9 Part 1.9

"Ah, nice to meet you too." The Vice-Warden says cordially.

"But now is not the time for pleasantries! I have good news and bad news! What do you want to hear first?"

Well, let's be logical about it. "What came first?"

He ponders my own quest seriously. He rubs his chin thoughtfully and hums to himself as he does so.

"That's a good question. A good philosophical question. One to debate for the ages. Scholars from around the world would gather to argue over the multitude of answers! An event for the ages! Sadly, we shall never know the answer."

"Something."

Hannyabal looks confused. "What?"

"That's the answer. Something came first, and then everything else came after that."

He tosses his hands up in the air in complete shock "Whaaaa! We have a philosopher in here!"

That's not right. I shake my head from side to side. "No. I'm not a philosopher. This is a prison, I'm a prisoner, not a philosopher. But they sound close so it's understandable how you got them confused. Wait... If you put prisoners in prison, where do you put philosophers? In philosophs? Is that a word?"

"Naw. You put philosophers in the beuracracy where they belong." He gives me a suspicious glance. "You know a lot of big words for such a little guy."

I nod my head. "I'm a good listener. I know eighty different variations of the word fuck. I still don't know where babies come from though..."

He laughs. "And you won't know until you're much much older!"

When he finishes laughing he just grins. "All right! Let's start with the good news first." Then he does something which puts me on edge and ready to fight.

He reaches into his loincloth and begins rooting around inside. When a prisoner does this in front of me, it usually means that I am going to have to get ready to fight them. Otherwise something bad will happen. Thankfully, Hannyabal doesn't attack me.

Instead he hands me a small, smelly, folded up piece of paper. I unfold it and examine the contents.

Yup. Those are definitely words. Lots of them too. Really bummed out that I can't read right now.

"So, what do you think? That put a smile on your face kid?" Hannyabal asks expectfully.

"I can't read." I straight-out tell him.

He does something I've never seen before. He face faults. He falls forward, does a flip, and lands on his face. I would never had thought it was possible if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

He gets up off the ground quickly, an annoyed expression on his face. "Geeze. Way to take the wind out of my sails kid. Can't believe I have to spell it out for you."

"I can't read remember? Spelling it out won't help me. Why don't you just tell me what it says."

He sighs dramatically. "Alright, hand it over." I do so and he pats the paper a few times to straighten it out and then clears his throat so he can read clearly.

'Prisoner 10013. It is our duty to inform you that due to your ten years of incarnation with zero incidents, your behavior has gathered our attention. In commemoration of your compliance, ten years have been reduced from your initial fifty year sentence. Thirty years remain. Less with good behavior. Keep up the exemplary attitude all criminals should strive for. We will be watching. Signed, Upper Management.'

I felt my legs grow week. A decade off of my sentence! All the beatings, the distrust, and glop has been worth it.

I fell to my knees and threw my hands in the air. "This is the best day of my life!"

Hannyabal reached into his loincloth and retrieves another piece of paper. "Hang onto yourself kid. The day isn't over yet. This is the bad news. Guess I'll read this one to you too. Ahem."

'Prisoner 10013. It has come to our attention that Level Three is treating you well. This cannot be. Thus, you are to be immediately transferred to Level Four of Impel Down. We will be watching. Signed, Upper Management.'

I stopped breathing. My arms which were previously thrust into the air as a show of victory now hung limp by my sides. I felt my lips quivering, and I was glad I was wearing my mask. It meant that Hannyabal wouldn't see how distressed I was.

"But... Buy they just said I was doing a good job. Why would they do this?"

Hannyabal put the papers away and shrugged. "Way I see it, there's a lot of people in Upper Management. Some want you to suffer more, and others want to give you some hope. Maybe they want you to have hope so they can stomp it out later. Who knows. Anyways, I'm here to escort you to the entrance to Level Four. It's a killer, let me tell you. Follow me."

He began walking away, and I followed after him. It never entered my mind to walk away. He ordered me to follow him, so I did.

"What did you do anyways kid? I'm curious." He asked trying to start a conversation.

"I was born."

He sneers. "Seriously? That's it? Ah, what a useless crime. Everybody is born! In my opinion you shouldn't be here in Impel Down. Impel Down is where we should have the worst of the worst locked up so civilians don't have to worry about murderers running around and killing them in their sleep. You being here means we don't have the capacity to hold a high-risk criminal in your place. At worst, being born is a misdemeanor if you ask me. If Magellan died and I was Warden, I'd have all the prisoners who are here because of political bullshit transferred out to places where they could have parole and work off their debt to society. I try talking to Magellan about it but he blows me off or poisons me each time. The bastard should just choke and die... You didn't hear that from me."

Parole... What the hell is parole?

We stop at a hole in the ground. As we approached, the heat in the air began to drastically increase until I was sweating. When I first got to Level Three I thought the heat was bad, but the air near the entrance to Level Four was a hundred times worse. I was sweating, but Hannyabal was completely unaffected.

He turned to look at me when we stopped at the foot of the hole in the floor. From here I could see an ominous orange glow and hear distant screams.

"Try not to land in the lava. You'll die." Was Hannyabal's last words to me. Then, he kicked me forward.

The previous times I had been sent to lower Levels of Impel Down I thought I was falling deeper into hell. Only now however, did I realize that I had reached it.

Stone arches stretched across lakes of lava as far as the eye could see. Prisoners ran from guards dressed as demons, and creatures that looked like demons themselves. The screams of the tortured prisoners was everywhere, and the torture itself was evident. Guards dressed as devils turned cranks that stretched limbs to the point of breaking. Some were tied down with a sack over their head, then boiling water was poured on their faces. Wheels turned, oil dripped, and the agony was without end, like the heat itself. The heat on Level Four was hell. Everywhere, prisoners were feeding fires under the watch of guards, making their torment worse.

I've done it. I have fallen so far, I've reached hell.

Below me was a massive couldron of molten stone with a thin walkway stretching over it. It was ten feet across with tall railings on each side. It would be close, but I was sure I would land on the walkway and not the lava itself.

Wait. Lava is when it's above ground right? Does this mean I was about to fall into a cauldron of magma instead? Oh well.

I knew I would survive the landing, it would take more than that to kill me. What I wasn't sure of was if I could survive what would happen afterwards.

XoXoXoX

At age 10, Prisoner 10013 was committed to Level Four of Impel Down. This order came from the Admiralty office itself.