HAVENS

"GET YOUR LUNCH AND SIT DOWN!" A guard reminds a particular rowdy inmate at the Fowler Penitentiary in Tallahassee Florida. In line are creatures of different vices and no matter where they have been or where they came from, they were here together.

A young looking, frail man sat at a table with no lunch for the third time this week.

"You have to eat, man." Another inmate whispered to him, seemingly concerned for this young man's health. "Your eyes are baggy, I'd bet your ribs are showing."

"Why don't you shut the fuck up?" The inmate barks back.

"The fuck you say, man?" The concerned inmate abandons sympathy in lieu of a new found anger. "You so hungry you must not be thinking right, man."

"You heard me, 'MAN" The inmate mocks him, even going as far as making a smug face to make matters worse.

"You know what? You livin' in a glass house!" The other inmate stands up and smacks the skinny prisoner on his head. It prompts the young man to stand up, revealing his lankiness moreso, and spits in the man's face.

"Now, you're fucking dead!" The man says, wiping the saliva off his forehead.

"KNOCK IT OFF!" A guard nearby startles the men before approaching the spitting inmate and grabs him by his thin arm. "That's it, Havens."

"What the fuck!" the lanky inmate is outraged, trying to fight the guard but he has little to no strength from his food strike.

"You've been warned." The guard informs him, pulling him from the table and out into the prison hall. "You know where you're going for the rest of the day?"

"The hole." The lanky man now mocks the guard. The guard lets him go, staring at him for a moment after his snarky comment before jabbing him in the chest. The inmate gasps as the guard reapplies his grip to his underarm and pulls him down the hall towards solitary confinement.

Secretly, this is what this man wanted. He wasn't on a food strike, really. He had no appetite and his anxiety was through the roof because this is no way for an affluent male to be treated. He had never felt true desperation before being locked up here with these "other animals." and he wasn't an idiot. He had been pushing guard's buttons for days hoping that just maybe one would throw him into solitary so he wouldn't have to worry about being someone else's prison food, and his plan had worked.

As the inmate fell to the cold, damp floor of "the hole", he tried his hardest not to laugh out loud because, in his mind, he had outsmarted them all.

He waited for a moment and then he couldn't contain his joy any longer. He lets out a lucid chuckle in the midst of near pure darkness, happy to be one step ahead of everyone else when suddenly...

"Don't scream." A voice breaks his celebration from behind.

"What the..." The startled skinny inmate twists and backs himself against the wall. "This is supposed to be solitary!"

"Yes." A deep, well pronounced voice calmly responds.

"So, why are you here!" The trembling, nervous inmate tries to back himself through the stone wall, but he's as far as he can escape.

The man doesn't answer. He steps forward into the little light provided by the florescent bulb emitting from the square window on the locked metal door. The young inmate's eyes squeeze to make out the features but only a towering shadow gravitates towards him.

"Do you know who I am?" The shadow asks, seeming to float as a gliding spirit through the darkness.

"Should I?" The inmate's voice cracks as the shadow man stops before him, looking down from above as the inmate's heart begins to beat out of his chest.

"No." The dark figure responds, "But I know you."

"Is this because of what I did... In Vegas?" The inmate becomes his inner child, beginning to weep.

"No." The figure once again responds, "Killing an infant behind the wheel... drunk. Although, your sins have finally found the light. I am here on behalf of the dark."

"What!? Look, who the fuck are you! What is this!" The inmate bursts out, frustrated from how powerless he has constantly felt since his world has come crashing down after a life of privilege and entitlement.

"Is this because of Danny Starr?" The inmate whimpers, "Did he send you? Is this some kind of... payback for failing his stupid wrestling event? It's JUST WRESTLING!"

"Corwin." The tall dark shadow places his gloved right hand on his shoulder. "Do you know why we have chosen professional wrestling organizations to infiltrate, rather than say, any other institution?"

"What?" The inmate named Corwin is confused.

"It's because of the violence." The man says, "They are athletes that could have excelled in any physically demanding sport of aggressive competition like football or even mat wrestling but they gravitated towards Professional Wrestling... and do you know why?"

"Wh-Why?" Corwin feels his shoulder inside the strong, overbearing grip of this dark man's right hand.

"The violent nature that they've chosen to craft." The man answers, "A free pass to inflict violent aggression on another human being. The lust of the scandedly clad women baring their flesh to quench the thirst of those that desire, the danger... the drama... the animal inside of each and every one of us is free to flourish with no consequences."

Corwin buckles under the man's tight squeezing right hand as his back is pinned to the wall, forced to hear this stranger's thoughts.

"A perfect breeding ground for those who are ready to pledge themselves." The shadow says.

Corwin's pain takes a backseat to his clarity. His eyes widen as the man's right hand and it's excruciating presence fades at the sight of his lifted left hand. A familiar gesture... and suddenly, Corwin Havens realizes that this wasn't Danny Starr's vengeance... or his sins catching up with him.

"Please, God." Corwin tries to repent but is given little time before the dark figure's left hand squeezes his throat enough to snap it in a single flex. As Corwin's head hangs lifeless over the man's left hand glove, his body's weight is free to fall.

The man steps back from Corwin Haven's lifeless corpse and he fades back into the abyss that he had crept from.