“Guilty.”

To punctuate his decision, the graying judge took his gavel and struck the woodblock before him. Before me. I felt the beat of his mallet in my ears and his declaration as though my chest had been under the downswing of his wrist. Both sounds resided inside me long after the echo stopped carrying across the courtroom. Latching on to me as they should, for it was I who they had been intended. It was me they labeled.

Only after a pause could I breathe again. It was an obvious ruling when there was not a soul on my side. No lawyers nor witnesses. All they gave me was a biased questioning and a podium to stand at, then the already evident verdict.

In the record time of several hours, I’d been arrested, isolated in a dingy cell, and disposed of here. Because it’d been the dead of night when they took me in, I assumed it was dark out even now. The scheduling was odd: did they have a judge on standby like a first responder? Was I voted such a menace that it required some shotgun trial? Was this just...it? My knowledge of legal proceedings was slim, or, more accurately, nonexistent. If there was a way to spin something, anything about the circumstances in my favor I was lost on how. It was an unspoken kind of taboo to be curious about law outside of your station, as though knowledge of criminal case proceedings acted as a herald to conviction. Obviously untrue, for here I was after having dabbled in a number of taboos, save this particularly vapid one. My ignorance afforded me no protection in the end. Not that I believed it would have spared me either when I wasn’t allowed a chance moment to explain myself.

Without an audience to fill out its circumference, the barren court amplified the voices of those determining my position for me. My parents weren’t present to see the outcome for their youngest. I wasn’t sure if they weren’t allowed an invite, but I doubted they’d give it the time of day had they. It was too soon to wonder if I’d seen them for the last time and too unimportant to me to care either way. With the absences accounted for, that left five figures in all. Them being I, the judge, a clerk cataloging the hearing, an officer at the door, and a young man at the podium to my side. His face was askew in disbelief and highlighted by a distressed stupor. Reasonably so, we were being tried in unison. The judgment had fallen as much on him as me.

I’d ballpark he was in his early twenties and a few years older than I was. Hair dyed a white blond with roots untouched, he wore dark clothes of equal fashionable and professional design. From the outside, he’d appear to be my lawyer: tall, impeccable posture, groomed as though he’d get away on good physical presentation. A neatly wrapped package. A child whose mother must be proud. One would assume he was more suited for a job in law than that of a convict. If only it wasn’t for lack of guts that is, cowering where he stood, knobby knees knocking on the wood stand. In all my appraisals, I couldn’t recall his name, I wasn’t sure I’d even caught it in the first place. If I had, I don’t think I’d be at fault for letting it slip overlooked between more pressing recent remarks.

“It is hereby the judgment and sentence of the court that the perpetrators: Paige Mercier and Jay Patel...”

-Ah, there it was.

“...Be sentenced to rehabilitation at Inertia Correctional Facility.”

I went stiff, trying not to give any obvious feedback to the three remaining people who would see it. My hands clenched into sweaty fists at my sides. I forced paced inhales as the blood in my body pooled at my feet. I did my utmost to digest what was essentially the end of my brief life without retching on the farewell. I felt like I was drowning in the bile.

The other, or rather, Jay, dropped his elbows on his podium with a thump and buried his face in his hands. An appropriate response, I’d give him that. 

Inertia Correctional Facility’s “Once we get you on the right path, you won’t stop traveling it!” disarming slogan rang. Little knowledge was available about it to the world outside, but that weaved enough an image in itself of its essence. For one, “correctional facility” was something of a misnomer. All who entered spent much of their life within, so either their program was faulty or they weren’t making any attempts toward their stated goals. The facility did release people at the age of sixty, but not as you'd expect, for they were often rehomed in other caged communities. Nursing homes with too many locks or psychiatric wards with too much privacy. Less distant and coated in secrecy than Inertia, but still under restraints. Still gagging mouths who could share their experiences. Therefore, it was a well-guarded secret in detail, however, established Hell in common knowledge. I was up next to decipher its mystery. Probably burn a little as well.

While I remained in one piece, beside me the porcelain of a human shattered under the damnation of the gavel. He repressed his cries, but I heard them grow and wane. He clutched his neat hair into a mess, slipping further down against the podium in deeper recognition of his fate. Pathetic was the first word that came to mind, even though I knew that could have been my answer as well. Despairing over a punishment I had done nothing to receive. Banished out without warning. But that wasn’t I, and it never would be. I’d made a decision, a “mistake”, and was caught. My hands were red when they were cuffed, but he was different. 

Jay was innocent.