the future we (fear).

I really built the perfect prison, didn't I?

Leon Roswald took a long drag on the single cigarette he'd been allowed for the day.

With no windows or light to tell the time, and solid walls that blocked outside noises, he was trapped within the cage of his own mind well before the physical barrier that blocked his escape.

It would have been easy, perhaps even a relief, to allow himself to slip over the edge of madness; to drift away on the currents of grief and misery, and become a mere husk of his former self.

Some small part of his soul, growing larger by the day, just wanted to curl up on the thin mattress and forget about it all—the past that he'd endured, the sins he'd shouldered, the future he'd built with bloodied hands.

Perhaps this is justice.