(plz read this and give me your honest opinion about it, i rlly want to know what I need help on so this story wont go up in flames like the other ones ive been trying to make.  And also, i worked rlly hard on this, and i dont want my work to be in vain if no one reads it ;w; )



         "Work time inmates!  Get your lazy carcasses out of bed and get down to the trains!"

         I groaned, refusing to open my eyes.   "Morning already?" I mumbled.  A rough hand grabbed my arm, and the next thing I knew I was falling off the top bunk to the hard stone floors below.  

         I rubbed my elbow where it had hit one of the bunk frames, sleep still clouding my vision.  I could just barely make out the silhouette of one of the prison guards towering over me.  "Yeah," he snarled, "Morning already, now get to the trains before I decorate the walls with you entrails!"  I got up and shuffled out of my cell into the hall.  The other female inmates were already making their way to the loading docks where the trains waited.  The hall eventually opened up into a large room where prisoners from different sections of the prison mingled together like brackish water.

         The sleepy fog that once obscured my vision was now gone, leaving me with a clear perspective of everything that was going on around me.  I stood on my toes to get a better look over the heads of the inmates.  I caught a glimpse of dark brown hair before it vanished in a sea of moving bodies.  I made my way forward, pushing people out of my way as I trudged onward.  Then I saw him.  It was Zach.

         Like me, he was standing on his toes looking over the shuffling inmates.  "Hey Zach!" I called.  He turned around, his dark hair falling over his eyes in ragged clumps.  He smiled, "Hey."  I stood next to him.

         "How'd you sleep?"

         He shrugged, "The usual."  And by usual he meant bad.  Poor Zach; in the male section of the prison, just about everyone snored.  It was a miracle if anyone got more than three hours of sleep.  He pointed to the ugly purple bruise that was beginning to blossom on my elbow, "What happened?"

         I smiled, remembering what happened this morning.  "I wouldn't get up, so the guard had to haul me out of bed."  He laughed, which ended our conversation.  The large room began to shrink as we made our way into yet another hallway.  The hall went on for a short distance before opening up to the loading platforms.  A chilly breeze caressed my skin as we exited the hall.  I looked around.  The trees were bare, the leaves that once decorated them now lay around their trunks as the cold of yet another hard winter settled in.  Frost covered the wooden platform as the inmates stumbled to the waiting trains.

         It was like we were cows.  The guards stood around us, herding us towards the train cars, which ironically were built for cattle.  They watched us like buzzards eyeing carrion, prodding us with the barrels of their rifles if one of us strayed to far from the rest of the inmates.  Once we were all packed into the cars, one by one, they began to close the doors.  As they closed the door of the car next to us, I caught glimpse of something beautiful.

         The mountains.

         They sat painted black against the rising sun.  Majestic giants with snow-tipped peaks that firmly stood their ground as the years rolled on.  How I wish I could explore them.  To break free of the prison and run to them, climb them; breathe the cool air at their summits.  My thoughts were cut short as the grating of metal against metal filled the car.  The light from outside began to dim as the guards heaved the large door shut.  I struggled to catch a glimpse of the mountains one last time before they vanished behind a door of wood and steel.  The longing of freedom rose in me again like steam.  They were right there, right in my grasp.

         But the only thing separating me from them was a fifteen Kilovolt electrically charged fence.

         Then the doors closed, plunging us all into darkness.

         My name is Blaine MacAlyster, or at least I think that's my last name.  I am sixteen years old, and have black hair with streaks of blonde in it.  I look a lot like a boy in fact.  With my close-cropped hair and flat chest, you probably would think I was a guy too.  You already know my friend, Zach.  He's been my only friend ever since I can remember.  And just to set things straight: there is no relationship between us.  Love doesn't get the work done around here in the prison.  The guards feed off of weak emotions like that.  The funny thing is, I don't even know why I'm here, in the prison.  All I remember is this place, like I was born here.

         It's hard to tell.  But I do hear things among the inmates.  That we're in the prison because we wouldn't follow orders or something of the sort.  All I know is that I shouldn't be here, none of us should.

         There was a squealing of breaks as the train slowed to a halt.  The doors opened and a bright slice of white light cut through the crack in the door as it was opened.  "Get out, all of you!" the guard ordered.  We did as we were told, hopping out of the car one by one.  We were led to a mountain, but it was nothing like the beautiful ones that lay right outside the fence.  The face was a bare slab of rock, vacant of any vegetation.  In the center, a large gaping cave mouth yawned black in the grey rock.  A rusty mine track slithered out of the darkness of the hole, snaking its way to large piles of coal a few meters away from the cave entrance.

         This was our job.

         Deep in the mountain lay veins of coal that needed to be mined.  The guards corralled us over to a large shack which held our mining equipment.  We were split up into two groups; one group to mine, one group to haul coal out.  Zach and I were assigned to mine, so we were handed large pickaxes.  The mining tool felt almost weightless in my hands due to years and years of hard labor.

         We marched single file into the gaping mouth of the mine.  It was like we were being eaten, the humid air created by the inmates' breath hung in our lungs as we proceeded through the mountains throat and into its stone belly.  We then entered a small room where four other tunnels branched off to different coal veins.  The inmates split up and went in separate little groups into their assigned tunnels.  Zach and I marched with our group down tunnel two.

         Again, we were engulfed in darkness as we proceeded further into the small space.  Soon we were in a small room lit by a single light bulb.  "Alright," the guard growled, "get to work!"  We all went into our separate little corners of the room and began chipping away.  Snaking across the walls were large veins of coal, making it look like the mine was a creature being kept alive by poisoned blood.  I lifted the pickaxe above my head and swung it down on the black rivers of stone.  The coal exploded from the wall and fell around my feet.  I turned my head to look a Zach and saw that he too was lifting a pickaxe and driving it down dead center on a large chunk of coal.  

         He saw me looking at him and smiled, tipping his mining helmet at me.  I returned his smile and went back to work.

* * *

         "Alright inmates," said the guard, "mess time."  'Mess time' was our prisons term for 'lunch break', our only meal of the day.  We left our pickaxes where we stood and trudged out through the tunnel. When we broke to the surface, the other inmates were already lined up to get their food.  We took our spots in the back of the line and waited for our turn.  When we got our food, we sat down in the train cars.  

         We eyed wearily at the guards who watched us, fingers wrapped tightly around the triggers of their rifles in case any of us tried to make a break for it, and then began talking.  "Today's special," began Zach, "Is cold soup that looks like watered down crap . . . yum!"  I laughed quietly, "Shut up Zach, I'm trying to eat!"  "How could you?" he asked, then looked down at his watery butt-squeezin' soup and muttered, "You think after we work our backsides off that they could at least provide us with a decent meal. . ."

         "Well, be happy that they actually give us food." I said, spooning some soup into my mouth, "Be happy that they don't just leave us to pick bugs off the mine walls."  Zach sighed, "Bugs don't sound that bad. . ." he muttered.  I shoved him playfully, "Oh shut up!"  Just then, a shot rang out.  I jumped, dropping my soup in the process.  The guards were running to the back of the trains.  Zach and I leaned out to see why.  A boy was running alongside the trains as fast as he could as bullets from rifles pinged around him.  It was an escape attempt!

         I noticed the boy as one of the new inmates that just arrived last week; I think his name was John Caswell or something.  With a cry of pain the boy fell, clutching the arm that was just shot by one of the guards rifles.  More shots ripped from the guns, hitting him in his shoulder and hip.  To my amazement, instead of giving up and letting the guards have him, he got up and started running again.

         That's when I noticed that this time he was heading straight for the fence.  "What is he doing!?" I whispered to Zach, "Doesn't he know how much electricity is running through that thing? He's going to kill himself!"

         "Stop!" Zach yelled after him, but it was too late.  John was already at the fence.  His hand flashed out, and the moment it gripped it, he was dead; electrocuted.  John fell to the ground, twitching slightly, his dead eyes staring endlessly at the sky.  "What a shame. . ." I managed to hear one of the guard's say, "We didn't even have to shoot him."  "Yeah," The other guard said, "What a waste of bullets!"  "Waste of bullets. . ." I muttered, anger knotting in my stomach, "How could they say that?  Someone just died, and he's worried about his friggin' bullets!"  "Well, it's not like they care about us or anything." Said Zach.  I turned to him, eyes widened with horror, "How could you say that Zach?"  He looked at me, his hazel eyes hard as stone, "Don't act like you don't know it Blaine, cuz' I know you do."

         I sighed, but didn't say anything.  He was right, no one cares about us, not here anyways.  "Hey, you!"  I looked up to see a guard walking toward me, "Get him out of here."  He motioned to the lifeless body of John.  I swallowed, that was the last thing I wanted to do.  He shoved the barrel of his rifle to my chest, "I said get him out of here!"  I nodded and jumped off the train.  I headed over to the dead boy, casting weary glances back at the guard as he followed me, gun pointed to my back.

         I was now standing next to John.  All of his hair was singed off, and his hand was all black, exept for a waffle-grid pattern of open flesh caused by the chain-link fence where he had grabbed it.  A lump rose in my throat, and I struggled to keep it down.  "What are you waiting for?" the guard growled, "Pick him up!"  I swallowed, and with quaking hands, reached down to pick the dead boy up.  He was as cold as the winter air that blew around us.  I couldnt do it.  I just stood there with my hands on his chest, tears dripping out of my eyes.  I fell to the ground as the gaurd bashed the butt of his gun against my shoulder.  I lay there sobbing, not from the pain, but from the death of John.  He didnt desrve this.  He didnt deserve to die.  All he wanted was to be free, but the gaurds took that away from him.  No, not the gaurds, the prison.  The person who made it.  That poor boy died in vein, and it was all their fault!

        The gaurd pulled me up by my hair and made me look into his eyes.  "You pick up that body or else I'm going to have to have someone haul his and your body out of here, understand?" he growled.  He set me down and I wrapped my hands around Johns' chest.  I lifted his weightless body over my shoulder and looked at the gaurd.  He nodded in approval.  "Take him over there." he ordered.  he nodded his head toward a ditch next to the train tracks a little way off.  I did as I was told and walked over to the indention.  It was just a shallow dip in the ground.  

       "Drop him in there."

       I heaved Johns body off my shoulder and watched him roll to the bottom of the ditch.  The gaurd set the barrel of his rifle on my back, "Now get back to work."  I looked at him, "We-were not going to bury him?"  The gaurd laughed, "No, of course not, a filthy creature like that dosent deserve a propor burial." he waved his hand at the ditch, "What that rat deserves is to have his skin eaten away by maggots."  I couldnt believe what I was hearing.  What could this boy have done to deserve this?

* * *

       It was the end of the day and the inmates were loaded onto the trains.  I found Zach in the corner of the packed train car.  "I cant take it here anymore." i stated in a quiet whisper, "I want to get out."  Zach snorted, "And how do you expect to do that? fly over the fence?"  I shook my head, "No, but after what I saw today, I just cant seem to stand it here, there has to be a way out. . ."  "Blaine," Zach looked at me, sorrow in his eyes, "I'm sorry to have to be the one to break it to you, but there is no way out.  The gaurds watch us like hawks; there's no way we can get out with them breathing down our necks."  I looked at him, "I know, but I have to try, even if I die trying, I'm going to get out."