Young Writers Society

Panting and sweating, the government official slid down the wall and onto his butt for the twelfth time. The man next to him twiddled his thumbs and stared off into space, whistling idly. “If you’re not going to help then stop whistling in my ear.” The scowl on his face didn’t seem to have the effect he wanted; the man next to him, a judge, kept whistling like he hadn’t heard anything. “Do you not want to get out of here? Do you just want to die doing nothing?” The official was wringing his hands now as his eyebrows came together. Tears began spilling down his face.
“We can’t do anything about it Charlie.” The judge looked over at his fellow prisoner and patted his leg with a sympathetic smile. “It’s all going to be over soon.” Charlie brought his legs up to his chest and rested his head on his knees. The judge could see his chest heaving, but there was still no noise as moisture continued to stream down his face. Placing a comforting arm around his distraught companion, the judge began to whistle again, staring blankly at the wall in front of him.
“Well if we’re just going to sit here, you may as well tell me something.” Charlie had raised his head and was looking at the judge now.
The whistling stopped. “What do you want to know?”
“How did you survive?”
“Haven’t survived yet.” The man looked at Charlie for a moment, his brow furrowed, and then turned his head away. The official continued looking at him intently. The crying had stopped just as quickly as it had come, though he didn’t look far from starting again.
“How did you survive Noah? Everyone but you was killed. Maybe talking about it will make us remember something that could get us out of here.” Charlie’s eyes widened and he began to bite his lip. “Come on, tell me everything that happened.”
Noah turned back to Charlie and looked him in the eye for a few seconds. He suddenly looked away and drew his legs up to his chest, mimicking Charlie’s current position. “It seems like it all started with the coconut.”

As you well know, I was one of the biggest supporters of the Mars Prison Facility. The prisons back home were becoming too crowded. I was convinced that the only two choices we had were to kill the excess prisoners or to ship them off someplace where overcrowding wasn’t an issue. So because of that, I was volunteered by my constituents to go to the prison and write up a report for the Department of Corrections. I got to the prison and began to make my rounds, inspecting everything the regulations said should be inspected. That’s when the coconut came in.
I was talking to a prison guard about the performance about different guards in the prison, how the facility could be improved; you know, the usual stuff. That’s when he told me that a prisoner was somehow having prohibited food and other items snuck in. I asked him who it was, and he told me that it was Azazel Pander, the national terrorist.

“No way,” Charlie’s eyes were drooping and his turned head was once again resting on his knees. “What did you do?”
The judge smirked. After stretching out his legs and putting his hands behind his head, he continued.

Well when I heard that it was him smuggling all the stuff in, I decided that he would be a good guy to crack down on. I figured that if I could have him punished, it would do wonders to discourage all of the other inmates. I went to his cell to get some answers. The two things I wanted to know most were who was getting him the stuff and if he had a stash anywhere. Now I knew that he would be a tough guy to crack. I mean, who’s tougher than Azazel Pander? No one is. So I decided to do what I thought to be the best thing: I just walked up and asked him.
“Where’s your stash and who’s been smuggling the stuff into the prison? Answer me now and the repercussions won’t be nearly as bad.” I spoke confidently, trying to make him realize that I wasn’t one to be trifled with. To my surprise, he was very cooperative.
“Well my stash is right here.” Azazel reached underneath his bunk and pulled out an open box. It had two whole coconuts and a Ziploc bag full of pineapple slices inside. Needless to say, I was astonished. What was going on in this prison that a prisoner could have a box of contraband underneath his bed without any of the guards knowing about it? Azazel was grinning while I was looking into the box. Then, as if to surprise me again, the terrorist took out a coconut and tossed it to me! “Here’s a coconut for luck. You’ll need it in a place like this.”
Backing out of the cell, I stomped my way to the secure east end of the facility. I was fuming! I was getting so angry with the smug, confident Azazel that my hands were beginning to shake. However, a part of me was satisfied because I now had grounds to punish him. I had stormed out before getting the name of his accomplice, but that could be dealt with at a later date. As I entered the secure east wing of the prison a panicked-looking Frank Doyle, the head technician, greeted me. There were a few similarly panicked guards right behind him.
“The camera in Pander’s cell wasn’t working, we couldn’t see a thing in there!” Doyle was nearly shouting it. I noticed that there was sweat on his forehead and his hands were twitching. I told him that I was all right, that I had some evidence with which I could send Azazel to solitary confinement. That didn’t seem to calm him as he rushed off with the guards to check out the malfunctioning camera.
It wasn’t five minutes later when I heard the alarm go off. Suddenly all of the doors leading out of the east wing were sealed shut and everyone around me was panicking. I heard people shouting that none of the camera feeds were working. I heard banging on the doors leading to the rest of the facility. There were no windows, so we could only assume that it was the prisoners. I just stood there, dumbstruck and feeling completely stupid. That was why Azazel had been grinning and didn’t care that I had found his stash. I had been tricked and outsmarted by someone I thought to be superior to. No, Azazel Pander is far superior to Noah Fenton.
With my thoughts of hopelessness and dread, I wasn’t thinking straight. I was like an animal that wanted an end to my suffering. I found myself in front of the door controls. I hit a button and suddenly the prisoners poured in, killing everyone around me. I crawled under a table and held onto my coconut. Azazel Pander had won and there was nothing that Noah Fenton could do.
Thankfully for us, you were there with a shuttle to take us home. Thanks Charlie.
Standing up and stretching, the man Charlie had called Noah went and knocked on the door to their prison. The door opened and he strode out of the room, receiving slaps on his back and grinning at everyone around him. Pulling off the facial mask, he sighed contentedly. As the door closed, no one seemed to notice that Charlie, the government official, was slumped on the ground. No one seemed to care that he had stopped breathing.
Later that night, Azazel and his fellow fugitives laughed and joked as they ate and talked about the takeover of the shuttle. They laughed even harder when Azazel cracked open a coconut and passed it around for everyone to get their share of milk. No one was careful not to get wet from the coconut; the blood from Noah Fenton’s head had already dried.

This is really good. I love the ending, it's strange and unexpected. I did see some places where he was talking and there were no quotation marks, I may have just missed it, though. Very good, it was worded well. I like the smooth transitions between paragraphs. I know it's for the contest, but I suggest taking this further and turning this into a book or novelette, at the least. Overall, very good job. Keep writing. Good luck in your future writing. May you be shielded from Writer's Block. I do have a question, though, why do you have lines of asterisks in some places?

So the guy before me already mentioned the asterisks. If you're going to have a narration, based on what the second character is hearing, you should have quotation marks. The way that works is this:
Jimmy said, "I was in work yesterday and my boss called me into work. He sat me down and said, 'Jimmy, you're not doing good work. You're fired.'"
See how it uses parentheses to illustrate when he says other people talk? If this was a longer narrative, you would do this:
"Paragraph being spoken ends without end quotation marks.
"The next one begins with quotation marks, though, and at the end of your spoken narrative, you end."
If you want a better understanding of this style, I'd advise you to read Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, since that's kinda the same style as what you're doing.
Other than that, I have no beefs with your grammar or story. I think I understand enough about it to have a good idea of what's happened, and the ending was kinda surprising. Keep it up.