24 Crayons

Chapter Six: Hay Mattresses and Concrete Floors

I look around the room and take in the cracked concrete walls with a small bar window going to the cell next door, there are blood stains in various spots of the room. The air is clogged with dust, and cob webs draped from the ceiling and across the bars of the cell door.

The metal box I hit my knee on is filled with hay and must be a bed, it has a few rust stains on areas where its black paint has worn off, and has a thin dirty sheet on top. There is another metal box and hay bed across from mine near Logan. That was it. I get up and look through our small barred window into the cell next door. The room I am in and the one next door are identical. Except that the door in the other cell sits slightly a jar instead of locked tight. 

"And I thought Zerina had bad hospitality it must just be how they treat visitors in this place,," I say sarcastically.

Logan nods in agreement. "You could put it that way." he pauses thinking. "We have to get out of here." he states bluntly.

"No sh*t Sherlock. The question is how? You've seen all the guards everywhere."

"We will make a plan. I know we can get out." Logan assures. I look up at him and I meet his brown eyes. You can see the hope in his eyes, and I can tell he means it. And with that one reassuring look I believe that we will get out, not only out of jail, but out of the books and back home.

.................Later on......................

Logan and I have been brainstorming escape plans for quite some time, all of them either extremely far fetched or complete failures under the circumstances. Some of our ideas have been so off we would actually burst out laughing. If this continues we will never get out of here. It seems like the longer we stay down here the thicker the air gets and the higher the temperature rises.

I look over to see Logan staring at me.

"What?" I ask him, I think I see him blush a little but he doesn't have time to answer.

RAP! TAP! TAP!

The door bursts open and a guard barges carrying a tray. He sets down the tray with two grey bowls and a two cracked powder blue mugs. Then he storms back to the door the clomping of his boots echoing around the concrete walls of our little cell. Just as he is about to exit I stop him.

"WAIT! What time is it?" I holler.

"That's classified information." He states staring me down.

"Dude it's just the time!" I yell.

"Enough." The guard sneers slamming the metal door behind him.

I turn to face Logan who is looking down at the tray we were given.

"What now?" I ask because I can tell he has a stupid question just by the look on his face.Everyone I know gets a certain look when they have a stupid question.

"Do you think it's poisoned?" He ponders. I shake my head. I knew it.

"Why would they need to poison it? It smells bad enough already." I reply. The bowls are filled with a lumpy grey goop emitting a horrid stench. The mugs are filled with water tinged yellow. If this is the daily diet, I'm gonna be losing a lot of weight.

As we are trying to force ourselves to eat, we continue trying to come up with a plan.

"Well at least this stuff isn't as bad as it looks." Logan states.

"Your right!" I agree. "It's ten times worse."

Logan sighs. "So since we can't shoot rockets through the ceiling or tunnel under the building like in cartoons, what can we do?"

"I don't know. We have thought of everything. Sneaking out, attacking guards, stretching the cell bars, slipping out when food gets dropped off, I'm out of ideas! I don't even know the time! How are we supposed to sneak out at night if we don't know the time? Oh wait! We can't sneak out because we have no reasonable plan! I just it's.." I'm interrupted by Logan leaning forward  and laying his hand on top of mine. I look up at him questioningly. 

"Stop stressing out." Logan assures in a calm voice. "We can get out of here. I just know we can. I'm not spending my life in jail, and neither will you. We will get back to Canada, I just know it." Logan moves back and takes his hand off mine.

I lean back and blow out a long breath, the metal bars of the window to the cell next door dig into my back. But I'm too tired to care. "I know. I believe you."

"Good, now sit up so I can explain my next idea." He says with a smirk.

I groan and prop myself up with my elbow. But as I'm sitting up, the bars in the window behind me creak. Then the bars fall off and clatter to the ground. "Ditch what ever idea you had. Let's go!" I announce.

But just as I position my self to crawl through. I'm dragged back by Logan pulling on my arm.

"What now?" I hiss. I want to go already, we have a way out.

"You realize that we don't know if there is another exit once we get out of that cell, or where guards are positioned or if there are other locked doors or anything. I can tell its late. We should go to sleep for tonight so that we are well rested for tomorrow. And in the morning we will go into the other cell and we will see if there is a way out, and if we can get out of there." Logan explains. 

"and then if we can manage to get further than that cell we can see what else we can find from there right?" I say walking to my bed. "I guess we should get rest, who knows what we will find tomorrow. good night." I realize Logan was right, just jumping into the other cell and taking off wouldn't be very smart.

And soon in the silence and hot air of the dungeon I drift off to sleep.

 Its the yelling that wakes me. harsh voices that varen't very far away. I peek my eyes open and see that there are two people in front of the cell door. One man had his backed turned and I can only the the edges of the one behind him, but the guy in the back looks like a guard.

"But they're extreme criminals!!" Screams the one with his back to me. He is relatively tall, looks young and has black hair. "You know that! They can't be here! They can't be anywhere! They must be executed!" 

" But sir! They have done nothing!Nothing that you accuse them for is considered extreme!" Says the guard.  The man with the black hair begins to turn around and I squint my eyes so that I'm able to still see them but it looks like my eyes were closed. 

Then I hold back a slight gasp as I realize that its the mayor. "By the time they do it will be too late!" He sneers.  The guard swallows hard.

"Um, sir they are both under 18 and that would be against the law of.." The guard nervously starts but is interrupted by the mayor grabbing the collar of his uniform.

"Well then maybe this will just be our little secret?" The mayor smiles a crooked mischievous grin. "6 O'clock." He demands before storming out. His light graceful footsteps slowly fading as he walked, then the pace changing as he began on the stairs. until finally the only noise was the guards nervous breath and Logan's light snoring. 

"10 hours kids. 10 hours left. I'm sorry." The guard muttered sadly as he walked in the opposite direction of the mayor down the long hall filled with cells.

Crap. Logan and I have 10 hours to break out of jail or we die. What a great way to start the morning.

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Thank you once again for reading. What do you think so far? I have a lot planned aout but I still will definately read and consider sugestions for in the future chapters!!!  please comment and vote! It will make me so so so so happy! :)

-Lisa