"This compound is now under full containment," the voice boomed out of 
the loudspeaker. I continued along the path through Forest Meadows 
Park where it felt like 10 degrees, the gravel crunching beneath my 
boots. "Any personnel attempting to leave the compound, including 
those found within the compound without authorization, will be 
terminated immediately" the voice boomed loudly.

I get to the barracks just past midnight and walk in to the main door. 
The guards are there. There's a bunch of guys standing around in 
uniforms, their faces covered by bandanas and ready to go on shift 
with a few people getting off shift. Without missing a beat I look to 
the officer that's working the front desk. He's a middle aged older 
guy with a beard and thick black hair. I notice at least two men 
talking to him. He nods to me and I continue on to the central area.

Grabbing a towel, I toss it over my shoulder and push past the 
officers. Walking in to the shower I take a seat in the corner to 
relax and let the water wash over me. It doesn't feel right to be 
lying down at a time like this but my head's full and pounding after a 
two day shift and I'm looking forward to a few hours of 
unconsciousness. Freshly cleaned, I make my way to my bunk.

I bunk with four of my teammates in a room with a chair. They're all 
standing around talking about playing some football in the middle of 
the night when I arrive. "Not me", I tell them, "I've made two runs 
around the compound and I'm beat." Still, I take a few minutes to walk 
outside with my teammates before going to bed. I can't sleep because 
my head feels like it's going to explode any minute but I can see my 
eyes glazed over. I tried a few different pills to bring some relief. 
It was hard because while they certainly helped not all of their side 
effects were worth the trouble.

"The perimeter has been breached," I heard the voice saying urgently 
over the radio. It felt as it my head had just hit the pillow but 
looking at the clock I see it had been about 5 hours. "The area has 
been secured. No movement within the vicinity." They were ordering me 
to report to Area 26. In my grogginess I thought it might be a drill, 
but quickly realized it wasn't.

I walked past four or five of the five guards stationed at the 
perimeter. It was a large steel fence, and when I reached it, I saw 
nothing but a red line going leading up to it. "What's going on?" I 
asked them. The guards stared at each other for a while before one 
eventually said "That was Rodrìguez sir. They drug him out through the 
fence." I felt the sting in my stomach. Rodrìguez was my best friend. 
We've known each other our whole lives. I had to be the one to tell 
his family.

--
Copyright (C) 2019 Jason Self <j@jxself.org>
You can redistribute and/or modify this under the terms of the GNU 
General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, 
either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later 
version.