I stared blankly at the gray walls, devoid of life and culture and everything that makes life alive. In my head, I was far, far away, farther than any person should have the right to go, but there I was. In my fantasy, the world was bright and new. Grass was green, billboards didn't have to stretch for miles to be seen, children didn't kill children with cars made of fear, and life was happy and content for everyone. No one rushed in my happy, kind, insulated little universe, in fact, it was considered unhealthy and rude to do so. Fathers came home to their daughters and read them books, rather than burning the books, setting the children in front of the parlor walls, and forgetting to come home after dark.

Then, with as much warning as the beauty came, it disappeared. Like fog before the harsh, burning sun, my hope drained away, the last bubbles from a bath washing down a drain.

A guard stood at the door, dressed in gray, like the walls. It's face was covered, to repress individuality and beauty and everything that constitutes the human soul. A person is not a person without a face. Even their voices and names were taken, replaced with automated voice boxes and numbers. In a way, they were worse off than myself.

It opened the door, heavily gloved hand making a noise like crunching leaves on the harsh gray metal of the barred door. "Follow" it said, in it's numb mechanical not-voice. I knew not to disobey. "Pain comes to girls who misbehave" sneered a police officer in my mind, holding a white hot "O" brand. Obedience indeed.

Nothing teaches a hard lesson like pain. Hard, burning pain.

I stared down at my left hand, massaging the bright white, circular burn scar. No, lessons were taught to be remembered here, and obedience is one I will never forget. Soullessly, I trailed after the guard and his alien-ness, his inability to even give the semblance of humanity. I wondered briefly if he was actually a robot, made to be the closest ting to human possible, but crueler and harsher and emptier and endless.

I learned not to expect anything from the guards. Food was eaten in the mess hall, where mosaic-ed glass panes separated us from the servers, mauling their muffled voices into a mechanical garble that nearly drove one insane. Speaking was prohibited for everyone but the servers, who could only speak to other servers behind the mosaic-wall, and only for the purpose of making and delivering food. Here, in this gray and white and inhuman place, people were reduced to insects, surviving their daily lives painfully and unhappily. I could see the other prisoners, the other 'rogue militants' brought in by the takers, the others like me that still harbored an imagination and enough desire to express it and change the world from it's morally invisible self. I could see them, and know them, but only just. Every moment, we were taped and recorded, every conversation monitored by the hovering-guard/nannies posted at each table. Conversations in code were next to impossible, unless you already knew someone and had one established, paper was unavailable, and all movement was monitored for possible emotion or speaking. If you were deaf here, then you could only watch. Watch and be afraid, because you could neither talk, nor speak, nor move in any way at all. I thanked a god (someone else's, not mine, for God is a delusion in a world of pointlessness. How could I ask someone that couldn't save us from ourselves for help? It's absurd) that I was not deaf.

I sat next to a woman today, tall, blonde; she might have been beautiful, had she not been so distraught and empty. There was food on my plate, and I began to eat, grimacing at the non-flavor of the gray mush. It reminded me of school cafeteria food, and I smiled. Suddenly, a hot poker struck me in the back, searing a white hot line of fire down my spine. The guard/nanny pulled away from me, it's blue glowing weapon pulsating from use. "No happiness."

That was the rule there. Emotions were forbidden, if that was even possible. We were trained to be soulless automatons. Wake up. Go to mess. Go to emotion training. Go to mess. Go to cell. End of day.