Disclaimer: Do I look like I own anything? Yeah, didn't think so.

A single cry for help

Feet dragging on the floor

Boos and jeers from the sidelines

Never feeling so helpless

Knots being ties, cells being locked, prisoner being bound

Vicious beasts being released

A final cry for help ignored

The sickening sound of tearing flesh

The last time you would ever love again

You step into the arena

Raise your hand

They run away

You lift his chin and look him in his bloodshot eyes

His gorgeous, pleading eyes

Mixtures of blood and tears fall down his face

You will help him, you say

You will fix him and make him more powerful

Stronger than he ever could have imagined

So you never have to love again

"Yikes!" A young girl, about 16, shot straight up in bed. She was breathing hard, heart pounding, and blinking her eyes rapidly to help them adjust to the dim light. The bed creaked as a musculed (seriously, that is all that was on it) dog jumped up and put its paws on the bed, whimpering and nudging her leg. The girl took a deep breath and looked at the dog's silver eyes, immediately feeling her pulse slow down. "Oh, hey Maxie. C'mere, boy." They dog's tail wagged and he jumped up on the bed, licking the young girl's face.

"Ka… ahem, Miss Furnace. Is everything okay?" In the doorway of her room stood a tall, muscular (with skin this time) boy. He looked about her age with military cut brown hair, silver eyes that were similar to the dog's, and pulsing silver veins that stuck out of his enormous, scarred biceps. His name was Scott White, the First Lieutenant of the Blacksuit Hurricanes; Katrina Furnace's personal troop of mutated soldiers.

Katrina beamed when her pale blue eyes met his and she beckoned him over. He complied and, still scratching the dog's head, she planted a soft, chaste kiss on his lips. "I'm alright, Captain White. Just some more nightmares."

"Anything you want to talk about?" he asked, concern plastered onto his marred face, making the smallest one on his left cheek bend a little. She leaned up and kissed it before taking the soldier's hand.

"Not really. It's the same one I've always had. You know, the one about… that night." A shiver ran up Captain White's spine and the hair stood up on the back of his neck as he remembered being tied to a pole and left at the mercy of the prison's untamed, vicious, wild mutant guard dogs, the feeling of his flesh being ripped from his body as fresh as ever in his mind. Still, in an effort to soothe his girlfriend, he acted strong and looked her in the eye.

"Why do you think you're having so many nightmares all of a sudden? I mean, as far as I know, this has only started recently."

Katrina shrugged. "Yeah, they have. I dunno, Scotty. Usually when I start having repetitive nightmares like this one, something bad is going to happen. Like the last time when three soldiers were killed by rioting prisoners. Man, I was having nightmares for at least a week before that happened."

"So you think something is gonna happen with the prisoners?"

"Suppose so. There are some new ones scheduled to be coming in this afternoon." They were silent for a moment as the information sank in before Katrina pounded her fist against her nightstand.

"Dammit to hell! Why do we have to keep those fucking shitwads down here in the first place? A favor to society? Well then, fuck society! I don't give a damn about them, especially since they produce such evil citizens. Why couldn't they take care of their own devils instead of sending them down here and making all of our lives a living hell? I don't get it!" She glared up at her boyfriend as if daring him to disagree. Said boyfriend scratched his head.

"Well, that's the outside world for ya. That's their goal in life, making you miserable."

"Obviously," she grumbled.

"But you know what?" he said as he sat down next to her.

"What?"

"I'll be there for you and use every ounce of my strength to make sure that they never get to you, alright? I swear that they can send as many bad people down here as they want, but they will never ever get to you. I promise you that." He wrapped his arm around her reassuringly and she smiled faintly before shrugging him off.

"That's enough, Captain. I suggest you attend to your position before the rest of the squad notices that you're missing." The boy stood up, saluted his commander, and left the room, tailed by Max and leaving her all alone. She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair.

There wasn't much that could spook Katrina Furnace. Having grown up in what polite society would call the 'greatest hellhole on earth', things that would scare the living crap out of regular people didn't even make her blink. Spiders? Snacktime! Dogs with nothing but muscles on their bodies? Can she keep it? Mutant monsters with silver eyes and uncontrollably animalistic instincts? They're her cousins. Giant men in suits with silver eyes that carried wicked guns and would kill you for fun? She considered them her brothers. No, none of those things would even faze her. By her recruits, she was considered fearless and she bested all of her monsters and men in combat, earning her the nickname of "Kick-Ass Katrina". There was one thing she feared, though, deep inside where few could ever find out; the outside world. Her father, Alfred Furnace, and best childhood friend, Warden James Cross, had told her terrifying stories about the people on the surface; the murders, the crime, the flat-out insecure and deadly heartlessness of them. They said that they'd beat a girl like her senseless and leave her to die in pools of her own blood. Her own mother was beaten to death by those fiends not long after she was born. Stories like those were enough to make the strongest person to ever live in Furnace Penitentiary pull sheets over her head and cry at night. Ever since then, she had been extremely paranoid that some guy from the surface would come down, find her, and kill her, or worse, destroy her home and everyone she ever loved. Terror like that made it hard for her to sleep at night, but she seemed to manage, even though she would occasionally wake up screaming.

Pulling herself up out of bed, she trudged over to her vanity mirror and began to brush her long, shimmering brunette hair. She stared at herself in the mirror for a while, studying her features and wondering if she was pretty. She had ghostly pale skin, pale blue eyes, a sharp nose, and full lips that were the only part of her body that actually had some natural color to them. Scott, her father, and Jamie had all told her that she was drop-dead gorgeous, but she couldn't decide if they were just being nice or not. Katrina had never seen another girl. She was stuck in an all-boys prison (which she really couldn't complain about) with male guards, male dogs, and male mutants to keep her company. I mean, sure, it was nice sitting in front of the security cameras and watching the particularly cute ones take their shirts off to go to bed, but sometimes she couldn't help but wonder if there were other girls on the surface. Did they look like her? Would they act the same way she acts or think the same way she thinks? Would they think she was pretty? What did her mother look like? Was she pretty? As much as she despised the outside world, she couldn't help but wonder about that. After a moments' silence, she pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail, slipped on a pair of tennis shoes, and hurried out the bedroom door into the Preserves of the Furnace; the secret, secluded area that she was happy to call home. New prisoners were scheduled to arrive today, and she wanted to make sure that she got first say about them, because everybody knows that some prisoners are better just to lock away while others… Well, others were better off being used for… other things, and Katrina was hoping for some new toys to play with.

So, whaddaya think? Questions? I have answers! I will try to post as soon as I can. Thank you and please review!

-jumpingjaxx13