The north yard was the only place in the whole prison where Areum could see the sky.
It was a wide, open square of cracked concrete surrounded by high walls, with old basketball hoops leaning at the corners and rusted weight benches lined up along one side. On the far end stood the workshops, a long, low brick building with barred windows and tall smokestacks, dark smoke curling out of one of them into the night. Somewhere inside it, metal was clanging, slow and steady, like someone hammering.
They made it halfway across the yard before the lights came on.
Dozens of floodlights mounted along the tops of the walls snapped on at once with a heavy THUNK THUNK THUNK. Areum threw an arm over her eyes, and when she lowered it, the yard wasn't empty anymore.
