Ruth woke to the sound of her alarm clock like she did every day. Mornings were so beautiful here in Cuba. The sun was beaming in on her, birds were chirping outside her window. Such a happy scene it seems, but not for her, not on this morning anyway. Today marks the fifth year since her son, John, has been missing. This was not going to be a good day at all.

After climbing out of bed she strolls to the closet and picks out the outfit she wore the day John disappeared, the same clothes she wears on this day every year. After preparing breakfast for herself, Ruth decides to check the mail. "I hope I get my magazine" she says to herself as she opens the mailbox. "Bill, bill, junk, bill ... hey, what's this?" There was a letter with no return address on it, just "Open Now" wrote on the front. A flash of anxiety shot through her body, very franticly she runs to the kitchen table to put down the rest of the mail and read this mysterious letter.

Dear Ruth,

Please sit down before you read this letter. This is your son John. I was captured by the Cuban government and held against my will for the past five years. I was released yesterday and am now here in town. Please meet me at the library 12 o'clock sharp, I'll be sitting in the history section.

Love John

To shocked to breath, Ruth almost fainted, "My God, can this be true?!" At 12 o'clock Ruth was in the library and then she saw him, sitting in the history section like in the letter. "John!" she screamed as she ran over to hold him. A few people that were in the library turned there heads to see to see what was going on. "Yes mom it's me, please sit down so I can fill you in on what has happened to me in the past while"

.....It all started on this day five years ago. You sent me to the store to get milk. On my way there I saw a man in the alley being beat up by some guys. Running to help the man out I was grabbed from behind by two more men. They were much stronger then me so I never had a chance, and in a short time I was knocked unconscious. Later on I was wakened by a kick in the ribs, standing around me in a dimly lit room were four or five men in uniform. They asked what I knew about some kind of secret military plan. I said that I never knew anything, but that was obviously the wrong answer. I was then gaged, beaten, and dragged to another dark room.

After that my life turned into a nightmarish reality, little food, water, no clean clothes and still no reason for any of this to be happening to me. I wanted to be home so badly, there were times I was locked in a dark cell for three or four days at a time, the fact that there was no toilet made the smell unbearable. I vomited until it felt like the insides of my stomach came out, after that it was constant urging and coughing. Every hour, every minute I wished I would die. I sometimes held my breath until I passed out, but it never did the job that I wanted it to do. Some days they would let me outside, out in the hot sun to do work for this "camp" it seamed like. Hundreds of men, woman, and children were there, all afraid, and all praying to God to take them away from this torment. After so long nothing even seemed real, we had no life left, no souls, and no pride. We were all just merely existing. None of us had reasons to be here and only a fool would ever question a camp officer why.

Almost every day they would have groups of us stand in a big circle. They said they wanted to play a game. This was fine until we found out what the game was all about. An officer would stand in the middle of the circle with a blindfold and a gun, he would then spin himself dizzy and open fire. It was their way of reducing the number of prisoners. They had many sick and inhumane games they played. Mothers would have to kill their children in whichever way the officer wished. Some men would have to gouge their own eyes out, break there own limbs and teeth, even remove their "manhood" if the officer was jealous. Some married couples were captured together, they were the ones I felt the most pain for. The officers made the lovers torture each other until one of them died, then they had to carry the dead body around for the rest of the day.

We were pushed to the point of death, but never beyond, unless they felt that the camp was becoming to crowded. Once I got a chance to talk to another man. His story was the same, no reason for being here, just one day arrested by the government. Thoughts never even entered my head anymore, I was just a blank, a zero, I was dead in my own mind. Time soon became irrelevant, day and night both brought different cruelty and punishment. They would not let us live or die, just stuck in this hell until they were finished with us. This same lifestyle continued for the five years that I was there, it's only a miracle that I'm still alive now. Which brings me up to the present. The government, no longer seeing a use for us, killed off about two thirds of the prisoners and let the ones that seemed like no threat go free......

Ruth, who was now sobbing uncontrollably, got up from her chair and hugged John. John too was crying. He vowed in his own mind as he hugged his mother that he will devote what's left of his broken life to help expose the rest of the government concentration camps and fight for the freedom of the innocent people that is in them.

--Lestat