"Time for breakfast, you fuck," an officer yelled at me while grabbing my shoulder roughly. I woke up and realized I was back in my cell. I don't know how long they kept me in that other room.
I stood up and followed them through the prison's various corridors. I was almost certain they wouldn't take me to breakfast, but I was so hungry and thirsty that I decided to trust them again; besides, whatever their intentions were, I had no choice but to follow them.
We walked through several corridors and arrived at a huge dining hall, where hundreds of inmates were gathering at small tables to eat their breakfast. Some glanced at me, but most paid me no attention. The guards shoved me to the back of a line and left me there. It seemed too good to be true. I looked around repeatedly, searching for any attacks, any traps, any calamity I considered imminent.
But nothing happened. The line moved forward normally. The inmates at the tables talked and ate. The officers kept watching. The inmates at the front of the line received their trays and walked past me.
But one of them stopped beside me and bent down, put his tray on the ground and pretended to tie his shoelaces.
"Herobert, don't look at me, but join us," he whispered to me while he was on the ground. "Right now the inmates aren't doing anything to you because the cops won't let them. Right now, you're their toy, but when they get tired of you or take all your money, they'll abandon you and you'll be screwed. I know what I'm talking about. We all help each other out."
And he left. I didn't have time to respond, although I was sure it was a trap.
The line continued to move, and I finally received my tray with a plate of fried eggs and a glass of water. I turned around to find a place to sit, but at that moment an officer approached me and deliberately bumped into me. I was so weak that I dropped the tray and fell to the ground.
"No..." was all I could say as I watched my breakfast end up on the floor.
Several officers arrived, and together they lifted me up and took me out of there.
"If you're going to throw away your food, you'd better leave," one of them told me. They took me to a hallway where there was no one, then they surrounded me and the officer who bumped into me started beating me up.
"You almost got my uniform dirty, you son of a bitch."
The rest were laughing at me.
I covered my face with my arms and threw myself to the ground, using my legs for cover as well. The officer continued hitting me, and I tried to release even a tiny bit of magic, not to attack him, but to protect myself.
I tried again and again, but no luck.
I felt my old wounds reopen and my mouth filled with blood again.
"You just have to pay us to make this end," one of them told me.
"We're just doing our job," said another: "calming down the damn troublemakers like you."
"Holy shit, this guy fucking stinks," someone else said because, since I was arrested, I hadn't been given the opportunity to take a bath.
They all lifted me up and carried me to the showers. There was no one else there. They all took off my uniform and threw me to the floor. I could barely stand up. I looked at my body and noticed my bandages were stained red, my sutures broken, my wounds infected.
The officers left me alone.
I turned on the shower, grabbed some soap, and started cleaning my wounds when I heard several people approaching. I was almost certain they were the officers, but it turned out to be six inmates. They were armed with sticks.
At that moment I felt a little relief because they weren't the officers.
"One at a time," I whispered. But they approached me together, and although I was able to dodge the first blows and push one of them away to try to escape, they surrounded me and began to beat me up.
"We're here because of you, you son of a bitch."
"Welcome to prison, jackass."
"Not so tough anymore."
I concentrated to try and pull out at least a little bit of magic, but it was useless.
They beat me so badly that the water running on the floor turned red.
I felt weaker and weaker.
I was so badly injured that if I didn't do something at that moment, I might die, so I tried to struggle, get up, push them, anything.
But it was useless—there were too many of them, and not even magic could stop so many blows coming at the same time.
Suddenly the inmates stopped hitting me.
"We warned you," someone said. I looked up and saw that the officers had returned. Fear traveled all over my body.
One of them approached me and was carrying a broomstick.
"We told you they wanted to rape you," he said, and both officers and inmates turned me face down and positioned themselves on top of me so I couldn't move.
"Lift his ass up," one of them said, and the others lifted my legs. I tried to struggle, to writhe, to unleash a little magic, and I even screamed at the top of my lungs, but nothing worked.
"I'll pay, I'll pay!" I shouted, and at that moment they let me go.
"Back to your cells, you assholes!" shouted an officer, and the inmates left.
"You can take a bath now, Boss," said another. "No rush. We'll be over there keeping an eye on you," and they left.
I remained there, lying beaten on the ground.
All I could do at that moment was cry with rage and helplessness.