"Wake up! Wake up!" the guard called out in a bored tone, banging his baton against the cell bars as he moved down the hall. Miguel opened his eyes slowly, his first thoughts filled with regret that he had, in fact, woken up once again.
Two months he'd been here, locked up with other petty criminals, because he'd been unable to pay a small fine. He hadn't even really wanted that bread that he was caught stealing, but stress, fatigue and the wine he'd lifted earlier that day had made him reckless and landed him here in jail. Until he was able to pay the set fine, a frustrated judge who'd seen him too often, had said. Miguel had tried to argue, to ask the judge how he was supposed to get the money to pay the fine if he was locked up, but the judge had simply said it was not his concern, and ended the hearing.
More noise came from the hallway as the guards lined the prisoners up to go to mess. Miguel considered refusing to go. After all, the point of their daily gruel rations was to keep them alive, which wasn't really something he was keen on any longer. After lying there a moment longer, however, the hunger pains in his stomach won out and Miguel got stiffly to his feet. As miserable as life had been lately, self-starvation was something he just didn't have the willpower for.
He didn't speak to his cellmates as they waited for the guard to let them out. They rarely spoke at all. At mess, talking wasn't allowed. They were only taken out into the exercise yard about once a week and the prisoners were quiet there, too.
How strange it was, Miguel thought, to be so lonely despite literally never being alone.
Back in his cell after mess, Miguel sat on the hard wooden shelf that served as his bunk. He stared down at the floor in front of him and let his mind wander. It wandered back, back to when he used to be happy. Was he really happy then? He had though so at the time but now he wasn't so sure.
His thoughts skipped forward a little, to the last time he thought he really was happy. To El Dorado. He'd never told anyone about it. They'd never believe him anyway. When he had returned to Spain none of his old street buddies had even asked where he'd been. They weren't the type of people that cared. They hadn't even noticed – or if they had noticed, they didn't care – that when he returned, for the first time, Miguel was by himself. Miguel's brow furrowed, his jaw tensed, as his thoughts turned darker, but his reverie was interrupted.
"Perez?" the guard who had just appeared outside the cell, asked. Miguel glanced up, surprised to hear his surname. "Miguel Perez?" the guard asked.
Miguel nodded.
"Come with me," the guard said, unlocking the door.
Miguel was about to ask where they were going but realized he didn't care. His cellmates watched silently as he followed the guard away, down the hall, through one set of locked doors, then another, each closed securely by another guard as they passed. They stopped in a small, mostly empty room. Another guard sat at a small desk. The first guard, the one who had taken Miguel from his cell, now tugged his arm to bring him to stand in front of the desk.
"Are you Miguel Perez?" the seated guard asked, reading off a book in front of him.
"Yes. What--" Miguel began, confused, but the guard cut him off.
"Sign here," he said, spinning the book around and pushing it toward Miguel. With a quill he indicated the place to sign. Miguel leaned forward and recognized the ledger he had been made to sign when he was brought in to the jail. The guard was now pointing to a blank space in the next column over, under the heading, Release.
"I'm getting out?" Miguel asked, even more confused. Next to where he was being told to sign, the ledger read, Fine paid in full.
"Hurry it up," the guard said, wiggling the quill impatiently. Miguel took it and quickly signed his name. As soon as he handed the quill back, a bundle of clothes, the ones he'd been wearing when he was brought in, were shoved into his arms and he was sent behind a curtain in the corner of the room to change.
A few moments later, Miguel emerged from the front door of the jail, blinking furiously against the sun that he was no longer used to. He stopped and took a deep breath. He was a free man. He took a few tentative steps away from the jail, still perplexed by what had just happened. Then, from behind him, someone called his name. He turned slowly back toward the jail, expecting to see a guard there to take him back inside. But there was no guard. Only a very familiar dark-haired man, leaning against the building as though waiting for someone.
A/N: What do you think, worth continuing? Let me know! This has been knocking around my head for a while and finally written down out of lack of anything better to do. Title subject to change :)