ESCAPE (Discontinued)

Five

My hands are swift with adjusting my clothes. I am wearing the best clothes my mother could find. A soft black coat is covering a long-sleeved wool shirt on my body. My legs are protected by slightly torn jeans, and my feet are in brown leather boots. These were the clothes my father used to wear when he was my age, sixteen. He's now dead, and I don't know why. Suddenly I feel uncomfortable.

I hurry down the stairs and run out the door, then I see my mother by a stand. Both my mother's voice and the man behind the stand are audible from the doorway. I think they're arguing about something.

"Mother?" I ask.

She motions for me to go away, and I obey obediently. It must be about the price of an item she wants to buy. I don't feel worried- she always wins. I grin.

"Max!" A voice calls. The voice is familiar. I think of who it might belong it, and right when I figure it out, I feel a tiny hand on my shoulder.

"Hey Alex," I smile, but I shudder from how surprisingly cool the touch of his hand is. He notices and pulls his arm towards his side.

His dark brown hair is combed back nicely, shiny with sunlight reflecting on it. Today he is wearing his best: a light green shirt and a leather coat, crimson-brown jeans and brown boots.

"Are you ready?" he asks.

I shrug. "Are you?"

Alex slowly shakes his head left and right, a clear expression of sadness and disbelief showing on his face. I know exactly why. Everyday for sixteen years he has opened his eyes to find himself in a small village surrounded by kind and lavish strangers. Being without them would be totally different for him.

Every single person in Metzo knows him and I know from the way he curls his mouth downwards that he wishes this never happened.

"Come on," I try to convince him, "think about it. This is our chance! We've always wanted to leave. Remember when we were kids? How we always talked about this?"

I watch as he slowly nods, and I feel a pang in the middle of my chest. He would never want to leave, no matter what happens. Even if it meant I got the opportunity to go.

"What if I got to go?" I say, afraid of what he might say. "Would you come with me if you were chosen with me?"

He looks downwards, and I immediately know. He had made up his mind. He wasn't coming.

"I'm sorry..." he says softly. His eyes are glossy with tears.

"Okay," I whisper. "Bye."

"Maximus....Please.

"It's okay. It's your choice. It's your life. You can choose which path you choose. I shouldn't stop you." I turn my back on him, feeling tears forming from my eyes. My mother is waving at me, motioning for me to go to her. Alexander's sniffing is easy for me to hear. I turn my back one last time. If I get chosen, I'll never see him again. He nods and wipes his face with the sleeves of his coat, then jogs back to his small house.

"Come on, dear." she says smiling.

"Are we leaving now?" I ask, trying to hide the agony from tone of my voice. She nods. Usually when I'm about to cry and don't want to, I blink several times hard, to make the tears go away. This time, I don't.

+++

"Wonderful ladies and amazing gentlemen of Metzo, I welcome you to the ceremony, where I will pick five lucky citizens to finally be allowed to leave of this village!" King Loxin booms. I am in the middle of the crowd in front of the small outdoor stage with no chairs. The crowd cheers with excitement. People are yelling things that don't understand, but when I listen harder, I make out what they're saying: "Escape! Escape! Escape!"

But others are booing.

Everyone quiets down when they notice he's waiting for them to finish.

"The wonderful village of Metzo has existed for a decade. It had been built after the horrible civil war that happened fifteen years ago. Nobody has been accepted to leave because no one, no one, knows what lies outside the fences." he continues. He clears his throat to tell us to stop talking and shattering the silence.

"Are you excited?" someone next to me asks. I don't think he said it to me, so I keep quiet.

"Are you?" he asks again.

I turn my head and realize that he was actually taking to me.

"Oh. Um...yes."

The man smiles and looks back forward. I turn my attention back to the king.

"Let's get started," the king says to us. Everyone is silent and listening carefully.

My heart is pounding in my chest, and I can hear it. I'm pretty sure its beats could be heard for miles.

Are the rumors true? I remember the lady I met two days ago.

Rumors? What rumors?

The king clears his throat again. I can feel the blood rushing in my ears.

"Miss Lucky Number One is..." my heart is beating so fast I that I'm starting to feel like fainting, "you!"

He points at a young woman a few people away from me. I can hear her gasp. The guards surrounding us make their way towards her and push her to the wooden stairs at the sides of the king. She bows when she reaches him, and she is trying not to cry by the look of her face.

"What's your name?" he asks her. The woman stutters and stammers instead of giving a direct answer. "Go on. Don't be nervous. You should be excited!"

"My name is Natalie, sir."

Suddenly I feel the familiarity of a name. Maybe she the daughter of one of my mother's friends? No, my mother and I never have guests. Perhaps I met her at a stand?
Suddenly I remember. This young woman was a student at my school. I remember always watching her get bullied at the dirty old hallways. I wonder how the bullies feel about that. I smile.

King Ferdinand ushers to her to go stand behind him, and judging by the way he is looking at her, he must not be impressed that he chose her. She's fairly skinny.

Then a finger is pointing to me. The king's finger. I turn my head to see the guards walking towards me. And when they reach me, everything starts to be moving extremely slowly. I blink once, the twice, as the guards
pull an old man away from me.

The king wasn't pointing to me. He was pointing to him.

My head feels light as I regain my normality. I clear throat. I must have looked stupid because of how my mouth was open. Dammit, I was so close.

Ten minutes pass as he chooses two more citizens. Just one more left. The king looks at us with squinty eyes, wiggling his finger at many of the people here. "You!"
The last chosen boy is wearing a leather coat, a green shirt, and brown boots. Alexander.