Andrea
◆ "Listen." A bewildered chuckle flowed from his lips. "I was so distracted by how mid the food is that I just didn't even notice you here, mate. Fuck... My bad."

□ Not the cleanest of first impressions, but did they even matter in a laissez-faire prison like Newton's Cradle? Could this place have even reasonably been called a prison? It was seemingly more for reform rather than punishment, and while Silas recognized that, yes, this was a good thing, it begged the question of what kind of establishment this place technically was. Sure, the food was dog shit, but other than that life was surprisingly normal and peaceful, save for the occasional napalm incident or stabbing somewhere on site.

▪︎ Maybe that'd be his next project... Liquid napalm. 

◆ "Huh...? Wait. Coke? Like, snow? Jesus, mate, that's... That's hard." Now *There* Was the reason that something about the plainly-dressed girl across from him was off-putting: she was a coke trafficker. "How'd you even end up in that spot? Must be a legendary series of left turns, that's for sure."
Marie
"Food's... Slightly above average. I've been held in an Italian holding cell for a dew days and let me tell you the soup was God-awful I began asking myself why'd I even eat it. The rest... Were meh, I guess."

If this was indeed a prison, then was it an experiment on a new approach of reform? Because the fact that she had internet, a personal room, freedom to go outside, a LOT of amnities, this was something else.

"Yeah, whatever you call it, I got caught shipping two kilos' worth of the stuff." She took another bite, her eyes matching his eye level as she ducked down to take a bite, her food almost decimated at this point. "The camorra pays be two hundred euros for a days worth, and it's like... Five packages overall. Fifty or forty each package, just by walking around my town? Of course I'd take it, my family's income is stable but lacking."

They had a home to their name, but it was passed down. Their jobs' income mostly went to taxes and bills, food becoming sligly scarce or low quality. Their home's furniture were slightly worn, the bed creaking after fifteen years' worth of service. It was her choice. Not an unfortunate series of events, and she knew damn well she would take that chance again.

"How'd you even manage to keep a whole city up anyways? You got loudspeakers tied to a scooter or something?"
Andrea
◆ "Aye, fair."

□ Now, he could have prodded more, but what would the point have been? To make this chick, this coke trafficker, recount her time in Italian prison for smuggling snow from door to door like DoorDash? Rather than inquire he simply dug into the food, a plate of IKEA-standard Swedish meatballs and accoutrements, starting with the broccoli since he'd always liked the raw stuff. Occasionally, though, he looked up, his cheeks bulged with food like a chipmunk, at this Italian girl who was justifying her descent into the sordid world of narcotics and organized crime, and he couldn't help but feel bad.

▪︎ After all, she'd just been attempting to help her family. There was nothing wrong with that, even if the means were admittedly shaky.

"I mean, shit, good money, but... Was it worth it? Probably, right? Family's everything to you Italians. Anyways..." A few moments passed as he, with an awkward motion, scooped lingonberry jam and potatoes together and sucked the mixture off the tines of his fork. "Watch this." From this point, all the other girl would see would be a deliberate set of lip motions, and a couple of seconds later the entire room would be engulfed in the sound of his voice, so loud that it sounded as if someone was in the center of the room with a jackhammer.

• What did the voice say?

○ **"WALKING MEGAPHONE, MOTHERFUCKER! THIS IS HOW I KEPT 'EM UP!"**
Marie
As Margarita ate deliberately slowly, putting a just amount of food onto her spoon and enjoying the food as it was intended to be, her acquaintance was the complete opposite. His cheeks bulged like a damn squirrel, hastily scoffing down the food like there was no more time then letting it sit in his mouth. She wanted to genuinely tell him to slow it down, but who was she to stop someone from enjoying food at their own pace?

"Was it worth it- *Certo* (`of course`)!" She took only a spoonful of the mashed potato as she intended to leave the best, the meatballs of course, for last. "I'd do it again and again for years! Eight hours' worth of work in a minimum wage job is... What, sixty-five Euros? Shit I'm getting triple that for handling coke!"

"That's what I've been thought, sì." Finishing the mashed potato with barely a trace of it left on the plate, her fork stabbed the meatball and brought it near her mouth. "Family over everything, and I agree to it a lot. I'd give everything and risk everything for *Mia mamma e mio papà* (`my mom and my dad`), and I'd even give beyond that if I need to."

"Eh? Watch what-

Her fork and meatball dropped back onto the cream-coloured melamine plate and leftover lingonberry jam as the voice pierced her ears, the sentence barely audible to her, not because her hands instinctively covered her ears, but because the noise was so goddamned loud she felt like her fucking deardrums exploded, and it hurt like hell.

"*Gesù Cristo* (`Jesus Christ`) WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR YOU IMBECILE?!"

All eyes were at the boy and his acquantance sat in front of him, far more annoyed compared to everyone else within the cafeteria who were spared the mercy of their ears getting shattered.
Andrea
◆ "Hah, a demonstration, that's why!" Nearly doubled over laughing, he wasn't aware of all the pained, annoyed eyes digging into his back. "You should've seen your fa-hay-haaace! Like ol' Phineas Gage, christ almighty!..."

□ Maybe it was rude to be laughing at someone else's pain, but at the same time something in him shifted. Maybe it was *Schadenfreude,* Or just plain latent *Sadism*, but the image of the girl's face contorting into a pure image of shock and pain was temporarily burnt into his mind's eye, as if it were a CRT left on over the family vacation to Cuba. Whatever the case, after a few good moments of laughter he began to gasp for air lightly, and once he found his breath he began to settle down, shoulders still bouncing with stifled chuckles as tears flowed down his cheeks and abs clawed their way out of nothingness.

▪︎ By now, roughly forty five seconds had passed.

◆ "Hoo... Anyways, fuck, where were we...?" Snapping fingers punctuated the air, still and tense as, without Silas' knowledge, someone was approaching to confront him. "Yeah, coke and family. Coke and... Fuck, my dad would call that the same thing. He's Mexican, lots of coke on both ends, lots of family. Anyways, yeah, fuck a nine to five, you might as well just traffick drugs. Already been pinched, the sky's the limits, huh?
Marie
"You could've just, I don't know, explained it?!" She stuck her finger in both of her ear canals, making sure her ringing ears were also not bleeding. "Yeah, and I'd love to see your face too when I poke your eyes with a finger each..."

She hated his face, his joy-filled, perfectly punchable face, just... Just one while he was at the peack of his laugh to immediately teach him some manners he wouldn't forget. But no, she held off. As much as she wanted to land a square hit on his cheek, or wrap her arm around his neck and choke him wehre he sat, she wasn't going to be the killjoy she always had been, but thank goodness someone else was going to do the job for her. And at least, if she was going to be in Juvie for quite a bit with a change of getting out scot-free, she might as well keep a clean record...

About a minute passed before he could come back to his senses, Margarita looking him at his eyes with a stern, almost-angry look out of sheer annoyance, but she did nothing, only cleaning the handle of her lingonberry jam-dipped fork before eating a portion of the meatball, still surprisingly warm. "Hmm, I see." She replied. "Coke ruins people, but those making and delivering it? We thrive linke nobody elsw. Coke only really starts ruining you the momeny some of it goes up your nose."

"So... Things aside for now," She paused for a moment as she shoved the last part of the meatball in and tidied up her plate, moving all the scraps to one corner of the plate before laying the spoon and fork atop each other and placed diagonally on the plate as manners dictated. "You've powers too?"

Things were beginning to make a bit more sense in her mind, but she still needed to know. Was she aand everyone else here for the same reason? For the one thing they all might have in common?
Andrea
◆ "Aye, yeah. Coke ruins lives, but what's that saying? Don't smoke your own supp- huh?"

□ Attention drawn away from the conversation, Silas was now face to face with another prisoner, this one a mite more intimidating than himself but not by much. Tense at first, he felt as if he was about to get walloped in the jaw, but after a few tense moments of stumbled explanation and mentally steeling his nerves for the punch it never actually came to blows. A few more moments and he was free to finally keep on talking, though with the knowledge that if he pulled that shit again he'd be a stain on the floor by the time they were done.

▪︎ A deep sigh followed.

◆ "Fuck, lass... Guess you weren't the only one pissed off with that." He chuckled, his tensed shoulders slowly dropping as the built-up stress melted away in a soft, fuzz-lined laugh. "Anyways, yeah. I'm a walking megaphone, and thankfully part of that is resistance to loud noises. What's your deal with this whole magic shit?"
Marie
She wasn't dealing with his shit, and she's just glad on the inside that he got the message from her and the other kid, saving her some work.

"I'd say 'pissed off' is an understatement, but you're not getting a second chance from me, mkay? So, where were we..." She continued, letting the thought of potentially throwing hands on this peaceful Saturday disappear like a dead candle's smoke.

"So that's your thing, huh?" Now that the idea that she was *Not* The only kid with something weird going on with her, she felt a bit of solace make a crack at the heavy weight that was on her back with all the uncertainty and confusion of the mess that was her serving time in Sweden of all places. "Well, I guess it'll be fine when I tell you about my 'magic shit' or whatever they call this,"

Her right arm was on the table, in full view for both of them, but her left arm was supposedly in her pocket, holding her phone to make sure it wasn't being pickpocketed. Old habits die hard. But in reality, it slowly stretched, any sign of an elbow joint or rigidity of bone suddenly missing as her bendy arm continued to snake out of her jacket sleeve, extending quickly until the back of her hand felt some cloth rub against it, prompting her to begin coiling said stretched arm around his entire calf, taking about three coils of bendy limb to achieve. Her hand tightly squeezed on one of the coils of her arm, that area squishing like it was rubber tubing. She smirked smugly as she kept her now two or three metre rubber arm locked around his leg.

"Is that right there." She calmly replied, her smugness not showing a sign of waning.
Andrea
◆ "Yeah, that's my deal. Noise... Huh? What the...?"

□ Well, this was odd. Flipping between faintly hostile and smug, Silas didn't exactly know what to make of this girl, whose name he still hadn't got. Was she really some hardened criminal? Or just a street urchin who was in the wrong place at and the wrong time? And was this why she was still in survival mode? Most of these questions melted away as he felt the unmistakable touch of a hand on his leg, somewhere below the knee, and though he initially wanted to mask his surprise behind some sort of cheeky remark he couldn't bring himself to.

▪︎ After all, she had her entire arm around his leg! It both felt weird and sort of nice.

◆ "Oh, so you're elastic, huh? Blimey, that's freaky." A skittish chuckle followed. "Christ... Y'know, it's weird how many of us are here. Everyone's got some sort of power up their ass, and it makes ya wonder how this place is even considered safe. One fuck-up and half of Ikas... Ikash. Fuck! Isakstad. There. Christ. One fuck-up and half the townsfolk are dead, and this is a prison run by anarcho-communists, so... Y'know. It could happen."