BROKEN TOY. PROLOGUE

I rolled over in bed not quite knowing where I was. I stretched out a hand and felt the cold stone under my fingertips.

I couldn't stand that mattress. I wasn't exactly corpulent, but it made me anxious to know that at any moment I could fall to the floor.

I went around again. I coughed. An intense itching in my nose invaded my nostrils. I coughed again. The bed suddenly moved and a throat clearing just below me made me aware of where I was.

I blinked several times and felt my eyes watering. I rubbed them hard to try to wake up completely.

- Pero qué carajo está pasando aquí?! What's that smell?

My cellmate, a Mexican girl in her thirties, poked her disheveled head out of the lower bunk. She brushed her long dark hair away from her face and looked at me quizzically.

I coughed again, this time more forcefully as I breathed in that pungent, acidic odor.

The fire alarm began to sound throughout the room. I jumped out of bed like a spring and stuck my face to the bars, trying to see beyond the tiny cubicle. Apart from the white wall opposite, I couldn't make out anything unusual.

- Fire... - I whispered

A shouting of female voices was not long in coming. I looked up and saw smoke billowing through the ventilation ducts.

I heard the quick steps of a female prison officer who forced us to keep quiet by hitting the bars with her truncheon. No one paid any attention to her. Now I could not stop coughing as my lungs felt so short of fresh air. I put my hand to my mouth and felt tears sliding down my cheeks. The smell was suffocating.

- Is this a joke? - complained my partner, standing next to me with reddened eyes - are they trying to let us die here?! it would be good for the bastards! a group of prisoners in the Oregon prison die charred to death in their cells! - He grabbed the bars and pulled angrily - let us out!

I started to get dizzy. Everything was spinning...the smell, the screams, the shrill sound of the sirens...

Suddenly, the door to the cells in the corridor shifted to one side.

We were all taken out, there was no human loss to regret.

The west wing of the prison where we were held was not as fortunate. It would be a long time before they managed to clean up the mess, but we still had to serve our time.

The senior officials of Penitentiary Institutions were forced to make a decision. We would have to be transferred momentarily to another prison with sufficient capacity to house more people, and to avoid uprooting issues with families, it could not be far away.

I felt my heart leap out of my chest as I contemplated the imposing sand-colored walls appearing before my eyes. That building was impressive, like a fortress, but because of the situation I was in, I couldn't help but hate it from the first moment. I brought my face close to the glass and nervously scrambled over the hard seat of the bus that would drop me and thirty-five other women at their new destination. The sound of the gates of the entrance gate could be heard closing behind us.

The Fox River State Penitentiary in Illinois welcomed us.

Zira3000: I HAVE TRANSLATED MY ORIGINAL FANFIC IN SPANISH (JUGUETE ROTO), MY NATIVE LANGUAGE. I HOPE IT'S WELL UNDERSTOOD

I look forward to your reviews!