Today, there was no reveille. Vaguely puzzled, AyJay rose as usual, habits too ingrained to resist. Drink water, splash wash, don robe ……

  The quiet. No shouting, no whistles, no whips cracking overhead, nothing. Still following inbuilt habits, she climbed the stairs to the terrace and then stood in the growing gaggle of also confused prisoners.

  Seeing no shouty men, gradually, AyJay noticed the faces of these people. She had never had the time or the energy to before they were just a mass of humanity, toiling endlessly for no good reason. Some of them looked back. AyJay pondered the unknown faces. Hatred was all she had known from the shouty men, meanness, disdain. None of these expressions showed, so she was baffled. She found her mouth opening but, as she rarely had the opportunity to say anything, she had no idea what to say. Well, she certainly wasn’t going to step on the wheel. So, looking all around her, she tried to take in the changes.

  No overseers. None. Insipid cheers sounded, the few able to do so noticing their sudden freedom. Someone grabbed her arm. Flinching violently - touch normally meant pain – AyJay pulled away before turning back towards a startling face. Shock of blond hair, piercing green eyes. Mouth turned up at the corners. Who?

  “Free, we’re free!” the figure shouted in her face, that mouth curled up and giving AyJay concern as to what it meant.

  “What, what do you mean?” Shocked into speech, AyJay wasn’t polite, or calm, or welcoming. GeeKay didn’t care.

  “Free? Well, we don’t have to work, for one.” He was still stretching his mouth in that strange fashion, which became infectious. AyJay tried it too. Lips splitting from the new movement, that still felt good.

  “Ah, a smile. I knew you could.” GeeKay seemed to be young, but who could tell here. AyJay continued to smile.

  “But, free to do what?” she muttered, still confused and feeling lost.

  “Anything we want to.” GeeKay shouted, throwing out his arms and stomping around in a wide circle.

  AyJay collapsed to the floor, jaw dropping and eyes wide. She struggled to grasp the enormity of what he was saying.

  Free, what did that even mean? No work, OK that was good, but if the shouty men had gone, where did that leave them? AyJay found her racing thoughts flying to practicalities like ‘how did food and bolts of thread arrive’, ‘where did the woven products go’,’ how could they sustain themselves, alone!’ Her head was buzzing and she felt frightened and confused.

  GeeKay apparently had no problems accepting the situation, he strode over to the spiral staircase in the corner, glanced back once, then disappeared below. She didn’t think he could have been here long. He couldn’t have been, to be so bright and positive. Also, she had not noticed him before, striking as he was, so he must have worked somewhere on the ground floor.

  Perhaps if she tried something new too. Instead of following him, AyJay rose and stepped slowly to the parapet. It was high, and she needed to stand on tiptoes to see over it, but that was where her interest lay. Unseen vistas of what? Sand.

  As far as she could see there were heaps of it. There was a suggestion of a track, from the fort to the horizon, but not much else. Why here? Why build here? AyJay couldn’t know that the forts’ placements were dictated by aquifers, that there were more than this one, spread over this island of rock and sand. She couldn’t even know it was an island. This information awaited them all within the walls of their prison, but for now, all she knew was here, on the top two floors of a stone fort, in a desert.

  She started to feel very small, so she stepped back from the wall and began to look about her. A large oblong of stone lay before her, pierced by a smaller oblong with low walls inside the high parapet. The roof was divided into four areas. First the wheel. Huge wooden structure of pain, she didn’t waste much time looking at that or the wooden steps next to it. Then the low stools and benches where they received their meals. That was at one end. The looms reached along the next stretch of stone, culminating in the rough storage area of cloth bales, empty now, where she stood, and where they slept in the warm season. Several people remained up here with her, wandering around lost and confused. There was no food waiting at the benches, no stack of threads ready for the looms. It was eerily quiet, still.

  Food. The groans from her belly prompted her to action eventually. Food, where would that be? It always arrived from the floors below, so down. She should go down.

  There were spiral staircases at either end of the roof area, so AyJay decided to go down the one they usually came up. Well, why not? She didn’t meet anyone, which was a relief because she had no idea what she would have done had she met someone coming up. At the next level, instead of stepping off as was the custom, she carried on down. Light still steamed in through the narrow arrow slits and the inside of the stairs were open to the rooms beside them. Leaving the cells and laundry behind her, AyJay continued down without stopping until the staircase came to a halt. Immediately, in the gleam of the hot sun, she could see the crops growing and the animal pens, quiet and seemingly empty, before her.

  Food. Her stomach growled again, loud in the open space and demanding attention. Food.

  This was where their simple food came from, she could only guess. Oats, barley, corn, chickens, pigs…. Where were they? There were low stone pens in the corner of the open area, but no sounds came from them. Looking in, AyJay saw straw stalks and muck, but nothing was moving. Poking around in the straw, she found an egg. Hungry, she broke it open and ate the contents quickly, before someone else could see. That was selfish. But what else should she do? Would the ‘others’ share with her?

  Looking some more, she found three more eggs and this time gathered them up into a small pile in a corner and covered them with straw again. She would have to see what happened next, whether she would just eat them, or pool them with other peoples’ finds.

  There was water, they had spent half of every day lifting water on the wheel. Was it used for the animals and crops, as well as the humans? AyJay looked and searched, struggling to make some sense of this place she had called home, well, prison, for so many years.

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  She continued her brief search around the central courtyard. The crops had been left – not destroyed, so that was encouraging. Grabbing some greens she stuffed them into her mouth and chewed as she looked. On one side was the well mouth with the long chain of buckets visible above all the way to the roof. AyJay tried the water hesitantly. It was good, so she drank her fill. Either side of the well were the steps. Looking at them now, AyJay tried to work out what they did, if anything at all. They went up and came down in an endless circuit, but she could not see their function. Well, they always felt like torture, so maybe that was what they were. How horrifying that such a thing should exist.

  AyJay left them behind her and continued along the wall of the enclosure. Arches and arrow slits pierced the walls all the way up to the roof. Three floors, that was all, so she had known two thirds of her prison quite well. What else could there be? Slipping through one of the many arches, she found herself in a linked series of rooms that ran all around the ground floor, with only a small break on the far side.

  The first room looked like it was full of tall metal boxes, all lined up in rows. Not intrigued enough to investigate them, she moved past them and into another room, where the staircase started on its way up to the roof. These were the down walking stairs, the ones she should have used. AyJay smiled again, just to herself. It still felt good. In this room were tables, stools and not much else. Next was a sitting room. A room to just sit. Comfy benches, with soft looking covers and small tables. Very odd. Then a room with beds in – proper, soft, comfy beds. Well guess who lived here then! The shouty men in charge, no doubt.

  AyJay had had enough of this, she walked back into the courtyard, past the rest of the crops and up to the gap in the walls. It wasn’t any wider than a cart and dark, but she stepped up to it anyway and peered through.

  Sand. She could see the sand. Suddenly, someone pushed past her and ran out screaming into the sun. AyJay fell against the wall in shock. What. What were they thinking. There was only sand. Pain in her hands and arms made her look at the stone. It was rough and pitted for the most part, chipped and scraped by passing carts, she guessed, and nearer the exit, smooth and scalloped. It was wind erosion, but AyJay didn’t really know about that just yet. Sheltered within the four walls, the howling gales outside had made little impact other than the noise they made. Her hands stung from the small abrasions and tempted her to return to the water and cool them.

  Instead, reaching the open end of the passageway, AyJay looked out at the sand. She had not been mistaken, there was sand. Fading footprints of those who had left the prison could just about still be made out, even the one who had pushed AyJay into the rough wall had already become just dents in the surface. Where did he go? There were hills and grasses all around but even stepping out further to look past the walls gave her no indication of where he had gone to.

  “Hey, come back! You don’t have water!” AyJay stopped herself, there was little point shouting. He would come back, wouldn’t he?

  Suddenly reeling with an overpowering feeling of fear, AyJay fell back against the stone wall of the tunnel. Her heart was racing and she had trouble breathing. What was this? Fear she knew, cowering from pain and flinching at loud sounds, but this was something else! Her head spun and her breath came in short sharp gasps. Sick, reeling and panting, the open space; it terrified her. Having been cooped up in the prison fort for so long, open space just seemed incredibly unsafe! She didn’t remember returning down the passage or falling headlong into the bed of cabbages.

  AyJay lay there in the green shade for a while, letting her pulse reduce and finally settle back to normal. What on earth was that? That terror, the panic. How unsettling was the idea of ‘freedom’?

  Someone was calling. What were they saying? AyJay couldn’t make out the words down here, but she thought it was someone up on the roof. It could be that boy. She called up, just a sound really, and a face popped over the low wall and looked down at her. It was the boy, what was his name? He was waving his arms, gesticulating in a wild manner as if he wanted her to, what, go up there? Maybe.

  Rousing herself from her safe den of cool greens, AyJay waved back and set off for the up stairs, falling back into routine without much thought. Even after her scare, two flights of stairs were not much of a challenge to someone used to the wheel, and the steps, so in short order she was back on the roof. There appeared to be quite a group gathered round that boy. She went over to join them, and to listen to what he was saying.

  GeeKay stood on a bench by the low wall surrounding the central space. He had been gathering people around him and now they were quiet he started:

  “Ok, so we appear to be free. There are no overseers and no work to be done today.” There was a ragged cheer.

  “I have been looking around, and I have found some rooms full of records about this place, which I think should be looked into. Now, don’t think I am trying to take charge here – I’m not. I just thought we should stick together and work out a plan that will keep us all alive.”

  “Some have left.” Shouted someone. “Where have they gone?”

  “I have no idea.” GeeKay replied sadly. “I hope they come back, maybe with news of what is out there, but I doubt it. I don’t want anyone else to leave. We need to work together, I think.”

  Murmurs greeting this statement, but no-one seemed willing to challenge him. They were all hungry, and that was the first thing raised.

  “What do we eat?” the call was repeated many times.

  “Who here worked on the farm downstairs?” GeeKay asked next. A few hands were raised.

  “OK, can we get some idea of what we have? What is there now and what we can grow later?” One of the older women stepped forward a little and spoke quietly into the group.

  “I used to work records for the food supplies. I can help sort through what we have. Could I have some help for physical moving stuff? And a cook would be useful?” Another woman stepped forward and smiled tentatively, then stepped back again.

  “Anyone else work records or writing in some form?” GeeKay asked. AyJay raised her hand. Working the looms involved writing and reading.

  “Great,” he continued “I think we could do with knowing who we have and what they can do, or want to do, so that we can start to form a plan. Next, I need a planner! That is not my skill, I am better at communication.” Silence greeting him while the mass in front of him realised he had actually meant that he did not want to be in charge. They did not need a leader, as such. Just a group to discuss things and get things organised.

  The momentary cooperation of a group of individuals in a frightening and confusing situation broke. People moved away, clumped together in small groups, ran off, and AyJay stared at the mess around her. GeeKay slumped and looked quite subdued.

  AyJay moved once again to the parapet and looked out at the surrounding sand. What can we do? Survive, run away, die? The outlook was, well a bit scary, she thought. What will become of us? We have always been told what to do, and when, and this sudden freedom was unknown, and confusing. Joining her, GeeKay said nothing. He took her hand in his and stood resolute at her side.

  “Can we really bring them together? We have never even really spoken to each other before. Some of the older ones must be so frightened and lost. Can we survive?” AyJay started, hesitantly.

  “Everyone is scared, running around and trying to work out what has happened to us. How can we persuade them to work together, we need to do that I feel. So much is unknown and that is scary.” AyJay was near to tears and needed something, reassurance maybe, from this new friend.

  “It’s OK, they will come back, I know they will.” GeeKay replied, looking at his feet.