05-18-2023, 06:12 PM
Royal Palace, Zongongia
When Camille Pierre was handed to Natasha Robinson, she burst into tears with relief, and then immediately asked for food. She’d been deprived of it for days. The eighteen-year-old Natasha took her back to the Robinsons’ suite of the Palace where Camille ate everything in the room and then went with 11-year-old Imogen to the kitchens where, according to reports, they ate everything in a whole cupboard.
Xia Chiu hid in her own room when Camille arrived, feeling too guilty about her own failure to protect her own daughter. Her pregnancy meant she couldn’t afford the cruelties of Kerlian prisons, however. The adult facility for women aged 25+ was not a kind place. Olivia had known that when she’d agreed to give herself up, but Olivia wasn’t pregnant – she’d checked before she went. Negative, again.
*
Grapevale Adult Alternative Education Centre, Kerlile
Olivia made the mistake of attempting to joke with her new jailors. They beat her for it; and when she arrived she was covered in bruises as well as having her hand still bandaged for the bullet wound from a few weeks ago.
The mood was dreary, with most of the other women looking half dead. It was like a scene from a zombie movie. Olivia had been prepared for this, however. The only people over the age of twenty-five in Kerlile who got sent to Alt-Ed rather than regular prison were those who seemed ‘sufficiently remorseful’.
This was a collection of women who were already extremely broken. Most of them had been dissidents once upon a time; now so hopeless that they walked through the world like ghosts. It wasn’t even that the Centre itself was particularly cruel; the beatings were only for those who did not cooperate. But most people sent to adult Alt-Ed had been somewhere else beforehand. Somewhere much worse.
Olivia shivered. Still, better her than Camille.
*
Grapevale Young Adult Alternative Education Facility
(aka: the building next door)
Carolyn Greenwood had a new cellmate. Cass had apparently bitten a guard and been transferred to a regular prison… for 20 years. Good, thought Carolyn. The new girl was much more remorseful for her treason. She was a sixteen-year-old whose mother had been involved in a banned democracy group on the red list (association with a known member is a crime), and who had failed to report her mother to the police.
“I know what she did was wrong,” the girl told Carolyn. “When the police came by the house, I told them everything – I just didn’t, well, I didn’t want to be the one to report her! So, they sent me here – the others all got life sentences.”
“Regretting your crimes is the first step to becoming a renewed loyal Kerlian,” Carolyn replied. “That’s why we’re here.”
She, Carolyn, had decided that she did indeed deserve to be here. Who was she to question Councillor Patel on whether or not her niece should be tortured in the basement? The Council always knows best; and she had apparently forgotten that. Given this was the place one sent Kerlians who had forgotten such things, it was evidently the correct place for her. Her distaste for being around these people was merely part of the punishment. Suffering deters further treason.
*
Iletina Girls Junior Alternative Education Centre
After Jia Chiu worked out that she was probably doomed to be here for at least a couple of years, she resigned herself to that fact and settled into the daily routine. The dead-inside eight-year-olds had all been released, and had been replaced with a livelier bunch, who had been taken from one of the ‘democracy cults’ that hid in the woods and lived off-grid. They were constantly being punished, and seemed to enjoy winding up the teachers, which gave Jia the place of star pupil without any effort on her part.
She’d also taken to sitting at lunch with the other girls who believed they were here due to the actions of their parents. One of them had figured out who she was after she mentioned the Robinsons, but fortunately unlike the teenagers, the younger girls thought it was ‘cool’ and she became a bit of a celebrity. Her presence here had convinced several of them that if the Council would send one of their own, nothing they possibly did could have prevented this, and the inevitability made it a little easier to bear.
The kids from the ‘democracy cult’ (or ‘cooperative commune’ as the kids themselves called it) really distracted the staff from everyone else. One of the girls in Jia’s class told her that when their parents were being dragged off they’d instructed the kids to ‘raise hell’ and that was what they were determined to do. Jia made friends with them too and ended up being given the belt or sent to write lines far more often than she’d have liked.
She didn’t care that much any longer, though. This was much more entertaining than the Maytown Academy, the other girls were actually interesting and cool, rather than a stuck-up set of her own upper-class cousins with a few other Council families’ daughters thrown in there as well. At the Academy, over half her class was named Chiu, and 90% of her class were no fun to be around. All she had to do was survive a couple years.
When Camille Pierre was handed to Natasha Robinson, she burst into tears with relief, and then immediately asked for food. She’d been deprived of it for days. The eighteen-year-old Natasha took her back to the Robinsons’ suite of the Palace where Camille ate everything in the room and then went with 11-year-old Imogen to the kitchens where, according to reports, they ate everything in a whole cupboard.
Xia Chiu hid in her own room when Camille arrived, feeling too guilty about her own failure to protect her own daughter. Her pregnancy meant she couldn’t afford the cruelties of Kerlian prisons, however. The adult facility for women aged 25+ was not a kind place. Olivia had known that when she’d agreed to give herself up, but Olivia wasn’t pregnant – she’d checked before she went. Negative, again.
*
Grapevale Adult Alternative Education Centre, Kerlile
Olivia made the mistake of attempting to joke with her new jailors. They beat her for it; and when she arrived she was covered in bruises as well as having her hand still bandaged for the bullet wound from a few weeks ago.
The mood was dreary, with most of the other women looking half dead. It was like a scene from a zombie movie. Olivia had been prepared for this, however. The only people over the age of twenty-five in Kerlile who got sent to Alt-Ed rather than regular prison were those who seemed ‘sufficiently remorseful’.
This was a collection of women who were already extremely broken. Most of them had been dissidents once upon a time; now so hopeless that they walked through the world like ghosts. It wasn’t even that the Centre itself was particularly cruel; the beatings were only for those who did not cooperate. But most people sent to adult Alt-Ed had been somewhere else beforehand. Somewhere much worse.
Olivia shivered. Still, better her than Camille.
*
Grapevale Young Adult Alternative Education Facility
(aka: the building next door)
Carolyn Greenwood had a new cellmate. Cass had apparently bitten a guard and been transferred to a regular prison… for 20 years. Good, thought Carolyn. The new girl was much more remorseful for her treason. She was a sixteen-year-old whose mother had been involved in a banned democracy group on the red list (association with a known member is a crime), and who had failed to report her mother to the police.
“I know what she did was wrong,” the girl told Carolyn. “When the police came by the house, I told them everything – I just didn’t, well, I didn’t want to be the one to report her! So, they sent me here – the others all got life sentences.”
“Regretting your crimes is the first step to becoming a renewed loyal Kerlian,” Carolyn replied. “That’s why we’re here.”
She, Carolyn, had decided that she did indeed deserve to be here. Who was she to question Councillor Patel on whether or not her niece should be tortured in the basement? The Council always knows best; and she had apparently forgotten that. Given this was the place one sent Kerlians who had forgotten such things, it was evidently the correct place for her. Her distaste for being around these people was merely part of the punishment. Suffering deters further treason.
*
Iletina Girls Junior Alternative Education Centre
After Jia Chiu worked out that she was probably doomed to be here for at least a couple of years, she resigned herself to that fact and settled into the daily routine. The dead-inside eight-year-olds had all been released, and had been replaced with a livelier bunch, who had been taken from one of the ‘democracy cults’ that hid in the woods and lived off-grid. They were constantly being punished, and seemed to enjoy winding up the teachers, which gave Jia the place of star pupil without any effort on her part.
She’d also taken to sitting at lunch with the other girls who believed they were here due to the actions of their parents. One of them had figured out who she was after she mentioned the Robinsons, but fortunately unlike the teenagers, the younger girls thought it was ‘cool’ and she became a bit of a celebrity. Her presence here had convinced several of them that if the Council would send one of their own, nothing they possibly did could have prevented this, and the inevitability made it a little easier to bear.
The kids from the ‘democracy cult’ (or ‘cooperative commune’ as the kids themselves called it) really distracted the staff from everyone else. One of the girls in Jia’s class told her that when their parents were being dragged off they’d instructed the kids to ‘raise hell’ and that was what they were determined to do. Jia made friends with them too and ended up being given the belt or sent to write lines far more often than she’d have liked.
She didn’t care that much any longer, though. This was much more entertaining than the Maytown Academy, the other girls were actually interesting and cool, rather than a stuck-up set of her own upper-class cousins with a few other Council families’ daughters thrown in there as well. At the Academy, over half her class was named Chiu, and 90% of her class were no fun to be around. All she had to do was survive a couple years.
LIDUN President 2024 | she/her | Puppets: Kerlile, Glanainn, Yesteria, Zongongia, Zargothrax