Christmas Yet to Come

"Jailbot! Jaaaiillbooot!" the Warden shook his robot, trying his best to wake him. "Come on, wake up! The Ghost of Christmas Future or something is coming!" Having no luck, he was just about to dash inside his office when he saw…

"Jailbot? That was fast; I didn't even see you get up!"

Jailbot didn't answer, and the Warden noticed the oddest thing. The robot was wearing a long white robe—or rather his body seemed to become a robe.

"Oh…no…" Warden eyed behind him, where the real Jailbot was still asleep. He whirled back to the imposter and backed away.

"Okay, I was able to handle the past and present, but…seeing the future? Can't we skip this part?"

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shook his head—or rather his whole body, in his case. He took an arm out of a side compartment and motioned for the man to follow him. Deciding from experience in the past few hours that he probably did not have much of a choice, the Warden reluctantly complied. But rather than taking him on a temporal flight or a teleportation, the ghost only took him down the hall to a door Warden did not remember seeing before. Christmas Yet to Come extended an arm to take his, and together they fazed through it.

"Since when was there a door at the end of my hall that leads to the—" He finally got an actually clear look at the prison yard. It was barren, torn, desolate—much more so than it normally was. Beyond that, he could see that his precious Superjail was—

"Where is Superjail?!" Warden cried out. For all he saw was dilapidated, charred ruins of buildings and machines. His eyes darted to Jailbot for an answer, but he did not receive one. The spirit only turned and passed back through the door they came from. The man followed, curious and yet dreading what he'd see next.

When they came through the door, surprisingly they were not back in the hall, but—

"We're outside Superjail!" he panicked, "We can't be outside Superjail! That's going against my own rules!" He ran back towards the door, trying to faze back through it, but he only crashed into it.

"Let us back in!"

Jailbot, again, didn't answer, but an arm from his side compartment pointed in the opposite direction. Warden cautiously looked, and his eyes widened to see his main staff gathered a distance away. There was an eerie fog around them, and they were all very still, staring at the ground.

"What are they doing—?" He cut short when Jailbot floated towards them. He sighed and followed.

As they came closer, the Warden noticed Jared, Alice, and Jailbot—the real Jailbot—seemed to be significantly older than he remembered them. They were all joyless, gathered around some sort of black stone on the ground. He shuddered to realize it was a gravestone.

"You know, in all seriousness, I'm really going to miss him," Warden was startled when Jared spoke; brushing what looked to be a tear from his grayed, aged mustache.

"But we're better off now," Alice commented as the Warden noticed a few strands of silver in her now faded red hair. "We can actually leave now."

"We were able to leave once before," Jared reminded her, "And we missed Superjail."

"You…always had a great memory…little man…" Alice sniffled, turned to stifle a tear.

The real Jailbot, tarnished and partially rusted, was profusely shedding green LCD tears. He took out an arm holding a floral bouquet and slowly, gently laid it on the grave.

"Well, we best not catch our death out here," Jared tipped his hat to the grave before turning to leave. Tearfully, his companions followed.

"Wh-Wh-Who…is…dead?" Warden cautiously asked the spirit.

The spirit only took an arm out of his side compartment, and pointed. Pointed to the grave. Warden eyed it and turned back to him.

"Just tell me."

The spirit only pointed.

"Please! Don't make me look!"

The spirit only pointed.

Slowly, hesitantly, dreading, the Warden turned and walked closer. It seemed to take him years to approach the gravestone. Finally the fog cleared.

The Warden of Superjail

1762 – 2024

"No!" The Warden flew back to the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and clung to him. "Please! Please! Are these the shadows of what will be, or what may be? Please—tell me I can still stop this from happening! I can change, spirit! I can change!" He soon noticed the ghost was…fading.

"No, wait! Don't go!" But the Warden soon noticed he was fading as well…fading into oblivion.