I felt their silence cut through the noise of the crowd. Its ripples cascading over voices and laying them bare. The people stop moving. I got up to my feet. The people had stopped moving. They had formed a circle and I advanced towards the middle of it, pushing people, standing on my toes, reaching...

I saw my accomplice face down on the floor, three holes through his back. Through it, as the fabric tore outwards. The shots had to be fired at him from the front. The blood had stained the gray and was slowing its pace of spreading, altering its direction, and flowing on the floor. I shivered. I didn't even know his name. Someone stepped inside the circle. Corn silk hair, spectacles, female. She stood beside the body for a moment, and then kicked it. It didn't move. She shrugged and pushed her way back into the circle. Following her cue, the circle dispersed. It dispersed towards the huge double doors I hadn't noticed before. As I made my way towards it, I felt someone grab my arm. It was Walter. "You don't remember?" he asked. "I choose not to." I replied.

I seldom hide inchoate truths, you see.

We rode with the crowd out of the doors and into the sunlight as if the dead body of my 'amigo' didn't exist. Well, I didn't know his name. I didn't know his mind. And I believe that he was trying to kill me.

For the umpteenth time, my subconscious knocked my heart, sending shivers up through my skin and asked- 'What is this place?'

My heart was silent.

Something worth mentioning- these are private words and you should stop reading. And also, you need to shut up. You good with that? Shut up.

Let's continue.

Wait, wait, wait... 'Tick, tock, tick, tock...' You hear that?

That's my heartbeat.

The morning was crisp, calm, cold, clear, and clad in a smell of foreboding. The crowd was packed. I stood somewhere in the middle of it. The garden was large, and still... The crowd huddled together, shifting forward and outward. Then it stopped. And no sound was heard. As the silence of the winds dawned on me, I realized the crowd has its eyes closed and was mumbling to itself. Praying, most likely. And if you strain your ears, (you, of course, aren't here, so I'll tell you what I heard) you could hear-

...the rivers that quench your thirst,

Be the blood that flows through here,

And every soul that shrinks with dearth,

Rest upon the darkest lair,

Of this heart.

I almost expected to hear an 'amen' but as the crowd quiet-ened, a new voice boomed. "Men, woman and other little things, you may know of the killing of a subordinate due to no reason, whatsoever. This was done to show that your deaths are ignorant of the sentence. You things may disperse." I tried to see who was speaking, but as the crowd dispersed, the speaker had dispersed too. What he said made me feel that this was a prison for the heinous crime committers. Also, I think he used bad grammar.

You might be thinking that the protagonist usually stands in the front of the crowd. I take this occasion to tell you who I really am.

I'm _____________

And I'm the antagonist of my story.

Walter shook me by the shoulder, and I turned to face him. He looked panicky and awkward. "Here...take this..." he said and pulled out a knife from his trouser pocket (technically, they were pyjamas) and handed it to me, blade first. (Tell everyone around you that when a person offers you a knife, blade first, you're not in a safe place. And if you're alone, stop reading.) I sighed and pocketed it. "What?" he asked. "Something wrong?" I thought about how mornings should begin, and said no. Why I said so, I have no idea.

The knife bounced against my thigh as I walked on to who knows where. And the presence of a knife- especially a knife of unknown origins is not a comforting one.

The prison is strong, the prisoners stronger.

But there's a tamer of their minds. He bleeds and cures and breathes out life,

And stabs a knife from behind

When they aren't looking.

I shivered. Because those phrases felt awfully familiar.

People, who are used to walking alone, usually look at the ground when they're walking. This can be because they are someone who is an introvert but likes to be called observant. I looked up to see where I was heading. I was in an alley of sorts. It was basically the side of the 'manor of the poor'.

Ooh, I learned an awesome word- Quietus: Euphemism for death (based on an analogy between lying in a bed and in a tomb)

I looked in front of me.

It was the sea.