Imprisonment

[Warden]

Anya moved through a thin hall in a casual gait. In her arm sat a folder, the same pale-green folder which lay in her arm every evening at this time. The folder contained a detailed form describing the contents of a cell block, ready to be filled out by the warden of Vierlande.

Anya emerged from the hall into a three storied, open area. As she leaned over the second story railing she inhaled the smell of sweat both of nervousness and exhaustion that permeated the air. She opened the folder and pulled out the manila colored form ready to be filled out for cell block C.

Though the intellectuals of the Bundschuh didn't often cause trouble in Vierlande, Anya liked to inspect them first in order to set the right mood for the inspection. As she did expect, nothing but the usual taunts of the politicians was out of the ordinary procedure. She recorded the events of the inspection, and the particularly nasty insults as well as who had uttered them, on the manila paper she had exposed to the stench.

In the second and third cell blocks to be inspected, Anya expected many more uncivilized sights, and fewer politically fueled insults. Though the Landwirtrechtbewegung were often well behaved, the Unioners and Red Hessians were not very well mannered.

Emerging into the second story of cell block A, Anya noticed the same stench as in the Bundschuh sector, with a significant increase in the amount of exhaustion sweat. She returned the manila form to the folder, and retrieved another blank one, marking which cell block she was in.

Upon moving past the first cell, Anya's nostrils were filled with the odor of human excrement. Anya sighed, marking down the cell number that housed the odor.

"Helmut," Anya began, looking at the shell of a Stuttgart citizen with disgust, "We do remember what happened last time, right?"

"That depends, darling," Helmut responded, "Do you love Stuttgart so little that you can't stand smelling the mockery you have made it?"

Anya motioned to the guards waiting by the door, and recorded the events that were about to occur. Anya took three steps forward, still writing, and heard several grunts, and a final short one signifying the end of the scuffle.

"Put him into solitary confinement again," Anya ordered the guards still holding Helmut while looking away from her folder, "After you make sure his eye won't get infected. I want him to suffer, not die. If I wanted him to die, I would see it done."

Anya then resumed the inspection noticing a keen compliance to whatever she said and an eerie silence wherever she stepped. It was the kind of compliance that no single woman would get anywhere else in Rheinland, not even a military career woman. As she expected, after such a display of brutality, nothing was out of the ordinary. On her way out, Anya made sure she personally flushed the fictitious metaphor Stuttgart.

By the time Anya had reached the women's cell block, news had reached the girls about the beating Anya had ordered upon Helmut. Strangely, the women weren't as affected when brutality was ordered as the men were. The women, however, were not as stupid as the men, braving no insult against the already enraged warden.