Ryena point of view
The storm had been building for weeks. You could taste it in the air—acrid like iron and heat. Smell it in the burnt-toast scent of friction, paranoia, tension between rival blocks. Even the guards felt it. Their boots clicked faster, harsher. Eyes stayed alert too long. Conversations between inmates turned from boredom to whispers. Whispered plans. Whispered rage.
That morning, I woke up not to the usual hollers or keys rattling down the hallway—but to a crash. The clang of metal against concrete, sharp and wrong, like a signal.
Seconds later, the alarm blared—a distorted howl that echoed down the entire corridor. Red emergency lights flashed in intervals, bleeding across the yellow-stained walls like veins in a dying animal.
Hili was already up. She moved fast, boots laced and chin up. Her jaw was locked tight, her movements clean and practiced.
"Something's going down," she muttered without looking at me. "Stay close. Keep your damn head down unless I tell you otherwise."
The electronic buzz of the cell doors sounded next.
They flung open.
Screaming. Rushing. Chaos.
It wasn't a riot yet—but it was becoming one.
We stepped out into the hallway and were instantly swallowed by a flood of inmates. Some were panicking, others whooping like it was a damn festival. But it wasn't celebration—it was fury let loose. Old wounds ripping open, scores being settled.
Guards shouted commands. Few obeyed.
We followed the current to the yard—where it had already started. Someone had set a blanket on fire and thrown it over a camera. Someone else hurled a tray like a discus. Plastic clattered and broke, but the yelling didn't stop.
A group from D-Block—gang tattoos, shaved heads, rage brimming at the edges—was flipping tables and throwing rocks ripped from the yard's edge. A guard tried to wade in with pepper spray, only to be tackled from behind.
"Don't get pulled in unless you mean to bleed," Hili said under her breath. Her fingers brushed my wrist. "If you have to hit someone—make sure they don't get up right after."
But fate, or maybe hell itself, had other plans.
Nyra appeared, sister of Carla.
Built like a linebacker, head shaved bald, eyes like cracked marble. She stalked through the chaos like it was hers. Already blood on her fists, a busted lip on her smirking face.
Her eyes locked onto Hili.
"Didn't think you'd come out, coward."
Hili didn't flinch. "Didn't think they'd let you off your leash."
Then Nyra's eyes turned to me. "And the little princess." She grinned, teeth yellow, "Heard you got your claws. What's next? You gonna cry me to death?"
My fingers curled. I should've stayed quiet.
But I didn't.
"Talk shit one more time and you'll be spitting teeth." I spatted and glared at her with malice
She laughed. "Oh, we got a comedian."
She moved to grab me—and I cracked the edge of a tray across her jaw.
The tray shattered.
She staggered.
That was all it took.
Boom.
Fists flew. Someone screamed. A lighter was flicked. A guard got socked. Smoke started rising near the gym wall.
I only remember flashes after that.
A girl shrieking as her dreadlocks caught fire. A stolen baton swinging wildly. The crush of bodies—sweaty, loud, frantic.
Me elbowing a guard to the ribs as he raised a taser.
Hili, bleeding from the temple, yanked me behind a flipped bench. "Breathe!" she barked. "You panic, you die."
But there was no time to breathe.
More guards flooded in—riot shields, batons, tasers.
Smoke made everything blur. My ears rang from the screaming. A boot slammed into my shoulder. I dropped to the ground, hard. A baton came down. I screamed. Hili reached for me—and they yanked her away.
My hands were zip-tied. My cheek pressed to gravel, lip split. The copper taste of blood filled my mouth.
They dragged me through the yard like garbage. I glimpsed Hiliana thrashing in another guard's hold. Her eyes found mine as she was pulled away.
And just like that—
We were separated.
They didn't take us to the infirmary. They didn't even book us. Solitary confinement. Four gray walls, no window. A flickering light that buzzed like it was laughing at me.
No food. No water. A rusty toilet and a piss-stained bucket.
I felt so alive in this place more than on my own home. I let out a soft chuckle, this place is my haven.
I think I slept. Maybe. Time didn't exist in there—just pain and silence. My knuckles were shredded. My ribs ached. My wrists were raw from the zip ties.
But it was my soul that refused to lie still.
They thought this would break us.
They had no idea.
Four days later, the door opened.
A tray of food. A weak, cold soup. A crust of bread.
I limped out with dead eyes—and fire in my blood.
Hili met me in the mess hall later that night. She looked worse than me. Her lip was stitched. One eye swollen. But her grin?
Unapologetic.
"Nyra's crew thinks we're done," she said, biting into her bread. "We're just getting started. We'll meet my crew to screw those bitches"
We didn't attack again.
We strategized.
Revenge wasn't a punch. It was psychological warfare.
We started planting things. A packet of stolen painkillers under one of Nyra's goons' bunks. Slid a message to the guards—anonymous. That girl was pulled out screaming. Taken to Admin. Never seen again.
We spread whispers. That Nyra had been working with the guards. That she'd ratted out the fight. The walls of prison are thin. Paranoia spreads faster than lice.
Then we faked a note—addressed to Nyra—from a guard. Hidden just enough for others to find.
By morning, three of her girls had stopped sitting with her.
By the end of the week?
Her entire table was empty.
We watched from across the yard as Nyra walked out alone.
A message—written in pig blood—was smeared on her cell door.
"SNITCHES GET SILENCE."
The guards didn't care.
They were scared too.
One night, Nyra lost it. Attacked a random girl in the laundry room. Screaming, crying. Begging someone to believe her.
Nobody did.
They dragged her back to solitary.
We never saw her again.
Hili and I sat on the bleachers that night, watching the clouds move across a sliver of moon.
"Think we went too far?" I asked quietly.
She passed me a pilfered orange from the kitchen. "You still breathing?"
I nodded.
"Then no."
We clinked plastic cups. Slop water. But it tasted like victory.
"I'm starting to like it here" I said with a soft smile. Hiliana just smile and chuckled.
"Welcome home" She said playfully
We weren't just surviving anymore. We were evolving. From victims into wolves. From wolves into warlords.
And behind every bar, under every shadow, we were building something bigger.
Something the system would never see coming.
Because you can cage a body.
But not a rebellion.
And we were just getting started.