The punch landed on my jaw, sending me reeling on the hard surface. I struggled to stand up but was met with a flurry of kicks and lashes. With my face pinned down, I stayed glued to the burning ground inside the prison yard. Blood gushed down my nose and my cracked lips as the tall, muscular warden stomped on my shoulder.
There was an eerie silence. Other inmates watched in horror. I was being initiated into the prison system by a cruel and heartless warden who was stuck in the primitive colonial mindset of torturing and humiliating convicts