Prison

-Come on!- he whispered from the top of the wall. 

Anne looked up at him, the wall was not even two meters high at that point, it was feasible, yet she hesitated. 

-Anne, don't chicken out now.- Rick insisted. 

She looked up again and started climbing the wall, halfway Rick grabbed her by the hand and dragged her up. In front of them the abandoned prison gleamed under the moonlight. The barbed wired looked silvery on top of the buildings, the rusty bars black against the cracked windows. The shadows of weeds could be seen sprouting everywhere as the building decayed. Between them and the complex there was a wire fence, there were several holes on it where people had snuck in before them. Rick jumped off the wall into the soft earth beneath it and waited for Anne to get down. 

-Are you sure there are no guards?- she asked him. 

-Yes! Don't worry. 

He lead her towards the fence and held the wire open for her to pass, it let out a rusty whine as it moved. The stretch between the wire fence and the prison was unevenly paved, with some trees starting to sprout from the holes, recovering the natural order. A cloud covered the moon, leaving them in the dark. 

-Be careful.-Rick told Anne. 

However, she moved easily trough the rough terrain, in a beeline towards the main gate of the prison. The gate was large, five meter high and three meter wide, its doors were of reinforced iron, fifty centimeters thick, and one of them lay down on the floor unhinged by the rust. The tunnel went all the way into a small courtyard with marked parking spaces, a pickup truck with deflated tyres had been left there in the haste. Anne looked up, cracked windows stared down at her, it was the administration building, the smallest one, only five-story tall. 

-That's where the offices were, and where the officials slept sometimes.-Rick explained.-Come, let's go this way. 

Rick had already been several times inside the prison, it was the first time for Anne, however, and she had been the one who had insisted on going, she needed to see it with her own eyes. Rick turned the flashlight and opened yet another rusty door to a windowless corridor. It stretched for a hundred meters, going from the administration building to the main prison building. They couldn't see it, but above them two twenty meter-high wire fences topped by meters of coiled barbed wire. At the end of the corridor another metallic door stood ajar. Rick pushed it open with his shoulder. 

-Where do you want to go?-he asked Anne. 

-Solitaire.-she said determined. 

-Are you sure?-Rick replied hesitantly. 

Anne simply nodded and signed him to continue. They walked through empty corridors, the doors of the cells wide open showing the carcasses of the bunk beds. Here and there there were empty beer cans and glass bottles that shone under the beam of light. Inside one of the cells there was a mattress that had clearly been smuggled in, some empty condom packages made it clear what had been its purpose. They kept walking until they found a flight of stairs, they were worn out on the way up, after thousands of feet had walked up and down, on the way down they were covered with dust and litter. They went down to the basement. The corridor was narrower than the one upstairs and two iron gates guarded the entrance, the doors of the cells were all closed and they had to pull hard until they found one that would open. The cell behind it was minuscule, the ceiling was barely one meter and a half tall, forcing them to crouch, a small wooden board was by the left wall functioning as a bed, a hole on the floor was the bathroom, and a small blinded out window was there to mock the prisoners on how they were not allowed to see the sunlight. Anne sat on the board, silent. Rick stood by the door, staring worriedly at her, her face was blank, but her eyes showed how she was suffering. He said nothing, however. 

-Turn off the flashlight.-she ordered, her eyes fixed on a point in the floor in front of her. 

He obliged without complaining. Rick could hear her moving on the board, and for the noise she had laid down on the bed. She remained in silence for a while before getting off and pacing around the cell. 

-Now take me to the cemetery.-she said, clutching his arm. 

Rick turned on the flashlight again, they went up the stairs and towards the other side of the building through the empty corridors. The outer wall had crumbled on one point, leaving a hole that opened into a grass covered lawn. There were no markings, not a single headstone or cross, the only thing that marked it as a graveyard were the bones sprouting from the floor. Anne kneeled and grabbed a handful of dirt. She let it slip through her fingers. 

-My grandfather is in this earth.-she said.-He went through all this just because he wanted to make the world a better place. A better place for him, for his family, for everyone. How many of the people who are buried here were killed for doing the right thing? 

Rick kneeled beside her and hugged her. There was nothing he could say, no words could explain the horror.