Chapter 290 Prisoners in the Punishment Camp
When Matthew saw the sun again, at least a month had passed since the last time.
“Finally got out of that iron coffin alive!” Matthew thanked his father for his kindness to him, allowing him to survive instead of suffocating to death in the metal cabin.
But soon, the pain from the whip on his back brought him back to his senses. He did not dare to stay any longer, and continued to drag the shackles forward with the large army.
Matthew is a prisoner in a punishment camp. He has just arrived in the north after taking a month-long boat trip from the mainland of the empire.
Within a month and the harsh living conditions in the cabin, only more than 80 of the original 100 people in their group died, and the mortality rate has exceeded 15%.
But for Matthew and the other prisoners, this is just the beginning of their miserable lives.
Their sentence lasted three full years, and now they are embarking on the northern border with anxiety and uneasiness, as well as fear of the future. They don't know what the future will be like.
Or they will die in some unknown way.
"I heard that the winter in the north is so cold that it can freeze your jaw off. Even if you pee, you have to bring a stick with you to prevent the urine from freezing too quickly and freezing the words!" A prisoner was saying this! Share the news you heard with others.
Hearing his words, other people couldn't help but show horrified looks. Some people said worriedly: "We won't freeze to death like this, right?"
"It's possible that you will die of exhaustion before you survive the winter. Don’t forget that we have been incorporated into a punishment camp, and you came to the north to work as a coolie! Instead of thinking about whether you will freeze to death in the winter, think about how to survive into the winter!” Obviously someone sees it more clearly, and at the same time, Full of despair about their future lives.
After all, the empire is not a human being, but animals are anthropomorphic compared to it.
It’s no big deal that a few prisoners have been exhausted to death.
In other words, if the empire really cared about their lives, it would not let one-tenth of their people die on the ship.
Therefore, it is very easy to understand that these prisoners are desperate for the future.
Compared with others, Matthew's mentality is relatively more stable. He does not despair about the future, but has given up.
The reason is also very simple, because Matthew was one of the first batch of prisoners thrown into the punishment camp. He even knew why there was a punishment camp and was even involved in the original tavern incident.
At that time, Matthew was in the tavern where drunkards attacked Perfectcourt, and saw with his own eyes how those drunkards attacked the seemingly harmless aristocratic lady, which led to the entire Langton gang. The whole process was ruined by the elements.
But Matthew was lucky at that time. When Befa started to kill people, he was frightened and woke up, so he was so timid that he ran away through the window and ran away.
Because of this, he was not locked up in that tavern by Purficott, nor was he immediately thrown into a punishment camp by the Guards and City Guards. He had to build his own prison.
But his good luck ended here. After a joint operation between the Langton City Guards and the police, a large number of gang members were cleared and thrown into punishment camps, and Matthew was naturally one of them.
After spending several months in jail, Matthew originally thought that would be the end of it. If he was lucky, he might be able to get out if he stayed in jail for a while longer.
After all, offending a noble is a big or small matter. Since he was not beaten to death on the spot, it is probably the same thing afterwards.
Even if it doesn't work, you can still try to jailbreak. Everyone knows about Langton's prison. If you really want to jailbreak, there are many ways.
Especially the prison where they were imprisoned was newly built, so it is normal for some areas to be imperfect and have loopholes.
But... Matthew soon discovered that he was too naive. It is true that prisons are very easy to escape from, but once the escape is discovered, what awaits you will be the cruelest punishment. You will be strung alive on a pole, and then die of pain.
Note that the "piercing" here does not mean being pierced at once, but applying lubricant to the bar and then inserting it from your back, allowing yourself to be pierced by your own weight. Slide down while driving the bar deeper and deeper into your body.
In the end, when the stick came out of the prisoner's mouth, the execution was over, even though the person had died of pain long before that.
The body will not be taken down immediately, but will remain in place for a period of time, so that other prisoners will be frightened and will not dare to escape again.
I have to say that this kind of horrific execution is very effective. After all, if you stay in jail, you may not die, but if you run away... you will be stuck.
Then they were taken out of the prison, shackled and put on a freighter heading to the north. After spending nearly a month in the cargo hold, where life was worse than death and they never saw the light of day, they Finally arrived in the north.
At the expense of one tenth of the people who died.
You must know that along the way, the cabin of the cargo ship that carried them had never been opened. The bodies of the dead people had been staying with them, and they rotted and stinked as the voyage continued.
Of course, corpses usually don't wait until they rot and stink.
Due to the lack of food along the way, the corpse usually disappears before it rots and smells. As for where it disappears...
So for Matthew, the hope of living is so How could he not despair and give up if it was so uncertain?
But even so, life still has to go on. In other words, it is better to die than to live. As long as you don't die, it is better to die like this.
Making heavy steps and letting the shackles under his feet make a harsh sound on the ground, Matthew moved his body forward.
He didn't know where he was going, but at least he knew he was alive now, and that was enough.
As for freedom? Now Matthew no longer has extravagant hopes.
Although he also knew that the sentence he was sentenced to was only three years, but he wanted to live for three years in this environment where he was not treated as a human being at all? Matthew didn't think his life could be that hard.
Especially since they came to the North as criminal prisoners in the punishment camp, they obviously came to work, not to be bosses.
In a sense, they are used as disposable tools.
Now, Matthew just hopes that the people in the north who use their tools can "care" a little more and not wear them out so quickly.
This is just the humblest luxury wish of a person who wants to live, but in a sense, this is indeed a luxury wish.
After three days and two nights of marching on foot, the prisoners finally arrived at their destination, a place under construction, after several more people died and their feet were bruised and bloody. settlements among them.
And this will be where Matthew and the others will work for the next period of time.
(End of this chapter)