Crei Prison No. 2, Frankfurt, Germany

10:28 A.M

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With a metal fork in my right hand, I stabbed at the grey wall. After I had done marking the wall with the number '313', I took a step back and stared at it.

Numbers had been engraved onto the wall, starting from the number 1 until the recently added 313 next to 312. A small, grilled window let the sunlight into the small, prison cell I had been kept in. Even though I had visited the yard that day, somehow, it felt like I had never left in the first place.

"Hmm. Three hundred and thirteen days since the day they shoved me in here." I let myself fell onto the stiff bed, my eyes stared at the grey ceiling. Sweeping a quick gaze, there was nothing inside the cell that popped up to me.

The same shabby wooden table, a broken chair, and the rusty cell that looked like it would break if I really wanted to force my way out. Of course, there was the bed that I had used for a whole year by then.

"Hmm."

My loose, dark clothing wrinkled when I turned my body around, facing the grey wall. There, a large screen monitor displayed my name 'GRAY LUDWIG' in bold blue, with a relatively dark background. Just below the name was the date when I was placed in that cell, which was exactly 313 days ago.

"d.a.m.n those Anciles stationed out there . . ." I mumbled. "Doesn't feel like they want anything from me . . . Ugh . . . Eating, going back to sleep, and eat again . . . Guess my whole life will be like this, huh."

It was a strange thing to tell myself that since I was stuck there for quite a long time.

I closed my eyes and slowly, I was whisked away to the day when everything changed.

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About a year ago, well, if I wanted to be specific, it was exactly 313 days ago when it happened. Back then, I was a pharmacist, and I had my own pharmacy to boot. Other than me, there were only two female staffs that worked there and oh boy, having them was a blessing.

They helped me a lot during my working days. Though, those times pa.s.sed by so quickly before Amathelia crushed it under her rule.

A mannequin-looking robot who they called Ancile burst through my pharmacy on that fateful day. Right then, there were only me and my two female staffs, and that thing threatened us with its crystal-like blades. Those girls shrieked when the Ancile moved. It stopped in front of them and demanded everyone to get out of the pharmacy when two more stepped inside. We obeyed them immediately, still confused as to what was going on.

Running was not an option, and I even considered it for at one moment. However, when the three of us stepped outside, our eyes immediately fixated on the rows of people lining up on the street.

To our surprise, dozens more of those Anciles were all over the place. We knew that anything we wanted to try at that time would be futile. Escaping was never a choice. Heck, even the kids didn't utter a single word.

"Hey, what's going on, where in the world are the soldiers?!" I yelled at the Anciles.

Those robots ignored my cry and proceeded to force us to line up with the rest of the people there. Slowly, the few Anciles at the far end of the line ran through each of the people's personal records. Using a small tablet in the Anciles' hands, one by one, the civilians' gone through a background checkup.

From what I noticed, when someone's background had a bad stain, the Anciles on standby will shove that same person into a military truck nearby.

RED! SHE FITS THE REQUIREMENT!

A young, frail woman in front of me then got dragged by two Anciles, as they made their way to a military truck. The woman kicked and resisted them, but it amounted to nothing. "What did I do?! Please, I did nothing wrong!"

The Ancile to her right looked at her.

STEALING. CHILD ABUSE. ALREADY MET THE MINIMUM REQUIREMENT.

The Ancile to her left then nodded at her direction.

MURDER. WITH EVERYTHING COMBINED, FAR EXCEED THE NECESSARY REQUIREMENT.

Both of those Anciles continued to drag the woman towards a military truck and shoved her at the back of it. I didn't realize that I was watching her the whole time, and when it was my turn, an Ancile pushed me forward.

"Hey! I can move by myself."

NAME AND IDENTIFICATION NUMBER.

Those were the words that came out of the Ancile's mouth standing right in front of me. I gulped when its eyes met mine. Certainly, to avoid unnecessary conflict on my part, I told that robot the things it wanted to hear.

"So, I'm good right, right?" I asked the Ancile as it scrolled through my personal record using its tablet.

ALL GREEN. DOESN'T MEET THE REQUIREMENT TO BE EXECUTED.

"Executed?!" I gasped.

That one word made me froze on the spot.

The rest that happened thereafter was simple. Because of my perfectly good personal record and profile, they brought me to a prison in Frankfurt, Germany. I don't know what happened to the female staffs that worked with me, so I could only hope they were fine. Though, so much was happening at once that I found myself struggling to think clearly at that time.

And so, from that day onward, I was held inside that prison along with some other 'green' civilians the Anciles had brought in. Most of the residents were young kids and little children, where a blond woman named Yvonne came into play. She took care of them along with a few other staffs.

Oddly enough, the overwhelming number of kids there made sense to me. At such a young age, they wouldn't have any 'bad stain' in their records.

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GRAY LUDWIG. PRISONER NUMBER--

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm coming okay . . . geezum." I leaped out from my bed when an Ancile demanded me to come with it. "Man, I was dreaming about that time when you guys put me in this place about a year ago."

The Ancile just stared at me and I sighed.

"Lunch, eh? Just hope it's not the same thing again," I mumbled.

Both of us stepped into the dining hall after a few minutes, and immediately, the awful atmosphere greeted me.

There were a bunch of kids in their dark, prison clothing eating at a few long, wooden tables. At the corner of the hall was that woman named Yvonne, and another woman next to her. They were talking about something.

"Julia . . ." I said to myself.

She was an a.s.sistant of some sort to Yvonne, and that was the only thing I knew about her.

I proceeded to sit near a boy that was roughly about eight years old. It took a minute, but I finally touched my beef soup on the table. The food in itself was not bad by any comparison, and in fact, I would go as far as to say it was darn delicious. However, just from sweeping a gaze around the hall, one wouldn't even have any appet.i.te. The kids, who were usually energetic, didn't say anything to each other and just ate. They were being exceptionally quiet.

It was unnerving.

"d.a.m.n it," I said quietly. "Being fed three times a day and allowed to do almost anything . . . It just doesn't register right for me."

The boy next to me cast a side glance. "Everyone is disappearing one by one, Mister Ludwig."

"Hmm?" I looked at the boy and he then continued to eat his beef soup.

What he said was true indeed, where the prisoners were being whisked away into some other place. Everyone knew, but kept silent since talking about it would only cause unrest.

"So I'll just continue to live a life like this?" I stabbed at a large beef chunk with my fork and swallowed it. "A life being fed without doing any work."

A memory came to mind when dozens of Anciles patrolled the streets of Germany along with a few C.U soldiers. In fact, I once thought that all the soldiers had died since there were barely any of them around anymore. The Anciles had replaced them, and that was the undeniable truth.

Bad memories, one after another, struck me as I ate. At one moment, I even thought it was indeed a good place to stay, regardless of the crumbling society outside of the prison.