry out in pain. Not for a second. Even as it felt like the energy was being drained from his soul. Even as it felt like his body was growing frail, aging fifty years in the space of five minutes, worse as the guards bloodied his skin. Even as guards prodded his naked body with the baton, electrocuting him and laughing at him, making him seem as insignificant as possible.

He was at their mercy, the Enclave’s mercy, and there was nothing he could do about it.

A fate worse than death.

A fate worse than death.

That mantra repeating in his head.

Repeating in his head.

“You shall be escorted now,” a guard told him, gruff voice raking spikes across his ears.

“Wh…where…?” an exhausted Alfie managed to eke out.

“To a fate worse than death,” the guard said, robotic voice in full force, as opposed to one filled with humanity, one filled with any semblance of hope.

Chapter 9

The guard grabbed Alfie’s arms and legs, pulled some rough fabric over his skin—clothing, or something akin to it. Holes exposing his otherwise naked body to chilled air—as if artificially chilled. Then, Alfie was dragged across metal flooring, cold sifting through his body as though his skin formed a sieve and not protection.

He shivered—but shivers wouldn’t help him. Couldn’t help him.

Against the Enclave, nothing could.

And that set off fireworks of fear in his chest, bubbling up to a throat that had nothing to puke out.

“We are here, Prisoner 3432c,” the guard declared as Alfie stopped himself from gagging.

Alfie barely registered the new name—

Alfie heard a crackle. The crackle snapped at him—hyper-electricity—and Alfie’s heart jumped. Jitters overtook his skin, like thousands of needles prickling him at once, and blue flashes of light behind the blindfold scared him to the core.

Was he about to be—

The blindfold was ripped off—light flooding in like starving rats feasting upon rotten fruit—before Alfie was thrown into whatever room it was and the guard left and Alfie’s body smacked the hard ground and he rolled over keeling in pain whilst clutching his knees with arms free yet pain shackling him at the same time both mental and physical.

His eyes closed. Clamped shut. As though unwilling to see the fate he had landed himself in—a fate worse than death. As though closing your eyes made the world around you all at once disappear, a childish trick that didn’t work because, according to the Enclave, he was an adult prisoner.

But Alfie was in an Enclave prison, like many others, without a name, just an identification number—Prisoner 3432c.

He soon found what life in this hell-hole of a prison really consisted of. No privacy in the slightest, no company except for the crackles of a hyper-electricity gate threatening an imminent death should he make contact with it. Blue lights flashing in both his days and nightmares.

One basin in the corner which he used as a toilet, with the flush working every three days. Night time vents seeping a cold air that was impossible to sleep through yet impossible to stay awake in.

The smell, too, lasting three days at a time—he didn’t want to think about it most days. Yet it invaded his nose regardless.

The guards were the same as outside the prison in Clave’s streets—crimson masks whilst patrolling every inch of the metal pinging floors which echoed as though wishing to scare prisoners. Yet the guards seemed more vicious within the confines of these walls, punishing at the slightest infractions, and even public executions occurred in front of everyone.

Blood staining the ground. Screams torturous. And Alfie had struggled to hold his gaze on the dead prisoner—anyone looking away would be punished, too.

And this was all in Alfie’s first week in this God forsaken place.

Back-breaking labour formed most of his days, one task after the other after the other. Soul crushing. Utterly demoralising. For a reason he knew not—perhaps that was part of this entire thing being a fate worse than death.

Colonels in the Enclave ranks, those who showed their faces unlike the guards, ordered Alfie around—ordered Prisoner 3432c around. Never referring to him by his name. And if he even dared smudge an order, even a little bit, Alfie would be dead without question.

And those colonels would probably administer the final blow themselves.

The other prisoners—sometimes Alfie made eye contact with them, though brief. Anything more resulted in baton strikes from the guards, and painful electric shocks. Sometimes even death, if there was a whiff of suspicion that some kind of rebellion was about to occur.

Those prisoners dressed the same as him, walked with the same slumped shoulders, and Alfie wished to ask them their stories but didn’t dare speak for fear of death. Didn’t dare look at them for fear of death.

And fear, after all, was the Enclave’s greatest weapon.

Oh, how Alfie wished the Old Uprising would start up again. How he wished a new organisation would form to tackle the Enclave head on, to take the fight to them, to defeat them, and then spit on their graves and dance on top of it just for good measure, recording the whole thing so future generations could learn what scumbags ruled over them for years and years and years.

This prison did something to bring out the morbidity of their prisoners, and Alfie was no different despite his young age. Cynicism planted itself into his psyche as closely as his every ragged breath.

Still, despite the lack of privacy or freedom or the stench of his own defecation in his cell, that flair of hope lit his heart on the darkest days, where all he thought about was running into the electric gate and killing himself.

The social time was the only contact he had with anyone else. Where you would walk around and converse in the fakest tones possible about the virtues of the Enclave, about the ways in which they enriched the world and spread peace across the entirety of Old Britain. And praise the very guards that enforced those rules on you every minute of every day.

Of course, calling it Old Britain would be tantamount to blasphemy, so Alfie avoided that. Avoided anything that could land him in hot water. Anything that would get him attacked by the guards, even though he was here for a lifetime and any chance of leaving was non-existent.

So one social time, about a month after he’d first entered the prison, Alfie recalled those words of his father.

That his habit of lashing out and speaking out would get him killed one day.

And Alfie, despite his ragged clothing and fake tones in which he conversed, lashed out exactly like his father had predicted. And the result was exactly as he had predicted.

The Enclave battered him into an early death. Hyper-electricity mixed with bolt pistol shots, in front of everyone at the social time.

Survival wasn’t an option.

And yet, even in those dying moments, Lily’s eyes flashed before his face, and the eyes of his mother and father. And he knew that, in keeping them safe, he’d done the right thing.

And in a way, in the most strange of ways, his death felt like a glorious victory.

JazakAllahu Khayran for reading!

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