Welcome to Hell

Carter could hear the familiar sound of the door's latch creaking open. There was no forewarning whenever the guards would come, and they didn't ask anything of him when they entered, so he remained on the ground, eyes closed. That was, until he was kicked in the side and pulled up by the collar of his shirt.

He didn't fight it. He let them cuff him, drag him around until he stopped acting like a boneless sack of flesh. Then he finally obliged to standing and walking with them, watching as they took him through plain walled halls - none of which told him anything more about where he was.

It was when they entered a room with four adjacent cells that he took more notice.

He knew that outwardly, he was a small man. Short, strong, but unlikely to look intimidating even with a sharp gaze if no one knew him, simply because of his overall size. He didn't give the others in the cells a glance, even though he was aware they were there.

Once he was thrown into the cell and they removed his cuffs, he walked to the center of the cell and laid back down, just as he had in his previous cell, and stared at the ceiling. This time the lights staring down at him were dimmer, but effectively just the same.

He let out a slow exhale and closed his eyes.

The noise of his cell opening caught his attention as the guards walked in. “Get up,” they said. He slowly rose and they began to handcuff him but he remembered the picture on his cell wall.

“Just a se-“
They grabbed him so tight he couldn’t feel in his arms. He elbowed a guard in the eye. The guard fell back, loosening his grip. He quickly grabbed the picture, shoved it in his pocket, let them handcuff him. The guard he had elbowed in the eye held his hand to his face. “You won’t get away with this.”

They walked down the corridors to a cell he had never seen before. They uncuffed him and tossed him in the room. He grabbed the picture out of his pocket and stared at it. A few tears came down his face before falling asleep.

"Looks like we've got company," he cheerfully commented, looking up from his fingernails at the two new occupants of the room. One was laying on the floor; the other had somehow fallen asleep. It was hard to tell if the first had done the same. Either way, there was something just a little alarming about one person being able to fall asleep so easily and the other having an even more nonchalant reaction to the situation than he was having.

Deciding to test if the possibly asleep newcomer was awake or not, he spoke just a tad bit louder so his voice would easily carry to the other cell. "Hey," he said, "what do they call you?"

Carter could hear the voice of another- a younger voice coming from a nearby cell. Though he didn't see who it was, he knew the question was addressed to him. He considered for almost a minute whether or not to reply before he did.

"Tell me who they are," he finally said. "Then maybe you'll earn your answer."

He shrugged and went back to studying his fingernails. The answer was annoying, but something he probably would have come up with at some point. But if there was anything he knew how to do, it was to bug the other people around him. "Looks like I'm coming up with a name for you, then. I'm thinking Bob. If not that, you look like you could be a Todd."

Carter's eyes flicked open for a second. This kid was a smartass.

"Call me whatever you'd like. Doesn't mean I'll respond to it."

"Todd it is," he said. It was better to have a name for someone than have none. And it was a shame that he didn't want to tell his fellow inmates his actual name. He was sure the guards knew it, so he couldn't see why he had to hide it.

Kratzer stood, shaking his head a little and pacing the far wall opposing Skull, trying to get his mind off feeding. It didn't make sense why they'd been moved into a place with other people, especially after they'd been so careful to keep them - or, at the very least, him - in solitary for so long.

"Sie. Yorick. Why are, er," he paused, scrambling for the word. "Why are you here?"

"You act like I'm interested in telling you," Carter replied, altogether sounding bored. "I doubt they put us here just so we could socialize."

Raymond wakes up. "Sorry, I don't get much sleep." He shoves the picture back in his pocket. "What're you guys talking about?"

"The birds and the bees," Skull said, then promptly turned his attention back to the others - namely Kratzer, because Todd was being stubborn and didn't want to say anything.

He continued to lean up against the cell bars. "Not sure why you called me Yorrick, but the name's Skull. Like I told you." He let his hands hang down at his side, still keeping the smile on his face. "And they got me here for murder and kidnapping. I strongly object to the first, but won't deny the second."

He rolls his eyes. "Unkultiviertes Schwein," he mutters before answering. "Must've kidnapped someone important, ja?"

Spoiler

In case you're wondering, the German is "uncultured swine"

"Actually, it was a couple of kids," he cheerfully corrected. "You'd be surprised how much of a fight they can put up, especially when angry. My jaw was hurting for weeks after that girl slugged me when I tried kidnapping her best friend."

"Seems like a lot of effort for a couple of children," he commented, leaning against the wall in the corner opposite of Skull.

He shrugged. "You've got to do what you've got to do. In my case, it was help a mad scientist get some kids for his experiments."