(North Wing)
     

Warden Protacio locked eyes with one of his guards. The man whom he recruited to be a part of the maximum-security prison gazed back at him with a grin on his face, his betrayal evident by the two convicts who stood beside him. The warden let his eyes drop from the guard towards the floor. The smell of blood had been evident from the moment he entered the North wing proper. And his suspicion of bloodshed was confirmed when beneath the guard he trusted, lay another man wearing the same uniform as the one standing beside it. Bloodstained his once sky blue shirt, the baton and riffle that was a symbol of his status inside the prison walls, were scattered beside him. The black shoes that his wife must have polished well before that day, were drenched in a crimson fluid. His opened eyes, lifeless and blank stared back at the warden, and it gave Protacio's heart a painful prick.
     
A curse escaped Protacio's mouth before he screamed, "You son of a bitch!" as he took out the 45 calibre revolver from the holster hanging on his waist. He aimed at the guard, but before he could pull the trigger, a painful jab on his left cheek, sent him stumbling to the floor. Disoriented, the warden looked up at his attacker; horror and shock contorted his face as his eyes befell on a man wearing the same uniform that the old warden was so proud to have worn in the past thirty-five years.
     
"Demitri, why?" the warden asked, but his question was left unanswered as a kick on his temple took him out of consciousness.
     
After the warden's body was pulled to a corner, the man named Demitri, pushed on the red button that controlled the wall separating the hallway and the enclosure where all the notorious criminal cells were erected. The iron-made wall immediately moved upwards, along with the simultaneous click of the individual locks of all the cells inside the North wing.
                                                                              ***

(South Wing)
     
Harold was the first to step inside the south wing proper. He expected to hear gunshots and cries, but weirdly enough, the entire place was silent. "What in God's name...” his words were cut short when another gunshot was fired. The sound though, he immediately realized to have originated in the North of the prison building.
     
Mark and Sheldon, who were falling a step behind their senior, also had their necks craned towards the sound's origin. "We got the wrong wing!" Harold screamed as his feet took flight. The rest immediately followed with the trigger lock of their firearms free and ready for discharge. The four-man team who kept a good amount of pace to reach the North wing immediately stopped dead on their tracks, when several fallen guards lay lifeless, scattered from one corridor to another, blocking their wake.
     
"What the hell is happening!" Sheldon screamed.
       
Harold felt his heart rumble inside his chest, while Mark finally understood the foreboding feeling that had plagued him hours ago.
     
The senior guard was about to ask his companions to continue running forward, when an injured guard appeared, limping towards them.
     
"They got us; outsiders have infiltrated the prison walls. Fall back, fall back!" he screamed to them before his head exploded after a deafening gunshot.
     
Harold and his team immediately turned to their heel, running away from the North wing's direction.
     
When the four of them got a good distance from the North wing, Harold stopped and looked back at the hallway they came from. The others weren't sure what was running through his mind, but he shook his head, gave his gun to Sheldon, who at that time was unarmed, and turned to face Mark.
     
"Mark, take them to the warden's office and radio for backup, I don't think this is a simple jailbreak! Harold yelled to them while turning— running back towards the North wing's direction.
     
"What the hell are you doing? " Sheldon screamed from behind him, but the senior guard didn't bother to look back. His visage disappeared after taking a curve towards the next hallway.
     
Harold Sarmiento may not have valued a lot of things in his life, but there was no way he would turn his back on the prison, the guards, and any person who was a part of the San Fernando Correctional. Running from the prisoners might have been a better decision since he could tell for a fact, that they were outnumbered, and despite the logic that kept telling him, the prison walls were made to be impenetrable by outside forces, or impossibly guarded to have an inmate escape, there was no doubt in his mind that their beloved prison had truly fallen, but how?
                                                                              ***

(North Wing)
     
It didn't take long for Protacio to regain consciousness, and when he did, he found himself with both arms tied behind his back, his ankles cuffed on an iron bar that constituted one of the prison cells. His eyes lingered around the entirety of his surroundings. He saw all the former jailed men running in different directions, trying to find a way out. The warden snickered before whispering, "You can't outsmart me."
     
Fifteen minutes before the warden entered the North wing proper, he had pulled down the panic lever, sending the entire prison into a lockdown. Windows, doors, and any opening that may lead to the outside had automatically been blocked by a twenty-inch thick metal barrier, which was made as a last resort to prevent any attempt of escape. It was a secret yet integral part of the San Fernando Correctional construction that was only known by the warden and the Higher-ups.
     
An escape by bribing a prison guard had been taken into consideration by the engineers and founders of the prison building. They have deemed that the presence of a lockdown mechanism, be kept unknown by the guards and other employees aside from the warden, and that was what truly kept the prison safe since 1980. They did not call it a ground-breaking maximum-security prison for nothing.
     
Warden Protacio kept the grin on his face as Demitri and Farlow, both guards whom he had trusted and believed to have been good men, walked up to him. Demitri crouched down in front of the warden and without warning, slapped the bound man.
     
"What have you done, tell us how to get out of here?" he yelled.
       
Warden Protacio only gave a smile in response, and the action angered the guard further. Using a baton, Demitri hit the warden's left leg. The assault immediately sent the old warden squirming. Another hit landed on the old man's right leg, and that elicited a scream.
      
"Tell us how to get out of here!" Demitri asked again, but the warden answered him with a smile, yet again.
      
"Don't make us hurt you any further than this Protacio," suggested a familiar voice.
      
The warden shifted his gaze to the stoic face of Farlow. The man whom he interviewed personally worked as a guard inside the North Wing. A man whom he, for years believed to have the nerves of steel but with a compassionate heart.
      
Instead of answering, Protacio gave Farlow's question a question. "Why are you doing this, where had your pride gone, or did your pride have a price from the start?"
      
Farlow crouched down, gazed at the warden, and kept his eyes on him; with his jaw clenched, he answered the warden with, "What made you think I'm doing this for money or freely?"
      
There came a pregnant silence between them before a man, whom the warden knew to have been named matador by his co-inmate, made his way to them.
      
"Oscar wants the two of you in the East Wing," the man said to both guards. The warden felt his heart jump when both men stood from their position and left, leaving the matador gazing at him—fingers curling on the machete that he held in his left hand.
      
Warden Protacio had one thing on his mind as the man approached him with the machete raised above his head and ready to sheath itself on his skull, that was, I wish I could have one more stick of cigarette.
      
A few seconds have passed, yet the strike that Protacio expected to come never came. He opened one of his eyes to see why he wasn't floating in the air, dancing with angels, and may be blessed with a never-ending pack of cigarettes.
     
What greeted Protacio was the wounded but still-standing body of Harold Sarmiento.    
    
"Stop staring like I'm your lover!" scoffed the injured man at the warden.
     
Protacio smiled and answered, "You're the worst lover anyone could ever have."
     
Both men smiled, and as Protacio's eyes swivelled inside the North wing's cell area, he realized all the prisoners were gone.
     
"Where are they?" the warden asked as Harold undid the binds on his arm. "Scattered," Harold replied.
     
"We're in deep shit aren't we?" the warden questioned when his companion finally freed him from all his restraints.
     
"Yup!" came the only reply of Harold Sarmiento, before he fell to his knees, shaking and losing consciousness due to the amount of blood he had lost.