CHAPTER 2: Alone Again
Asking Alexandria
-Day after Nick's arrest-
-Nick's POV-
I wake up and the first thing I feel is a massive headache.
As I try to rub my head to ease the pain, my hand gets caught on something. I look down and see that my hand is handcuffed to the bed. I try to move my other hand only to find that it too is handcuffed to the other side of the bed. I lay my head carefully back down as I am clearly not going to be moving anytime soon. I try to think of how I got here as my head continues pounding. I slowly look around trying to analyze the situation I'm in and that's when I realize where I am.
I'm in a ZPD holding cell.
Suddenly I hear a familiar voice from the other side of the bars.
"Nick, you're awake!" Judy almost yells as she jumps up from the bench she was sitting on.
"Judy. What the hell happened? Why am I in here?" I say, still unable to remember anything.
Judy looks at me sadly, " You're in a ZPD holding cell."
"Well obviously I know where I am, just why I'm on this side of the bars and not that one?" I asked, getting concerned.
It can't be because-
"That's what I came here to figure out Nick. What where you thinking?" Judy stares into me as I recall what happened, " there was no reason for anything that you did last night, so why." she said with sadness in her voice.
"Judy, you have to believe me when I tell you this but it wasn't me." I said as I begin to explain to her what happened, " the man I was chasing last night forced me do it, he had some kind of collar device that when he put it on me I lost all control of my actions. There was nothing I could do about it." I say trying my hardest to convince her I was right.
"look I don't know what happened, I haven't looked into the report myself. But I do know that you were found passed out with the other 4 officers laying dead next to you." she said showing me her phone screen which had a picture of the gruesome scene, "It's just a little hard to believe that you were controlled by someone into doing that."
We are silent for a second before Judy speaks up again.
"But again that's why I'm here, to get your side of the story. I need to hear everything so that we can try to help you for the trial, so can you tell me what happened?"
-Several Days Later-
I sit up as I hear the door to the room open and Judy walk through.
"Are you ready for this?" Judy says as she unlocks the cell I'm in.
I stand up from the bed and walk out of the cell and she puts handcuffs on me.
"I'm ready as I'll ever be, the real question is my lawyer ready? "
She looks at me nervously then begins to walk down the hall, not the sign I was hoping for. We walk all the way out the front door and then to the police cruiser waiting for me.
The drive over seemed to last forever as thoughts of everything that was happening were running through my head. This all seems like a nightmare and any minute I should be waking up.
I begin to notice crowds appear on the sidewalks and realize that we are getting close to the courthouse. A few seconds later we stop and they open the door to let me out. As I step out I get flashed by camera lights and Judy quickly leads me inside the courthouse.
The inside of the courthouse looks similar to the outside with all the seats full and even news cameras in certain locations broadcasting everything that was happening to all of zootopia. They lead me to the front and we sit down next to my lawyer to begin the trial.
The judge notices that I have arrived and orders the room to be silent as it begins.
"Nicholas Piberius Wilde, you have been brought here on the account of 1st degree murder and arson. If there is anything you would like to bring up in defense, please state it now."
My lawyer who is a wolf stood up and pulled a sheet of paper out of his briefcase.
"My client pleads not guilty and here are a few reasons why. For one, he is a friend and fellow officer to the men killed that night. Why would he just kill them for no reason whatsoever. The second reason being similar to the first, Nick had no motive to kill any of them. Even if he did have his reasons this seems like a very extreme action to take wouldn't you agree?" He looked at the judge and the jury hoping for some sign of understanding.
"The last reason is that how could Nick take on 4 armed police officers and somehow get their hands tied and keep them still long enough to shoot them. There is simply no way that this is possible without help. I believe that Nick was framed and forced to do this against his will, something that made him do this, like he tells us. Collar or not I believe that this is not all his fault."
The lawyer then sat down and the judge thought about what he said for a moment. Then without letting my lawyer or anyone else speak anymore about the case he asked the jury to step outside and make their decision.
I look at my lawyer, " Wait, can he do that? He didn't hear any testimonies or anything."
I may not be a lawyer or even have paid enough attention in school to know the legal system, but my lawyer did give me basic idea of what was going to happen before coming here.
And from what I can see happening, this wasn't supposed to happen like this.
As I watched them walk out of the room, I grew overwhelmingly nervous as I realized something.
The jury's decision will either make or break the rest of my life.
Only minutes go by when suddenly the door the jury had used to leave the courtroom opens and they start to walk back in.
I look over at my lawyer, confused at why it only took a couple minutes to decide. He gives me the same confused and concerned look back.
The jury walks back up on the stand and one of the officers walks up to the judge on the stand and hands him a paper.
"Will the jury please confirm if this is their final decision, " the judge says while motioning for them to answer.
One by one they all answer yes as they go down the line of jury members. Once the last one had confirmed their answer the judge looked back at down at me.
"The jury has decided, Nicholas Piberius Wilde, the court jury has found you guilty of 1st degree manslaughter and Arson. For this your are herby sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole and your sentence is to be carried out immediately, May god have mercy on you Mr wilde."
"Wait!!"
Suddenly one of the jury members stands up. It was a young artic fox.
"I chose not guilty and my vote was ignored. This isn't right!" he yells as the judge looks over at him.
"Noted," says the judge still staring at him. He then looks back at the crowd of people, " thank you, this court is not closed," he says hitting the gavel on the stand.
With this the judge stood and walked off the stand as the crowd erupted in conversation.
"Wait! He can't do that, he just ignored the jury!" I say as I'm forced to stand up by officers.
How can somebody do this to another person I think as the officers grab me and drag me out of the court.
I try to yell for the judge to let me explain but to no one's surprise, he completely ignores me.
"GO TO HELL!" I yelled at him, as a last ditch attempt to get his attention.
Something tells me he was never going to listen to me anyway, even if I did have the evidence to prove my case.
We bust through the front door and see the flashing lights of a police van waiting with the backdoors open. There are cameras everywhere flashing brightly in my face. I look around, only to get blinded by more lights.
They throw me inside the van and close the doors behind me. I get up from the filthy floor and look out the barred window quickly realizing this could be the last time I'll be in the city, the last time seeing my friends, and the last time I will be at home. I see Judy standing by a crowd, crying as she watches me get carried away.
I start to cry myself, wishing I could change what happened. Wish I could go back to that night and just wait for the damn backup.
Then something I had never thought of before came into my mind.
Or did going inside that building save my life?
My thoughts get interrupted as the van starts to move and I get thrown into the door. I look around while we're going past the old buildings that I was used to seeing everyday while patrolling.
So this is how it feels to go to prison, I thought as I watched the buildings go by, it's ironic now that I think about it, a cop going to prison.
With every building that I recognize it feels like a knife in my heart, knowing I'll probably never see them again.
With this, I can't take the site of the city getting smaller anymore and sit down on the metal bench, as we get further and further away from what used to be my home.
--
So yes I know that a real trial doesn't go like how the story portrays XD I've taken government classes but for the sake of keeping it semi original and to make a good story I left it ;)