"A gas leak?"

"That's right. We're sorry for the inconvenience, but we need you to come with us. Everyone on this floor is being taken to be checked out. Oddly enough, there are people out there who won't be pleased with us if any of you die."

"Inconvenience?" Ignoring the last comment, Jellal laughed, a warm smile the likes of which man as deranged as to disturb the dead should not be able to produce spreading across his face. "This is the first time in eight days I've had a chance to leave my room. I wouldn't care if you said someone had put arsenic in my breakfast," which might have made it more edible, "any excuse for a change of scenery."

The guard, Nico, grimaced, both at their most dangerous prisoner's cheerful compliance and at the popping sound the kid's shoulder made when he stretched. That Jellal offered up his wrists to be handcuffed without even being asked didn't help. Nico felt so guilty for how he was treating this certainly guilty man that he could only mutter a numb "this way" once all the proper security precautions were in place.

It would have been better if Jellal acted like a crazed maniac, or was always so happy-disturbed. But no, Jellal had to be agreeable, polite, and as appalled by the crimes of all the men in prison (himself included) as anyone else would be. If there hadn't been so many witnesses, Jellal might have been found innocent on good behavior alone.

Damn him.

Jellal wasn't complaining at all. Even now, as the guard stopped at every cell in his hallway while there was a supposedly toxic gas hanging in the air. Not a peep from the most dangerous person in the prison. No, it was the disgruntled man four doors down, locked up for having offed his rival in love, who demanded an explanation and a faster pace.

"The warden's been wanting the pipes to get some maintenance work for a while, but money's tight right now, and it wasn't in the budget. We actually had some big shot from the Council come by the other day and declare the place up to code without even checking, so there's no money grant coming. Or there wouldn't be, if this hadn't happened." The guard said as he put the standardized magic restraining handcuffs on inmate number five. "Figures this would happen right after. Even if they accuse us of setting this up, the pipes will still need replacing. We've already contacted them." He paused to unlock door number six. "Anyway, there's no hurry. If we left you down here a few days we might see some lasting damage, but you'll all be out in a few minutes, and we'll take you to the medical wing. They'll give you some drug or another while we air out this place."

"But what does the gas do?" The woman who drowned her own daughter asked, a nervous edge in her voice. Worried about her own life. No wonder Jellal seemed like such a good person. Everything is relative.

Nico bit back a noise of disgust and said "for as much as you'll inhale, it shouldn't do anything worse than make you nauseous. It's only a small leak. There isn't much gas to infiltrate your system."

This appeared to satisfy her, but if it didn't, Nico didn't care. If any other prisoners had questions they could just ask the growing crowd.

Finally, when he cleared the hall, Nico took the scumbags up to the medical wing. Still high-security, just like everything else in the prison, but as Jellal had said, just a change in scenery was nice. Jellal and the rest of the prisoners that shared a hallway with him were herded into a line behind all the other men from his floor. After moving only three feet in ten minutes, Jellal was beginning to see how the prison guards, or janitors, or whoever drew the short stick, would have time to clear the gas from the floor.

After what he was pretty sure was half a day, Jellal could finally see into the room where the line ended. The nurses there, large, muscular nurses, because the prison left nothing to chance, were running a quick check on each prisoner. Regardless of whether or not they demonstrated any of the symptoms in question, they would receive a shot. Their rooms having been apparently cleaned up two hours earlier, guards were on standby to escort prisoners back to their cells when the check was completed. Jellal felt perfectly fine himself, but that looked to be irrelevant. He could suffer the checkup, he supposed. He'd hate to seem difficult, especially since his cooperation just might have been the only thing saving him from a noose.

When it was finally Jellal's turn he, unsurprisingly, showed no signs of having been affected by the gas, but was told that, like everyone else, he'd need a shot. A shot for what? How did a shot fend off gas? Who knew. The nurse just mumbled something about needing to open a new box of… whatever it was when he asked what the point of the shot was.

The injection went into his arm, and a guard came to take him back to his large stone box as Jellal rubbed the sore spot.

Down two flights of stairs, to the right, and around two corners turning left, Jellal was almost back to his room when he noticed his hands going numb. He opened his mouth tell the guard, but the noise that came out was slurred-incoherent. He stopped in his tracks. Had they cleared the gas out? Maybe he was just inhaling it for the first time now.

When his guard turned and told him to keep walking, he tried to ask, but this time he could produce no noise at all. He tried to gesture to his throat to explain this, but his arms wouldn't budge. Instead, his legs gave out beneath him. As he hit the floor, the world grew dark.