Chapter 1

"Welcome to your last chance of salvation."

At the front of the dimly lit room where all 16 of us were standing stood three tall men, all standing at attention. The two men on the flanks held large assault rifles in their hands in a resting position. They both wore uniforms, but their faces were obscured by their hats and the poor lighting. What was obvious was how muscular their builds were. The main in the middle, a heavyset with a prominent brown mustache, continued.

"Let me make this clear from the start. What you hear on the news and what you will actually experience are very different things. It's my job to make sure none of you see the light of day. Outside these walls, no one misses you. No one is wondering how you are doing. No one will—."

The mustached man was cut off by an opening door. Light streaming in from the hallway masked the newcomer's details in shadow, but at a first look it looked to be a person, about five and a half feet tall. Compared to the three men in front of the room, the newcomer looked like they would be snapped in two with nothing but a sharp glance. The three men turned their heads, and then saluted the newcomer, who was walking to a podium slightly off center in the front of the room.

The door automatically closed and in the adjusted darkness I was able to see a thin woman at the podium. She had dark, wavy hair at a medium length cut and was wearing a finely pressed suit that along with the poor lighting hid her figure. She also looked to be in her mid to early twenties, but these days looks were often deceiving. Without turning away from the men at the front of the room, she spoke in a surprisingly commanding voice.

"Vice-Warden, you are dismissed."

The mustached man bowed his head and left the room through the door. I shielded my eyes from the hallway's light, now expecting it, to stop it from momentarily blinding me. The two guards continued standing where they were, unmoving. The woman started talking in the same commanding voice.

"First, I want to amend one point that my Vice-Warden said. While it is job to make sure you don't leave, we here at St. Deville Hobby Rehabilitation Prison #0073 sincerely hope that you will, in fact, leave these walls one day."

I heard murmurs of surprise around me. The man standing behind me raised his hand with a questioning look on his face. She continued.

"I don't care what your crime is. I don't care who's possibly waiting for you on the outside. The only thing I care about is making sure you pass what's ahead of you with your own strength. You will leave because you want to be rehabilitated; because you want to go back out there. I'm here to provide you with the opportunity to do so."

She paused and glanced down. In the silence, I could hear what sounds to be a notecard flipping over. She looked up, cleared her throat, and continued once more.

"My name is Warden Maria. You are free to refer to me whatever you want, though some names will end up making things a little less comfortable for you in the future. The man that left is my Vice Warden, Kei Musho. The same applies to him, but I assure you he has a lot less mercy than me.

"Let me get started on this brief orientation. If you've heard this before, don't speak up. This prison was conceived and created about twenty to thirty years ago with the HRP Bill and has been at the forefront of the bill's objective. That is the complete and total rehabilitation of a convict through their favorite hobby. Statistics show that the process we use here at Prison #0073 is the most successful out of every prison in this system. The convicts that leave here of their own power, the right way that is, live happy and successful lives. All twelve of them.

"As this is a prison themed around the Yu-Gi-Oh card game, you can imagine what you have to do to become number thirteen."

The man behind me stretches his hand even higher, making grunting sounds as he tried to stand on his tiptoes wanting to be noticed. Maria shot him a fierce look and he backed down. She continued without hesitation.

"If you want out of here, the process is described simply. There are 10 ranks. You start at the bottom. To climb the ranks, you have to not only win, but you have to pass certain exams. These exams will not only test your skills at the game, but will test your resolve, your emotional capacity, and your willingness to rehabilitate. As you climb the ranks, what you can do inside the prison and what luxuries you're given will also improve. Reach rank 1 and… well you know.

"If you want details, then I hope you make some friends. Prisoners of Building F, you are dismissed. These guards here will escort you to your cells."

The Warden turned to the door and walked out in small but confident strides. Soon all fifteen fellow convicts and I were escorted to the lowest level of the prison. We were led into a massive circular room with four large rectangles squared off on the floor in chalk. There were three hallways connecting to the room, the one we just came out of and two more on opposite sides of the room with letters A and B over them. On the far side from where we are, there were four large black boards. We all kept silent as the two guards split us in two groups and led us down separate hallways on opposite sides of the room. I was led into door A. No one spoke as the guard pointed his gun at individuals, then at the cells that would be our home for the foreseeable future.

I entered my cell at the end of the block, the last one in the group of 8 prisoners led into door A. The door closed behind me and I could hear the lock clicking. I agreed to these circumstances, but silent atmosphere surprised me. I was fully expecting non-stop noise and constant wails for mercy. I guess these Hobby Prisons, or HoPi as known by the general public, were tamer than what I saw on the news.

I scanned the small cell and saw two bunk beds on the left and right walls. The left bed was as you would expect from a prison bunk bed, but the bottom bunk on the right bed was converted into a desk. I saw two men in my cell. One of them was sitting silently at the deck and tinkering with a thick rectangular tablet. The other man was lying on the other bed's bottom bunk and looked up from his daydreaming.

He exclaimed, "My god we got a newbie. Sieg, we got a new one!"

The man in the bed sat up and hit his head on the top bunk. He winced in pain, but stood up and walked to where I was standing. Sieg at the desk kept working on his device.

He spoke in a voiced that was way louder than I expected. "You can call me Gal. I've heard all the jokes. That guy over there is Sieg. He doesn't talk much. What's your name? Why are you here? What deck do you use?"

Gal looked at me with exciting eyes. I assumed that at the back of this prison block, he doesn't get many opportunities to meet new people. His voice's volume was almost as loud as a megaphone. Before I could respond, a loud irritated voice came from the cell next door.

"Shut up in there will ya!"

Gal suddenly realized how loud his voice actually was and quieted down a bit. He looked down and held out his hand for a shake. There was a look of shame on his face. I felt as though his volume was a problem among the inmates, and possibly why he was here in the first place.

It seemed like I almost had the wrong first impression. Gal was an averagely built man with a sharp face and a beard that reached the top of his chest. Long dirty blond hair graced his head in an unkempt mess. Like all the other prisoners around here, he was wearing a bright orange jumpsuit with two cargo pockets and brown slipper-type shoes. Through his beard hair, I was able to make out "#6981" stitched onto his chest. The label on mine said "#8352". He must have been in here a while.

At the desk, I could see Sieg. Contrary to Gal, I could see that Sieg was tall and lanky. He sported long grey hair seemingly kept straight by gravity alone. On his back, his hair almost reached half way down, completely covering the prison's name on the jumpsuit. I couldn't catch a good look at his face, nor the number on his chest.

I shook his hand and said "I'm Alon, I don't want to talk about it, and I don't want to talk about it."

Gal responded, "Oh, right. I was getting ahead of myself. Sorry. Anyway your disk is on the top bunk above mine. Start it up and read what it tells you."

I look at my new bed and see a flat rectangular cardboard box, decorated with a red ribbon. I crawled up to the bed, finding it sturdier than I expected, and opened the box. In it was a device similar to what Sieg was tinkering with. It was a rectangular tablet, an inch or so thick with a dark green boarder around the screen, and an instruction book. Turning it around, I could see slots for my deck, a panel labeled "Extra Deck" on the opposite side, and a single slot that the sticker label said was for both the graveyard and back row. I shrugged and turned it some more. On the bottom was a pressure sensitive panel that, as the instruction book explained, would deploy a band-like grip when held up against the arm.

I looked back at the screen and touched it. The device sprung to life and greeted me with "Welcome to the SV Dueling Disk v5.3. Please input your name." I inputted my first and last name and hit the NEXT button. Next, it read "Please insert your deck into the deck slot. Then attach to your non dominant arm to start calibration."

I took my deck out of my pocket and looked at the card on the top. It was a Spellcaster-type Pendulum monster, one of the pillars of my deck. I must have looked at it for a little longer than I noticed, because I was startled by a noise coming from my Duel Disk. I quickly put the deck into the slot; it fit perfectly, and held my left arm against the back of the device. A metal grip extended from both sides and secured itself to my arm. It felt like a watch that was wrapped a notch too tightly. A few seconds later and the cards in the deck shuffled themselves on their own, quickly sticking far out of the deck, then receding back in like magic. Duel Disks existed on the outside, but they were a luxury item. My friends and I were never able to afford one ourselves. I must have made a noise because Gal spoke softly, trying to keep his voice down in consideration of our neighbor.

He said, "It shuffled on ya, right? That means calibration is finished. You might want to fine-tune the settings to your liking that Sieg is doing over there. It's all he ever does anymore."

I leaned over the edge of the bed to talk to Gal. "So when can we use these?"

Right before my bunkmate was able to respond, an announcement rang over the intercom.

A loud voice rang, "Will the following prisoners please make your way to the central Dueling room: 7652, 8200, 3098, 8352, 6998, and 6981."

The lock on our cell door clicked and a guard holding the same kind of assault rifle as before stood in the doorway. I gave Gal a curious look, but he just shrugged. We got to our feet and walked with the armed guard.

Gal whispered, "You got what you wanted sooner than I expected. Maybe the Warden noticed you, or you just got lucky. Anyway, this happens several times a day. And we got a 3-er this time. Very interesting."

I responded in a whisper, "Interesting how?"

"Well the smaller the number, the earlier you've been here, right? A 3-er has a number in the three thousands. He's either lost hope of ascending, or he's terrible. Maybe both, who knows. I'm a 6-er, but I'm close to getting to the next rank. I can feel it."

At this point our escort picked up a third prisoner and we entered the central room together.