Kuklo woke up alone in a cell. A dreary gloom surrounded him; the only illumination leaked in from a candlelit corridor. The cell was located underground, so there were no windows for lighting. If the candles were extinguished, pitch darkness would come over the cramped space.
He had been given no privacy. His cell was completely visible from the corridor, with only its bars obstructing the view. True, with nothing but a crudely made iron bed and toilet adorning the cell, being seen posed no particular problems. Degrading environments were familiar habitats to Kuklo. He was not shivering from the cold, nor was he suffering from starvation, so it was downright pleasant compared to his old shed.
Still, the cell amounted to a cage for a beast of prey. The other ones confined various offenders, from jaw-droppingly fiendish criminals to political prisoners who aimed to overthrow the government. Everyone placed in the dungeon was there because of serious crimes, and many could barely be called human. Any inmates with a chance of being released were held in shared cells aboveground.
Will I ever get out of this prison alive?
Kuklo wasn’t sure how many nights he’d spent locked up. With no way of keeping time, it felt in turn like a few days or a few months.
Breaking out would be extremely difficult. Unlike his escape from the shed, this facility wasn’t one that he could overcome given time. Jailers patrolled the corridor, making it hard to tamper with the iron bars. Made of Iron Bamboo at that, they admitted nary a scratch no matter how hard he tried.
Still, Kuklo wasn’t the type to give up. He rose from his bed and carefully observed his cell. Severing the bars was a nearly impossible task, but the walls, floor, and ceiling were made of stone and could be bored through. Of course, not only would that take an enormous amount of time, he also had no tools, so it was hardly practical.
“Hey, kitty-corner. You looking to escape? Very bold of you,” the prisoner in the cell opposite the corridor, an airy fellow in his late teens, called out casually.
Despite his time in prison, his skin looked healthy, and while he was thin, he was not emaciated. He looked like some well-bred beau, but he must have been deemed guilty of an appropriate crime to be imprisoned underground. Kuklo had no interest in learning what it was, though.
“If the guards catch you trying any funny business, they’re going to beat you black and blue again,” the guy snickered. He seemed more interested in watching Kuklo’s next confrontation with the guards than his wellbeing.
Kuklo didn’t care to oblige him, but the run-ins with the guards would persist as long as he kept trying to escape. Kuklo ignored the fellow and continued his work.
“Give it up. You’re underground, you can’t get out to the surface by digging.”
That much was obvious, but Kuklo ignored him again and kept at his investigation. He might give up on his hopes of escaping if he were only looking out for himself, but he knew Sharle was waiting for him. He had to get out before she took desperate measures.
“What’s your name? You look real young. What’re you in for? Theft? Murder? Could you be a revolutionary?” The words came at a machine-gun pace to no reply. “Is your scarred eye a badge of honor?” The guy seemed to be a born talker, and he prattled on. “It’s a waste of your time trying to escape this place. You’ll only wind up hurting yourself, like just now. Give it up.”
Indeed, Kuklo had already earned a number of beatings. The guards kept an eye on him due to his clear determination to escape.
“If you’re going to try this, you need to be smart about it. I mean, the patrols come at the same time every day.”
What is this guy’s deal? Kuklo furrowed his brow, annoyance writ large on his face, but he chose to pretend not to hear. It was vexing to find himself in agreement now and then. Yet, silencing the fellow would be difficult thanks to the iron bars between them. He scrubbed the fellow’s existence from his mind, resigned to letting his statements pass through one ear and go out the other.
“It’s actually quite easy to get out of here.”
“Really?” Kuklo’s voice cracked with surprise, and he turned to the speaker.
The youth chortled, having managed to ensnare Kuklo. “Oh, so you can hear me.”
“You tricked me…”
“No way. Would I really be that wicked?”
“Well, why else would you be in here?”
“Not all people in prison are criminals.”
“You’re saying that describes you?” When the guy responded with a smile, Kuklo followed up with another question. “Is it true that you can escape this place?”
“Of course.”
You lie. The guy’s presence in the cell was proof. If escape was easy, then he would be celebrating his freedom by now.
“You don’t believe me? But it’s true.”
“How, then?”
“Just sleep and wait.”
“That’s not funny!” Kuklo spat. If not for their bars, he’d have gone over to punch the guy.
“What I’m telling you is true, but I admit it sounds like a lie,” the inmate continued in his casual tone. “In two weeks, we’ll all be banished out, right through the main gate of Shiganshina.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean nothing. That’s just what we’ve been sentenced to. The fact that we’re here means that is the fate that awaits us,” he said jestingly, perhaps not understanding what banishment signified.
As he said, they would be freed in time. But exile meant being thrown outside the walls, in other words, a death sentence─no, something even more vicious.
There the prisoners would find their starved executioners waiting for them with bated breath. Humans could die by way of accident, disease, and a host of other causes that also happened to include capital punishment, but having one’s life end in despair in a Titan’s jaws was the worst fate imaginable. Familiar with the irrationality that was the Titans, Kuklo understood the cruelty of banishment more than he cared to.