Young Writers Society

The light in his cell flickered above him. A tinny voice began to fill his ears, calling him to consciousness.


Kazimir's eyes twitched as he curled up slowly into a sitting position on his cold, hard metal frame that would be his bed. As the tinny voice droned on in an irritatingly smug manner, despite it being an automated AI announcer, Kazimir let out a low groan. The metal bed did nothing to help his back. He got up slowly, hearing the cell doors slide open with a quiet whoosh. Outside the doors he was met with four things: two guards, and two pair of cuffs slapped on his wrists and on his ankles.

"Be gentle," Kazimir quipped, only to get knocked in the back of the head with a sharp blow and pushed forward. As they walked away, Kazimir could still hear the recording playing from his cell. Apparently, it wasn't necessary for him to hear the entirety of it.


He sighed.


As he hobbled into the entryway to the mess hall, he felt the cuffs magnetically unlock, and with one swift motion, they floated off his hands and flew back to the guards, exiting the room just as the door closed behind him. He absent-mindedly rubbed his wrists and rolled up his bright yellow sleeves (all thanks to whomever thought it was a brilliant idea to give all of the prisoners brightly colored jumpsuits as uniform). The room was filled with metal tables and benches occupied by human and alien prisoners alike - though it seemed like he, as a human, was a minority. He briefly eyed the assembly-line-like conveyer belt at the end of the room, with rotating plates full of bland, questionable-looking food on them.

If he was going to make it in this place, he had to do something... something to make a name for himself.

Oh, how Rem hated yellow. The mess hall crowd clattered and shuffled compactly among the chrome benches like a field of goddamn cheery sunflowers. Rem bit into the chewy substance--of what she presumed wouldn't give her stomach convulsions back in her cell--in a seething rage, spitting a few poorly-aimed chunks at her fellow inmates. They looked up at her with repulsion and question, deciding that ignoring her was worth more than any attempt of communication. Good for them... Yet their stares were getting irritable.

Maybe it was because she sat cross-legged on one of the table surfaces, overlooking the wannabe losers seated around her. That was hardly a reason, given the exorbitant abundance of freaks on the T-39 Pheligian Falcon. Rem didn't know how much longer she could take of the 'Ooh, look at me, I'm so authoritarian and righteous' guards in their holographic suits and the patronising tone of her cell block's rehabilitation therapist. Rem was a destructive space-empress from the Nihil Empire, and she wanted none of this pretentious filth.

Overhead, a hovering, disk-shaped speaker played some pretty, jovial tune that sung of shooting stars and holding hands. If her gravitational abilities weren't repressed inside her from the daily impalement of injections, she'd get right the hell up there and smash that maleficent metal pancake until it could no longer identify as matter. The nerve of this facility.

Rem chewed with her mouth inexcusably open, daring anyone to test her.

And then some idiot did.

Kazimir had made a quick lap around the mess hall, grabbing a plate of food and scanning the room to place who the "alphas" were. The person sitting on the table, chewing with her maw open, appeared to have a presence that allowed her to do so without anyone pushing her off. So naturally, he sauntered over with his plate, and hopped up onto the table beside her.

There were many stares. Many stares. One of the alien fellows sitting just in front of Kazimir's feet began to growl, but seemed reluctantly resigned to inaction until the woman on the table decided to make a move first.

Kazimir smiled glibly, and took a bite out of his food nonchalantly as he looked over to the woman eating.

"Where's your crown?" He asked, having more cockiness about him than he ought.

A human. And not just any human--a smart-assed one. She had visited their planet on various occasions before her confinement, so she was well aware of their unfathomable stupidity, but this was rich.

Ha! Crowns were beneath her. Black holes bowed at her feet, stars trembled with fear at her presence.

"It's going to be a fabrication of your bones, in a second, Earth weakling," Rem sneered, glaring down at the muscular, brown-haired newbie seated near her. It was obvious he was a newbie, given the audacious sparkle in his dark eyes. That sparkle would soon be sucked out of him, once he realised there was no escaping this forsaken place.

It was possible he challenged the wrong alien. Or used the wrong choice of insult. Surely, he should have gotten more than a death threat. He was seeking out action - fully anticipating to get beaten to a pulp immediately, but then again, it seemed he'd chosen a more intelligent, though just as fiery as anticipated, opponent.

"Wow," he scoffs, raising his brows and taking another bite of his food, resuming speaking while chewing. "You know, I was expecting more than just your usual resorting-to-name-calling from someone who chooses to draw so much attention to herself." He looked into her eyes, his expression relaxed. "But you know, with that said," he continued, sliding down, off the table. "I think I'll go sit somewhere else, since I'm clearly not wanted here."

He turned around to look at her, challenging her with his eyes to show him what she was capable of.

Oh no he didn't.

She had expected him to pipe down after her initial threat, but this one had a little extra spunk in him. Foolish, indeed. Now her prideful reputation was on the table, quite literally, and she wasn't about to let this human male walk away unscathed.

"I didn't realise insects were so vocal," Rem began, rising on the table surface like the tide of wrath she was, until she stood towering above the entire mess hall. If the other prisoners hadn't been looking at her before, they sure as hell were now. Today was not a good day for her. "Allow my fist to draw attention to your crooked face."

The man smirked as if this was exactly what he'd wanted, reminding her of herself when she'd first arrived at Pheligian Prison.

It had been a while since she'd bothered to get dirty; she'd forgotten how much she enjoyed it. In an series of agile movements, Rem sprung off the table edge into the middle of the mess hall where the man stood prepared, slamming gracelessly into his lean upper body with fists and elbows swinging. Her legs twisted and aimed high against his blocks and counter attacks.

The pandemonium awoke something inside of her that had been put to sleep. It made her cackle like a crazy person.

Perfect.

Kazimir couldn't wipe the smirk off of his face as the white-haired alien woman leapt at him from the table to the ground, finally engaging him in in the fight he'd sought after.

As she swung her fists and feet at him in a cackling flurry of limbs, he was pleased to find that she was all he would've expected - an excellent fighter. Admittedly, she bested him in strength and power, and although she was landing more blows than he was getting in at her, he started to smile. That was, until her fist met his nose, of which, he could feel break cleanly (again).

A cyan-blue light began to flicker in his irises.

After the blow to the face he leapt back, sending surrounding prisoners scattering out of the way, and eventually forming an ovular ring around the two as they watched the fight progress.

Kazimir rushed back at her, light on his feet, proceeding to parry around her like a dance.

He wasn't bad. A little slow, but not bad. Of course, if Rem could access her gravitational powers he'd be spaghettified in microseconds--but that was beyond the point. It was her turn to smirk when she landed a blow on his nose and heard a satisfying crack. Blood gushed from the centre of his face as he circled back from her, one of his hands covering the area. He wiped the blood above his mouth with a yellow jumpsuit sleeve, his eyes wild with adrenaline.

From the sharp corners of her eyes Rem sensed the gathering of other prisoners, roaring and provoking the two fighters with pumping hand gestures. It was only a matter of time before the guards showed up, Rem thought.

The reckless human darted back at her in a way that made her start backward. His technique was silent and faster than before. Rem went to block his blade-like arm swooping in on her neck, but was surprised a second later by him ducking and swerving to challenge her behind. Not good. With a low arching kick the man knocked out Rem's legs, sending her sprawling to the diamond plate ground. She recovered in time to dodge his descending fist, but he grabbed hold of her wrist before she could enact a full escape.

Huh.

So she brought him down with her, tugging him off balance and rolling until she sat on his torso, one hand pinning down his right bicep and the other raised to strike.

He looked up at her shadowed face. Her heart pumped ferociously.

An alarm pierced the air just as the guards marched in with magnetic handcuffs, pulling Rem back from the bloody-nosed human. Before she knew it they were both being shoved out of the mess hall and the deliciously loud ruckus they'd caused.

Alarms pulled her attention away from her paperwork, and the commander's eyes went up to one of the many holographic surveillance screens floating around her desk. Dragging the screen to herself with a wave of her hand, she looked closer at the scene occurring in the mess hall.

A fight.

She snapped her two claw-like fingers, causing her assistant to hurry over.

"Tell me who those two are," she barked.

"Yes, Commander Tslukat," the assistant replied with a compliant nod, pulling up what looked to be another screen, in a clipboard size. "That's one of the new arrivals. 078931. A human, guilty of..." The assistant paused for a moment, and sighed. "...a long list of things. And the other is 293411. But you likely remember her as the former empress of the Nihil Empire."

Tslukat's yellow eyes gave a brief look of recognition at the mention of the empress. That one had a particularly memorable arrival.

There was a pause in the air as the assistant awaited further orders. Tslukat watched the screen as the guards poured in, finally separating the two prisoners. With her fingers brushing her scaly chin, she hummed to herself with a grin.

"Put them on ejection duty. Together. Make it two weeks."

The assistant nodded, forwarding the message to the guards who had them in custody.


In silence, the two were escorted down the hall, and into a tube-like elevator that began to travel far down into the depths of the ship. One of the guards seemed to be wearing a smug grin as he looked at the two prisoners.

Kazimir snorted through his nose, getting blood on the front of his bright yellow suit. He gave the guard a narrow-eyed glance.

"You know what ejection duty is, newbie?" The guard taunted.

Kazimir's eyes fluttered. Did the guard think he'd never been on a spaceship before?

"Trash duty," another guard answered.

But Kazimir knew even that was a euphemism - he knew it was more than trash. If they were on ejection duty that meant they would be working in the sewers of the ship, which meant he had to prepare his senses to be assaulted by only the most rancid of smells. Even the thought made his mouth turn into a disgusted frown. But he knew he brought this upon himself. He'd expected something like this to be his punishment. -

"Both of you," the guard continued, interrupting Kazimir's train of thought. "Will have to work together."

The guards chuckled.

Now that the exhilaration of battle was over, her choice of actions had become increasingly regrettable.

Brilliant. Ejection duty with the newbie. If Tslukat expected them to give each other goofy nicknames and start talking about feelings or whatever, that unsightly commander could go eject herself with the rest of the sewage.

Shafts of pale light rippled vertically over the bodies in the elevator as they glided patiently downwards. Rem had been to the ship's waste disposal level enough occasions to know how unimaginably horrifying the stench was. Some of her lowest points had been on ejection duty. The revolting discoveries lurking in the depths of the ship could put anyone off food for millennia. The tragedy; an empress was undeserving of such lowlife tasks.

Silence carried them lower and lower.

"So, my name's Kazimir," said the newbie beside her, his voice dripping in situational irony. "And who might you be?"

Rem scoffed with such force that she almost fell over. "I am Rem Qaž jÿn Voiduum, empress of the Nihil Empire," she declared, not taking the effort to turn her head in his direction.

Kazimir whistled loudly. "That's a mouthful."

"Don't get used to it," Rem forewarned.

As the elevator came to a stop, and the doors slid open, the two were pushed into a narrow hallway. The hallway was lined with dressing rooms, each with yellow hazmat-looking suits hanging on the wall. Without warning, Kazimir was pushed into a changing room on the right and Ren on the left. As they entered the room, their binds temporarily fell to the floor. But it also seemed that there was a force-field locking them inside so that they couldn't get out.

"Put on the suit," one of the guards barked to Kazimir, who raised his brows, giving the guard a wide-eyed look that only said: geez.

Kazimir shrugged, and began putting one foot into each leg of the suit. More yellow to go with the yellow. Wonderful.

"You too," he barked to Ren.

Could you be excused from a prison camp on parole? Maahes dismally wondered, staring blankly at the wall across from him. He had taken to sitting on the floor rather than the bed. Though his essence still ached, there was a significant decrease in it the further he moved away from the bed.

He was sure that he would be escorted out of his cell soon, but, seeing that he had made no move towards the exit, they hadn't had a reason to move him.

Things shouldn't have gone this badly. Leonardo Cartwright was meant to be a savior, not a condemned criminal. That would fall under the Scarlet Lord's jurisdiction. He let out a sigh, frantically running his fingers through his short black hair. He had to figure a way out of here. He doubted proving his innocence was a possibility. He had been given a trial, and this had been deemed the most worthy punishment.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He would have to stage an escape. But how was he supposed to do that when he hadn't even left his cell? His guards back on Sen had said this prison camp housed countless aliens. They were bound to be prepared for anything.

The cell doors slid open.

Gulping, Maahes got to his feet.

Why did this have to happen to me?