Deck of Cards

Day 20- Ava

Eight of clubs- chained up for 7hrs

Ava's POV

I had a plan to escape, however I needed the other girls. I was waiting for a group activity but everyday I turned over another single one; it got me worried that they were secretly onto me. Despite my anger at another isolated torture day, I was slightly happy to have some more time to plan the finer details of our escape so when I did see all the girls I wouldn't have to stop and think. My guard took me grudgingly to my chaining cell and I was quite happy to get in.

It struck me in the middle of my session that maybe the other girls had escaped and somehow I was left alone. 'That's stupid, they couldn't' I told myself, I was the only one that knew the house like the back of my hand.

'They could be beautiful and the guards could have helped them escape because the dirty beasts believed they had a chance with the girls' these thoughts ran through my mind as I took a break from my plan. My plan was quite simple really.

Lure a guard into your cell and then kill them with their gun. Run out of your cell and go down the corridors- you have one minute before the guards come. Make your way to the larder where there is a secret room as well as a window. Open the window so they think we escaped from there and then hide in the secret room. There are no cameras in the larder. At midnight, escape in the bins which get sent to the front of the house and aren't watched. Run as far as possible.

I was certain that it would work, maybe with a few glitches, and then I could start planning my father's death. I was thinking either assassination or poisoning but I wasn't sure quite how I would get back in the house. I hoped that the other girls weren't complete idiots otherwise my whole plan was screwed. On the other hand ,I hoped that they weren't complete geniuses who thought that they could devise a better plan. All in all I wished for a group of five people that were exactly like me. A group of clones.

When we were going back to my cell, I was looking around for ideas to make my plan exactly perfect. When we were walking, another guard was coming the other way; it was odd, guards didn't usually cross each other. He was carrying something in his hand; he was sweating like a pig and his eyes darted around. Why did he look so nervous? It made me feel weird, like I could sense he was hiding something. Could he be helping someone else?

He was new. He probably had a conscience. Could this play a vital part in my plan? Could this be the icing on the cake? Was I over thinking his small action? Yes. Yes I was.

I couldn't help but feel helpless as I lay in my cell for another day without any closure about how the plan would come together. It was stressing me out that I hadn't been able to run it through with the other girls ; I knew that soon they would crank up the level of torture just to see us squirm. I needed to escape, I couldn't live with the knowledge that I could have gotten out. Defeated the system once and for all.

I doubted that my father would kill me if I survived the whole 52 days, I had already known his secret and kept it quiet. That didn't stop me from wanting to escape. I wanted out. I couldn't keep living with the cries of hundreds of girls ringing through the walls. I couldn't keep living with their souls haunting the rooms. I couldn't keep living with their blood still hiding in the cracks of the stone.

I needed to leave.

As I slept that night, I remembered the first time I had seen one of the girls that my father was keeping. I had been no older than five, and had gone down to the basement to play like I usually did. This day however, I could hear the stomping of a guard's boots but I thought nothing of it.

At this time, my father hadn't told me about the game. So you can imagine the surprise I felt when I saw a girl being pulled to her feet by the guard beside her. Her body was covered in purple bruises and fresh cuts, her hair was matted and dirty and she was almost naked, her clothes torn to shreds.

My eyes grew wide as I watched the guard shout in her face, his saliva spraying onto her cheeks. She looked him in the eye and didn't cry, but stared blankly on as if she felt nothing. Her legs were like sticks, so thin that I was worried they would snap if she walked on them.

She didn't scream. She didn't yell. As they passed me, the guard smiled at me slightly and ruffled my hair. The girl simply looked down at me with despair but also pity. She pitied me. I never understood why. Since that day, her face and the memory of her was a recurring appearance in her dreams. Those dreams always ended with that one pitying look.

But laying in that cell, alone, experiencing exactly what she had I knew why she pitied the daughter of the man who was holding her captive. She knew her time in the game would be over in fifty two days whereas I would be surrounded by the game for the rest of my life.

I had no escape from it. It was in my blood.