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Four: Pollution

There's a stirring in the cells today. Usually, whenever words are exchanged, it's in an uninspired manner, lacking in color or spirit. A hollow sound that seems to echo in the pitted cavern of the prison, and reverberates in the their throats, down to the empty shell of their stomachs.

But sometime after daybreak, a small wave of chatter erupted, centering around a single piece of news. It seems there have been two reactions to it: outright, almost blissful belief—or sharp criticism.

The rumor is that someone has escaped.

I find myself leaning heavily towards the less-enthused attitude. Miraculous stories of prisoners tunneling themselves out of captivity with a rusty spoon or even their bare hands—they're stories, plain and simple. This isn't some half-brained, half-hearted attempt at confinement, executed by fools.

They know how to entrap people. They…They knew how to disarm a Jedi Master.

So how…for bleeding star's sake, could anyone actually worm their way out of here?

I'm surprised by the spike of anger that attacks my hard-won equilibrium and spreads through me as a venomous current. There's no admonishing instructor to steer me again toward the grace and Light. It's impossible to meditate, to channel my frustrations into the purifying center of my mind—for the focus has wilted, browned and shriveled to an unrecognizable husk. The beauty has faded …as memories tend to do, when asked to withstand the battering wear of time.

A Jedi is not to use the Force as a crutch—but how often has the all-knowing Council had to face their maxim in reality?

I'm being bitter now. What's happened to me, that I would react with caustic disdain to thoughts of a group of people that lead the Order I was pledged to, that I am consumed with jealousy at the notion that—maybe—someone has broken from the soiled bonds of this prison?

I should be glad for them, if it's true. I listen to the enlivened talk around me, and know I should be contented that a bit of vigor has been pumped into the vapid, stagnant space.

But I find myself betraying the morals I grew up idealizing.

I find that I almost hate whoever began the awful lie, and buoyed everyone with false hope…I despise the creature who thought it would entertaining to dangle freedom above us all, like we were wide-eyes fish gulping at the morsel, only to be speared by the hook beneath, reeled in, then thrown back to the murky depths.

I curl up against the wall, and force myself to look into shadow, and drown out the happy talk.

"It really happened, ya know."

For the first time during this slightly eventful day, Cellmate's raking voice is heard.

As always, I don't want to hear it. Especially now. "I have serious doubts about that."

"Well ya shouldn't." He scoffs, as if he himself handed the escapee the spoon used in the fabled exit. "Cuz I know for a fact that someone got loose."

I sigh and seal my eyes. "What makes you know above everyone else here?"

"Cuz I happened to've had that cell before. I was in it for awhile and got to know it pretty damn well."

I turn in his direction, laboring as though my head weighed as much as a stone. His body's pressed against the bars, strips of light on his face and design-laded chin. "There was something different about it. It didn't feel…right or somethin'. Never could figure out what was the matter wit' it.

"But after I heard about the breakout, I started thinking. A long time ago, when people were…what d'you call it…ren-o-vatin' all the older buildings on the planet, they had to take out these things called 'trick cells'. They made the jails with a phony cell so that if there was a takeover or something, the prison workers could have an outside chance of gettin' out."

I squint at him. "How would they activate it?"

He shrugs. "All kinds of ways, ya'd think. Maybe if ya pulled out like…some random bricks or something, the bars or window or maybe even the friggin' floor would open up."

I rest my head on my hand. "So why wouldn't the renovation affect the cell here?"

Another small lift of his diminutive shoulders. "Not every building was worth the money it would take. Besides, this one's on the outskirts and's been out of use for a long time…probably longer than you've been around. And these creeps," He cocks his thumb toward the hallway, "Aren't natives." His whisper borders on conspiratorial, "I'm a native, and if ya haven't noticed, they don't look a thing like me."

"The lack of resemblance is uncanny." I say without inflection. "You don't think they would figure out the trick cell?"

"Maybe they have by now. But I was livin' in the damn place and I couldn't figure it out. It just felt a little…fake in there. Not like here." He taps on the gritty ground. "This is real as it gets, kid."

I look at the uprooted dust, buffeting in the air, like a little, polluted cloud.

His last words are the first that I have absolutely believed.