21 Chapter 21

"So how was your first day in school, Damon?" my mother asked after we'd had our dinner.

"It was fun, mom." I answered with a smile.

"How about yours?" she said again and looked at my sisters with a concerned expression on her face. At least she showed more than what she gave me. HAHAHA!

Mom was really not at ease with my sisters studying on the School of the Gifted. It was a benign worry I say. But I guess that was what mothers do.

"School is so exciting, mom! We learned many things and we made lots of friends already. Didn't we, Keira?!" Stephany who was the much livelier of the two replied first.

"Yes. And we even met some nice boys…" and the sister after me expressed her wonder of what had happened to them today.

"I'm going now, mom!" I said after two hours of listening to my family in happy banter. Mellisa and Faith was also there as usual and they too, seemed happy outside.

Only I knew that they were really not yet resigned to their fate.

But they would get used to it after some time especially now that a new member would make her appearance very soon. HAHAHA!

"Return before midnight, Damon!" she called as I was about to exit the house.

"Okay, mom!" I yelled back. They were currently watching some hit drama series on television.

The girls love that and only my father stayed in his corner to dabble with the unending strings of smokes from his cigar.

"Where to, Sir?" a mechanical voice queried.

"To Ashborne Penitentiary." I replied.

"DING!" the gates closed behind me and I could feel the same humid air that blessed this hell hole.

"Who are you? And how did you get here?" a man asked but he did not confront me physically but only stood his ground in vigilance.

"Hello there, Quin." And I answered nothing of the two. HAHAHA! You were always the brightest of us all, my dear leader.

I thought and missed the stalwart leadership of this man. He had died before me and passed the reigns of the group's welfare to my hands.

"How do you know my name?" he asked again and the rest of his cellmates all stood up and regarded me with cold eyes.

Pretty chilly, I say. I remembered before when I stood amongst these twenty pair of eyes and all I could do was look at my feet in subservience.

Of course, they did not hurt me because teamwork was needed in the block. Different competitions were thrown at us every single day.

The most productive team would get more food while the last would get nothing. Many people inside the prison died that way, in starvation and sickness.

But now everything's changed. Time for some payback! HAHAHA!

"NOOOOOOO!"

"PLEASE STOP!"

"I can't take it anymore!" moans of agony reverberated inside the facility.

There were more than a hundred men who were sprawled on the floors with a line of men behind each one of them.

HAHAHA! I laughed out loud and rejoiced at what I saw.

I never thought that I'd live to see this day when all those who had hurt and spat on me in the past would lie helplessly before me.

"I could take all of you out here and give you a fresh start at life." I tuned the noise down from the screen that materialized within the room.

There were now 21 people inside. An addition was brought up after my command on the prison bots that maintained the place up.

Joey, my first kill in the past. He was young just like me. 18 or perhaps even younger than that.

The government wasn't really all that keen on protecting the rights of the poor. They'd have them all slaughtered if it give them money to do so.

But alas, thank you for the small blessings as they had to keep up with the appearance of noble leaders.

A façade that everybody knew were thin paper walls of deceit. If they had shred that last morsel of decency within them,

then I believe that I would not have lived up to my ripe 90 years of life and had this chance at salvation. HAHAHA!

"We will follow you, Sir!" was the combined affirmation I heard. They never doubted my power because their eyes were still glued at the large screen behind me.

Every man in the lineup sported the same blank faces in their spot during the gang bang of my foes. And after all they witnessed, my former blockmates regarded me entirely as not human.

A weaver of tales and magic. An exalted evolver. HAHAHA!

I brought them out and left a billion universal credits to their names when we parted.

And after this, our fates will no longer be tangled together again as their lives and deaths concerned me no more.

Let them make their own path and I shall also create mine. The debt has been paid. I smiled as I walked back to whence I came.

"Where to, Sir?" a mechanical voice queried.