CHAPTER 6 — "The Underground Prison No One Was Supposed to Find"
David, Victor, and a handful of surviving guards hurried toward an abandoned maintenance corridor that hadn't appeared on any modern prison map.
Victor stopped beside an old concrete wall.
"Behind this."
David examined the surface.
Fresh scratches.
Recently moved.
Someone had been using it.
Together, they forced the heavy panel aside.
A narrow staircase descended into darkness.
The air below smelled of rust, chemicals, and damp concrete.
One by one, they climbed down.
Flashlights cut through the darkness.
Then...
Every single person froze.
Dozens of empty prison cells stretched endlessly beneath the prison.
Each cell carried only a number.
No names.
No records.
No windows.
Inside several cells lay abandoned clothing, broken eyeglasses, family photographs, and handwritten letters that had never been mailed.
David picked up one yellowed file from a dusty desk.
His heart nearly stopped.
Every page contained the same official stamp.
DECEASED.
Yet surveillance photos attached to the files showed those prisoners alive... weeks after their supposed deaths.
Victor whispered,
"They erased them."
"They stole their identities."
"They sold them."
Footsteps echoed behind them.
Too late.
Metal doors slammed shut.
Floodlights suddenly illuminated the entire underground facility.
Slow applause echoed through the chamber.
Deputy Warden Richard Hale stepped out from the shadows, flanked by heavily armed mercenaries wearing no prison insignia.
He smiled calmly.
"I was wondering how long it would take you."
David stepped forward.
"So this was never about controlling inmates."
Hale laughed.
"No."
"It was about making inconvenient people disappear."
He pointed toward Victor.
"You should have stayed a monster."
Then toward David.
"And you..."
"...should never have come here."
One of the mercenaries handed Hale a remote control.
With a single press of a button...
Massive steel blast doors sealed every exit.
The room became a trap.
Hale raised his pistol and smiled.
"History will say that the riot killed every last one of you."
He aimed directly at David's chest.
The trigger began to squeeze...
And from somewhere deep inside the underground prison...
A deafening roar shook the entire chamber, followed by the sound of dozens of heavy cell doors unlocking all at once.
Every face turned toward the darkness.
Something...
May you like
—or someone—
had just been released.
