Part 2

The loud 'beep' of her cell door opening jolted her away from the peace and safety of sleep, and back into the dark reality she remembered she was still in.

Her eyes popped opened, her body immediately sitting up from the cold cement floor, crawling back, away from the three large figures that stood in front of her now-opened cell. Payday, she realized quickly, her Pak pressing against the wall. She suddenly wished she could disappear behind and beyond what lie outside those walls, to freedom; a sudden memory of the night sky on Irk made her wish she could vanish beyond the large night sky of Irk, out into the wide Universe. Have the stars in the sky hide her forever. Away from the control of the Tallest, away from all the hate from higher-ranked Irkens, away from all the harsh cruelty towards what she realized she was,-what had failed to sink in until it hit her like a ton of bricks-, a defective, a failure in the eyes of the Empire, a problem that they needed to completely wipe out.

And she was one of them.

As the three drunken guards wobbled over her cowering form until they were completely hovering over her, with their looks glaring down, Mev briefly caught sight of the male Irken across the hall, still locked away in his new cell. He was watching the scene unfold with wide, fearful eyes, but said nothing, and she didn't expect him too: it was common for Irkens not to assist one another or befriend one another, let alone care at all, for they were all told during smeethood, that emotions such as love and care were a weakness and were, of course, forbidden. But they were defectives, all defectives locked away for execution were there for two simple reasons, one or the other or both: either glitches in their Pak, or the fact that they had a complete and open conscious. She wondered momentarily, by the look of fear in his eyes that she realized was addressed toward the situation she was in, that he must have had a conscious for the fact he seemed to have his fear directed at her, meaning it was for her, and that she, all of those defectives, locked away to die, did too.

Mev was hauled up by the biggest brute of the three, Guard 1. He pressed her up against the wall roughly, causing the headache from the coming fever she had, awaken, but she held back a moan of it's dull ache and stood her ground best she could, glaring back at him, directly into his eyes. His hand moved up to hold her against the wall by her neck, and, as he did so, his hand tightening around her throat, she choked, a grin appearing over his features as he pressed down harder. She heard the two other guards chuckling, completely wasted from the amount of pure Irken alcohol she was sure they had consumed. Another day of high pay for those guards, and another day of a beating and possible rape for all defective Irken women like her in those prisons.

But this wasn't the first time they had beaten her to a pulp when she had resisted. When a new pay day came, they'd all throw a small party and get drunk. And she knew from the start that they were much worse when under the influence than when they were sober. She always managed to just barely defend herself from an assault, and only did away with a beating. But now time had gone on, and she was growing weaker physically, mentally and emotionally, and she wondered if she, -like the male Irken who had hung his head when he was thrown into his cell the day before, the male Irken who was frightened for her at that moment-, were giving up slowly. Or if she had completely given up and hadn't even noticed yet.

It felt as though her neck might snap in half by the amount of pressure Guard 1 was putting on her as he squeezed hard, without mercy. Her hands came up and clutched at his, trying to rip his large hand free, but to no avail. He chuckled darkly, yet when he spoke, his words were slurred, "Then I guess ya won't give us any trouble, now won't ya?"

Mev refused to answer, and instead, shut her eyes tightly, wishing she could disappear into her mind and never come back, go back in time, back to building and re-building Voot Cruisers, Control ships, major pieces of machinery, weapons, anything mechanical that was broken, she could fix, or rebuild herself in her own special design, and it was this she did for a living, as a hobby, as a dream she had just started living, before they came and snatched her away, locking her up, making her wait for death. She was, faintly, blacking out when the pressure on her neck was becoming to much, when oxygen stopped being inhaled for her squeedly-spooch, when her heart slowly sub-sided. She was dying, but she was relieved at some degree that it was now than having to wait for a Control Brain to simply drain her life out of her Pak... Two ways an Irken could day, and she was taking, in reality, a much-less painful route towards the end... And oddly, she was more prepared now than for later. Maybe she had given up...

He removed his hand. Just like that.

She dropped to the floor like a bag of flour. Heavy her body felt as she hit the ground, the feeling of pain returning as she bent over, coughing loudly, trying to inhale the air she had lost when Guard 1's hand had nearly squeezed all of it out of her. She could feel all three of them standing over her from behind, and she knew, in her weak state, that they'd use that to their advantage.

She was right.

One of them shoved her to the ground with his foot, causing her to hit the ground. Her cheek slapped against the cold pavement, and she waited there, momentarily. After a moment, she slowly, hesitantly began to push herself up with her arms, only to have a large, heavy boot press itself into the back of her head, holding her down. She bit her lip, closing her eyes. The air hadn't returned to her completely yet, and the fever and headache she had burned heavily into her nerve system. She felt weak physically, and with whatever came next, she was sure she'd be weak emotionally and mentally more so than she already was.

She'd be ruined.

If that was even possible now.

She could hear their dark chuckling, and felt something tug on her pants, roughly, trying to remove them. That was like a button going off in her head, and the will to survive what ever came caused her to react quickly. She began to kick her legs and struggle, and immediately she felt one of the guards straddling her from behind, pinning her further down. She wiggled and squirmed, yelling and cursing at them, but none of it did good. In fact, it only added fuel to the fire.

She squeezed her eyes tighter as the guard above managed to pull her pants off her flailing legs, left in her underwear. She felt her cheeks burning with embarrassment and disgust boiling her blood, but no matter what she did, they wouldn't let up until they got what they wanted from her. She realized that they were going to probably take turns having 'fun' with her.

Mev held her breath and waited for the worst to begin, but something, someone, a voice nearby, stopped the whole thing dead-still;

"Cowards!"

Everything seemed to freeze then.

She opened her eyes slowly, and they moved, gliding towards the cell across the hall at the male Irken she had tried to speak to the day before, the newcomer to this nightmare, the one who had shown his fear for her in his blue eyes.

And in those eyes were no longer fear, but a burning rage. Pure disgust at what he was witnessing. He glared hard at the three guards, particularly the guard who was straddling Mev down, her pants in the guard's hands. "You're all nothing but cowards," the meager-seeming Irken spoke loudly, no trace of fear in his voice from what she could tell. She continued to stare at him from across the hall. Not a word came to mind nor came out from behind her lips; what was she supposed to say?

She heard the guard on top of her snarl, almost animal-like. "Whattaya sayin' over there, ya little bastard?"

"That you're a coward," the Irken repeated coolly, almost as though it didn't matter to him if he received a beating. He was standing his ground with words, words that enraged drunken guards. A distraction for her to not have to suffer whatever sexual gratification the guards had wanted to inflict on her. "You like picking on the girls because you know they can't fight back." Mev, obviously being female, wasn't insulted one bit. It was true in most cases; most girls in the prisons couldn't fight back against multiple guards twice their size, where the guards could snap their necks in just seconds, with only their bare hands.

"You're weak," the blue-eyed Irken finished, rather quickly, but yelled out the last part with enough force and anger he could muster into his voice, "Weak!"

That did it. Mev immediately felt the weight of the guard's body lift off of her, and she quickly rolled to her side to get a better look at everything that was about to happen. Her breathing still ragged and frail, she dared not move anymore to try and put her pants back on. She only lay on her side, watching as Guards 1, 2 and 3 made their way over to the unnamed male Irken's cell just across the hall. Mev felt a sudden chill run down her spine as the 'beep' signaling the cell door opening rang out throughout the hall. She shivered.

The three guards stood over him now, from what she could see. Now as she watched them all, her green eyes were filled with the same type of fear that the unnamed male Irken had in his eyes when she was held to the wall by Guard 1, the life nearly squeezed out of her. It was the fear for someone else's life, their well-being, a fear, a worry she never felt her whole life for anyone else around her... up until that exact moment. The feeling felt foreign in her heart and mind, like that it didn't belong in her thoughts and worried, fast-paced heartbeat filled with terror. But she didn't stop the next thought from entering her mind just as the sound of a fist connecting with flesh became audible, repeating over and over again:

I'm sorry... I'm so sorry...

But she did not speak. Half of because of the fact her neck had been nearly crushed and when she opened her mouth to speak, only a wheeze of air escaped from her. She put her hands to her bruised and swollen throat as she turned away from the scene, trying to block out the continuing sounds of hitting and kicking, and the cries of pain that filled the halls, leaving an abundant amount of guilt lingering around her.

Mev bit her lip as the tears came, overflowing from her green eyes in a river of hot, salty tears that trailed down her bruised cheeks and landed silently on the floor beside her. After about thirty minuets of not watching, yet not being able to block out the sounds that the scene violently emitted, she heard the 'beep' throughout the hall, and the sound of a cell door slamming. She expected her's to open immediately, and she waited for it, but dared not check with her eyes. Instead, the sounds of the guards' heavy boots slamming down the cement hallway pavement traveled down, away from her cell, until another door opened and closed.

Silence again.

She glanced up then, hesitant about what she might see across the hall. And there he was, on the floor like a rag doll, limp and unmoving. He twitched once, signaling he was alive. Even if just barely. The metallic smell of dark Irken blood filled the air when she sniffed, but it wasn't much blood. But the guilt still hung over her like a shadow that wouldn't leave.

The tears only continued to fall quicker at the sight of him. He had sacrificed his well-being for her; an Irken he barely knew. And she was sure then, that he was in fact there because he simply cared for the well-being of others. She felt grateful to him, but the guilt hovered in the air around her, reminding her that she was the reason why he laid there across the hall in his cell, beaten unconscious. Injured.

She opened her mouth, and softly, weakly, managed to speak out to him, to that unknown Irken with the kind heart. "Thank you," she whispered, hoping he might hear her gratitude for him being spoken aloud.

Never in her life did those two words feel so right than in that moment.

A/N: I wanted to show what type of cruelty probably happens to defective Irkens in the Defective Prisons. I think the Guards are, sadly, allowed to do what they please with all the defectives in the prisons. After, that's really what they're paid for... It's upsetting and cruel, and things like this, I'm sure, happen in other countries under monarchy and/or dictatorship.

Plus, I just finished and read (In TWO DAYS) "The Hunger Games", and it is the best novel ever. Period. And The Capitol (small applied alert, but not a lot, don't worry) reminds me A LOT of The Irken Empire. I can see the Tallest making the Defectives battle to the death in an arena... I really can. Tallest Miyuki would never have done that, but other Tallest would.

But yeah, I'll try updating a lot next week; I only have two days of school next week. :)