A Prison from Within

3.

They dragged me to a back room in which two gray, metal looking chairs sat on either side of a long pale table placed strategically in the middle of the room. Then I saw her sitting there, not the little girl I once knew. She was a woman now, her face was no longer sweet and innocent. She looked at me with cold eyes, I could tell she was mad at me but my mouth wouldn’t move to ask her why. I couldn’t stand to see her like this, she was always supposed to be happy. She kept staring at me, analyzing me but I didn’t mind because she was here with me now and thats all that really mattered. Tears started falling from her eyes, making the makeup on her face run down in black streaks. Oh how I wanted to reach out and calm her, stop her tears from falling but my hands were stopped by the heavy metal shackles holding them tightly to the metal chair the tossed me in. Her mouth started to move but she was speaking so softly that I had to strain my ears to hear what she was trying to say. At last I heard what she was trying to say, she was repeating the same  sentence over and over again. “Tonight at midnight, escape.”

Guards came rushing in, dragging her out by her arms. I wanted to scream at them, to yell for them to stop, they might hurt her.  A buff guard came in with a gun in his hand and I started to squirm in my seat, I didn’t want to find out what he was going to with that gun but I was still chained to the chair so I couldn’t run away.  He came behind me and Before I could blink the hilt of his gun came in contact with the back of my head.  I woke on the floor, my head pounding and dots dancing across my vision. When what little strength returned to my legs and arms I slowly stood and was shocked to see that it was already dark, and had been for a few hours already.  I had to hurry and find something to pry the door open before midnight comes.  I searched my room in the dark, looking for something sturdy that wouldn’t break when I realized that the legs of my cot are easy to take apart. Rushing over to my cot I flipped it on its side tugging at one of the legs as I could, it only loosened in my grip, good sign. I dragged the cot away from the wall which create a spine chilling scraping noise, like when my teachers used to drag their nails against the chalkboard to get our attention and turned it around to face the wall. I sat with my back against the wall, my left foot placed in the middle of the cot and my right foot in the space separating the two cot legs and pulled.

It’s finally here, midnight has finally come and now it’s time for me to leave this place and be with my little girl.  Usually every night there is a night guard that comes and inspects every door but he never did which left my door vulnerable.  I took the cot leg in my right hand and brought it to the small crack at the side of the door. One...two...three.  I pushed hard on the leg and the door slowly creaked open, just enough for me to slip my hands through to finish pulling. As the space between the door got bigger I started to inch my shoulder through the gap until I was able to push my way all the way through. I stumbled out and fell to the ground, the metal grates beneath my fingertips were cold and rusted. I could hear her, calling me to her, telling me to get up and run. So I ran, well more liked stumbled along a long, red, dimly lit hallway with doors just like mine. The others must be sleeping, no other sounds could be heard besides my heavy breathing and clumsy foot steps.   I ran up and down staircases weaving in and out of hallways, trying to find some way to get out but found none so far, until I came across two heavy metal doors at the end of another hallway with a faded exit sign plastered in the middle of the doors. Then alarms went off and the guards, how they came running. Numerous pairs of boots came thundering at me from all directions, there was no where for me to run but I still tried.  Throwing myself against the doors, over and over again until the guards finally reached me. How odd that I didn’t hear them bring out the dogs but the alarm was screaming so loud at me and the searing pain in my shoulder must have distracted me.  Two guards roughly held my limp form, which had fallen in exhaustion,  suspending me slightly off the ground. I could hear the dogs barking and snarling in the background, now that they shut the alarm off, their sharp teeth creating a deafening snapping noise.  I could feel the heat coming from their mouths cacking my face with the smell of rotten flesh filling my nose and slowly making its way down my throat. Then silence. Everyone stopped what they were doing, even the dogs ceased their attempts to get at me when they heard heavy boots impact the metal stairs slowly.  Shoes shined to perfection showed my reflection as the man stood in front of me. Seeing my defeated expression for the first time confused me, I was never this week before.  One of the guards holding me to a fist full of my grundgey hair, yanking my head back, forcing me to look at the man in front of  me.

“Did you really think you could escape?”