The Death Toast

Welcome to Boorbunk: The ArenaThe prison guard was present now, loitering around the hallway with his lead block dragging on the ground behind him, staring grisly at the inmates locked up in their different tiny cell rooms. Just like the rest of the prison guards, they have overtime developed pleasure in watching fear written on the faces of the prisoners; a masochistic affair. He glanced over to the cell numbered ninety that housed one of the men who had recently been held there for the death of the country’s minister of defence. The next four cells in a row contained the rest of the four killers, all looking scared and seemed to be losing their minds, just as he liked it. They had only been here for one week and were not yet adapted to the horror that the crazy hellish place had in store for them. They had only experienced the miserable game of The Death Toast once and were still coping with the shock, looking forward to what evil this place held beyond the iron bars.It was block

The slant crossThe last words of Peter kept coming back to the brain of Dale and it was shouting out in his head now that they were here in a hall; a different hall, a wider hall with about a thousand people dressed in the same orange prison uniform that he was wearing and even more guards dressed in tough soldier uniform and with a full panoply like people working in a gas chamber. All the prisoners were part of long rows and columns from the back of the room down to the middle of the room, well spaced-out and as organised as queues could get. There was entire decorum in the hall, no single sound in the room from anyone; all the prisoners placed their hands behind them and faced their front, not daring to look at the terrifying armed guardsmen with powerfully automated rifles facing them at the opposite walls that bordered the room. There were twelve officers in the front of the room staring at them with undecipherable dangerous eyeballs. Dale looked beyond the men who were about to

The only whistle they heard the next day was that of their awakening. There would be no need for any other orders. They rushed up to their diner, making full use of their opportunity, laughing on top of their voices. They were all talking to Tristan who had told them some jokes the night before and now that the day had been declared free, he was sure to tell them more. It seemed like the first impression of Tristan was lasting longer. Although it was completely approved by every member of The Humour Sect that Pierson was quite the funnier of the two; in the Boorbunk bay, the laugh was louder for Tristan’s puns.Now, they were all in the diner sitting as they usually did. Dale, Pierson and Michael on the same row with Barry and Tristan facing them and then Peter, and there were a lot of more people sitting around with The Humour Sect.They were still murmurings everywhere when Tristan spoke. ‘Hey, everybody!’. Silence. ‘Take a look at your food, it looks good right?’. Everyone murmured

He was seeing it again and this time with enough clarity which was only a plus to the nightmare. It was as if he was standing in a distance watching his helpless twelve-year old self. The man were circling around him in the centre of the road, with guns in hand, only one had an hammer in hand. Everything had rushed him all at once as he was sleeping now, like a spear in his head.He was shaking, struggling to come out of it but his eyes were still close. He was vibrating and so was the metal he was lying on with his teeth out, groaning mildly, willing to burst out.The men circling, the cold touch of the man on his head, the inky-black of the hammer’s head brimming in the moonlight. Everything rushed in at once yet again another really merciless pierce. His hands were clinging hard on his wrapper and he was shaking even more, the ever-increasing sound of the steel bed said it all.The man had put off his mask… gave him the scariest smile he had ever been hit with in his life…positione

The Humour Sect had been formed seven years earlier, when they were all still younger. Dale was still fifteen, Pierson was eighteen, Tristan was twenty, Michael was twenty-two and Barry was twenty-three and the tale of them meeting could only be a matter of destiny. Fate.Michael had started the performances in a tavern along Crawdown during the nights, singing the most popular rock songs in a different, more eccentric way that entertained the customers. He was only seventeen and he had just left high school. It was his first job and he had dabbled into it not as a hobby but as a result of necessity, for survival, to be able to breathe above the murky waters of poverty that his family suffered from. He earned twenty-five Dexter groats per night and some other nights when there were more people, they dropped more money and he earned a peak of fifty Dexter dollars. His childhood friend, Barry who was working menially at a soap factory left and soon joined Michael in the business.Barry