Disclaimer: Based on characters and references belonging to DC Universe and the CW, which I do not own. Enjoy.
Prologue
He runs as fast as he can, the foliage brushing up against his face, giving him no clear way to go. He runs out of the last bush and into an open field. Out of energy, he feels his legs give out, causing him to fall to the ground. He looks frantically for a place to hide, but he can hear footsteps coming up from behind him. Seeing nowhere else to hide, he starts to panic and crawl away. His fear is somewhat diminished when the figure who comes out is his step-mother, Felicity.
She runs towards him, trying to help him back up. "Come on William. Get up."
"I can't go on."
"Yes, you can." As he stands up, they can hear another set of footsteps coming from where they ran from. These steps are slower, confident, like a predator stalking it's prey, which summarizes their current predicament. Felicity shielded William. "Oliver, help us!"
"Oliver Queen is not coming to save you this time." The predator comes out from the foliage, revealing the brute Ricardo Diaz, the man who ruined their chance at a normal life. He feels his anger rise. He wanted nothing more than to charge right at him, but he can't. He can do nothing but watch.
"Get out of here. Go!" Felicity shoves William towards the opposite direction. He wants to intervene, to protect them. But he can't. William complies and starts running.
"You're brave." Diaz takes out a gun from his holster and points it at Felicity. "Oliver Queen took everything from me." Diaz shoots her through her torso, right where her neural chip, which supported her spine, is located. She collapses to the ground, her breathing becoming raspy, the feeling in her legs gone. He walks up to her, pointing the gun to her head. "And now, I'm going to enjoy taking everything from him." Without hesitation, he pulls the trigger.
Oliver wakes to the sound of banging from the prison bars. He looks as though he woke up from a nightmare but keeps his breathing under control as soon as he wakes. He leans up and sits at the edge of the bed, seeing that it is only Yorke, one of the guards, making the rounds for the wake-up call.
"Morning 4587. Beautiful day." Yorke has said that phrase so much, it may as well be the prison's motto, and an ironic one at that. It's never a beautiful day. Everyday is the same.
Oliver exercises daily, keeping himself in shape, both physically and mentally. It must give him something to do both inside and outside his cell while keeping him less focused on how life in prison has been, and continues to be, a living hell.
Take mandatory showers with a bunch of inmates that either hate him or want to kill him. Probably both. Oliver just avoids eye contact and doesn't say a word so he can avoid conflict.
That doesn't stop inmates, like Sampson, who he bumps into, from taking advantage of his passiveness to taunt him. "Hey, watch it…Arrow." Oliver, despite his subtle display of anger, doesn't let Sampson's intimidation get to him. He just keeps his head down, like always.
Then there are meal times. Oliver sits at the table nobody else sits at because everyone loathed him. He doesn't mind since he wanted to keep his distance from them anyways. Turner, however, comes over to steal an extra garlic clove for himself, as always. "You weren't going to eat that, right?" His sarcasm seems to bother Oliver less, but his clenched fists show that he still has the urge to punch Turner in the face, to take down every single inmate there, as he did as the Green Arrow. An urge he has to suppress.
Finally, at the end of the day, he looks over the photo of his wife and son, who he hopes to one day reunite with and start a normal life as a family. Before he sleeps, he picks up a piece of chalk and draws a tally mark on it, counting the amount of days he hasn't gotten into trouble, hoping that he can shorten his sentence and get an early release. He then goes to his bed, Yorke calling "LIGHTS OUT," blanketing the whole prison in darkness until morning, when Oliver starts the whole day over. It is just one arduous cycle.
At least, that's what he sees. The view from his monitors is limited, but he is slowly starting to figure out how Oliver feels being in prison. How do you do it? How do you keep yourself sane after five months?
He can't dwell on that now. According to surveillance footage, his target is here in town. Jason Stent, a low tier criminal looking to get back to the top and a soon to be important player in what is to come for the Glades. He'll stop Stent before his influence stretches too far.
He looks at the computer monitor one more time, reminding himself of the location Stent will be at, the vantage point he will take, and his plan for Stent once he is in his custody. He then proceeds to the display mannequin, which currently wears his suit, fashioned from head to toe after the Green Arrow, with a few minor tweaks to the mask. He removes the suit from the mannequin and puts it on. He slings his quiver, which contained a variety of arrows, over his shoulder and sheathed his recurve bow onto his back. He slips on a mask with white lenses over his eyes, pulls his hood over his head, and pulls up his face mask over his mouth. He switches the HUD in his mask on, showing all the various modes are calibrated and ready for use. He then turns on his voice modulator, setting it up to have a deep, intimidating voice.
With his plan formulated and his gear checked out, he feels ready. He IS ready. He grins. "Time to go to work."