Short Stories

The Escape (The Choice Contest #3 Entry)

written: Feb 05, 2017 

It had been 103 days since he had been locked up.

103 days since he had been betrayed by none other than the love his life.

The cell was bleak, and he bet his lunch portions that they were designed to turn people like him crazy. Well, it sure was doing it's job.

Adrian was one of the only people who wasn't flawed, who was "perfect." At the Test of Eighteen, he had failed.

He had no imperfection, his vision perfect, his hearing perfect, his teeth all perfect, everything about him was perfect, and that was what made him an outcast.

In a world where technology and cyborgs were everywhere, natural perfection was frowned upon.

But what the officials didn't know was that Adrian wasn't perfect.

His heart was shattered in tiny tiny pieces and he was sick with heartbreak, and depression. A loud pounding of fists shattered his train of thought, "Get up!" A guard barked.

Heaving a sigh, he stood up from his lonely corner, as the door opened with a boom. Of course, it time for his shower.

Armed to the teeth, three guards escorted Adrian to the shower room. Unknown to the guards, he felt the atmosphere shift the slightest as he undressed. The guard holding his arm way too tight must have had his eyes replaced with the technology based one, from the way it was unnaturally perfect. He also had gone through plastic surgery, because he looked the age of thirty when Adrian overheard another guard claiming he had worked here for over twenty years.

The other boys and girls, all natural beauties, had shed their modesty upon a month arriving in the Cells. Once, Adrian might had blushed at the sight of naked teenagers, but not anymore. The Cells had changed that, or rather, Maryin had changed that on his seventeenth birthday.

"10 more minutes of hot water," A guard barked, watching the prisoners. Adrian didn't miss the gleam of lust in his eyes as the guard eyed the females. He took his place under the showerhead and allowed his stiff muscles to relax under the not so soothing lukewarm water.

Adrian made eye contact with Don, another prisoner, who subtly winked. Lyn caught the exchanged and flashed a quick grin. Lyn was the girl who was a genius, who was deemed dangerous not only because she was a Perfect, but because she was an infamous hacker.

Adrian was the first of the prisoners to break away from the somewhat comforting beat of the shower and back toward his escort-guards. Wordlessly, the plastic surgery loving guard handed his clothes back and he dressed, slowly.

"Hurry up!" He barked, his voice bouncing off the walls of the shower. Twenty pairs of naturally perfect eyes swung to him- the signal. As one, the twenty prisoners moved back to their escort-guards and began to dress.

Agitated at the speed Adrian was going, the guard sneered, "Hurry up or you'll lose half of your dinner portions."

A quick glance around the room as Adrian pulled up his pants told him that everyone was in the place.

"Now," Don barked as each Perfect struck.

The two guards were a joke, they didn't have time to react as Adrian swung a punch at a guard, letting the momentum catch him as another guard tackled the area he had just been before. Grabbing the collar of the guard Adrian had just punched, he yanked the collar so the guard tripped over the half conscious guard on the ground and banged his head hard on the shower floor.

The plastic surgery loving guard reached for his taser as Adrian snatched a whip from one of the fallen guards and swung.

The tail caught the last guard by the neck and he yelled in pain. He swung again. And again.

As soon as he had dropped the taser, Adrian lunged for it and tasered the man in the stomach. Adrian didn't spare the man another glance as he looked to the fellow Perfects.

And as one, they broke into a sprint down the halls, Don leading the pack.

A cluster of guards appeared on our tails, and Adrian broke off, as planned.

He swung the long whip, its tail slashing all the guards leading their pack. They all cried out in pain, and halted, long enough for Adrian to strike again. A guard raised his gun and aimed, only to find a taser thrown to his head.

Then, Adrian turned and ran like hell.

He ran past his cell and to the exit the Perfects had chosen, blessing his perfect memory. And to his dismay, as the exit came into sight, the door was rapidly closing, lower and lower. He could hear Don and Lyn and Ian yelling for him to hurry, to go faster.

With a burst of speed that sent his legs throbbing, he slid under the door as the pack of guards finally came into view of the exit. Barely a second later, the exit finally slammed shut.

"Let's go!" Don barked, opening a pothole that would eventually lead to Canada, to freedom.

All the Perfects obeyed, and they climbed down, down, down. As they climbed down, Don asked Adrian, "How's it like to be free?"

Adrian smiled in the darkness, "Tiring, but worth it."

Adrian knew what it meant to escape. He would never see his family- oh how he missed his sister Yrene, and Maryin, who still loved despite it all.

But, the Cells had changed Adrian, and he was no longer afraid to live life to the fullest.

Don called, "To a better future."

And, as one, the Perfects echoed back, "To a better future!"