CONFINEMENT

CHAPTER TWENTY

   Castania's ears started to ring as soon as she heard the first bomb go off, and she felt the force going through the entrance of the tent, pushing her sideways into the metal bars of her cage, and she fell into the hay on the ground. Feeling her throbbing head, she felt the warm liquid begin to seep out of her skull and down her face, and she looked at her hand, now bloody, and realized that it was happening. The rebellion. What she had been waiting for for weeks. Another bomb went off in the distance, pushing her into the side of the cage once more, and the ringing tone in her ears got louder. Forcing herself up on her knees, she pushed her head as far as she could into the metal bars to catch a glimpse of what was going on outside. Officials were storming out of the tent, frantically and confusedly running around the place. She saw blood. And smoke. Where had the bomb gone off?

   A third bomb made her loose her balance once more but this time it was from the other side of the tent, and she was pushed to the opposite side and hurt her right cheekbone on the metal bars. The ringing got louder again, until it was all she could hear, and it throbbed in her head and made her mind spin. She sat down, hiding her ears with her hands and closing her eyes, and tried to focus on... something, anything really, that would make the throbbing stop, and after a minute or two, the piercing ringing in her ears seemed to fade a bit. She looked up, now being able to hear the desperate shouts and gut-wrenching screams of the people around her, and met Agatha's frantic eyes.

   Another bomb went off but this time it was far away, or at least far enough away that she wasn't knocked off her feet, and the ringing didn't get louder, but something happened anyway. All of the chandeliers lining the fabric roof of the tent went out with a buzz, and they got completely engulfed in darkness. Frantic screams were heard, but Castania's eyes were focused on something else. Agatha's lock clicked open, no longer working without any electricity, and she cautiously and awestruck opened her cage-door, and stepped out into freedom. Other Savings noticed this, and stepped out themselves, and suddenly everyone was out of their cages, frantically running around with no idea what to do or where to go. Castania tried herself, gripping the metal bars and shaking them roughly but nothing seemed to happen, and a shiver ran down her spine as she realized it. Her lock wasn't electric anymore, she had broken it long ago, and it was never replaced. She was stuck in a cage with a huge chain and a padlock. She grabbed one of her bobby pins from her hair and yanked it into the padlock, like she did when she had broken the electric lock. Maybe she could break this lock too, or at least unlock it somehow. It looked old, so maybe it wasn't very good? She shoved and twisted like her life depended on it, suddenly very happy that she wasn't getting shocked, but nothing happened, and it was futile. She tried her hardest anyway, twisting and turning the pin as much as she could, but soon the pin broke in her hand. "No!" She exclaimed, suddenly very desperate and anxious. What if she would miss it? What if she was stuck here for all eternity? She could hear the Officials outside, no doubt nearing the tent. Soon, they would shoot anyone remaining in here, and she would die in vain. She could hear someone calling out in the far end of the tent, someone yelling "Over here!" that made everyone run in that direction, and she wondered if that was where the escape was. She clawed at the padlock once more, desperate to get out, with tears starting to burn in her eyes, and she grew more and more frantic as she watched an Official near her cage. Admitting the defeat, she stepped back, her arms up in a surrender, as he stepped as close to her cage as possible, preparing herself for the gunshot, but instead of meeting the barrel of his gun, she met his kind eyes, and heard the padlock click open. She looked at him, completely in shock, her mouth open and her brows furrowed. 

   "Make sure you win." Was all he said, and it was as softly as when her mother had sung her to sleep when she was little. "And tell Priscilla I love her."

   Castania sent him a confused but affirming nod, and his eyes changed from kind to stern, as he opened her cage-door, and told her to run. So she did. She ran, as fast as she could through the crowd of confused Savings, gunshots from the Officials firing in the distance, threatening to hit her if she stopped running for one second.