When Forever Ends (Part 1: A Game of Chess)

XXIV

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T w e n t y - F o u r

A sound jolted me awake.

It was a sound I hadn't heard for a long time, and it took a while for me to recall where I'd heard it before. I kept my eyes closed and my breathing deep while I thought about it, and, finally, it came to me. It was the sound of the door opening.

I peeked at the door through slitted eyelids. It creaked softly on its hinges and shifted in the cool breeze coming into the room. Someone had unlocked it and left it slightly ajar, but I saw no one other than my friends, still sleeping.

I quietly got to my feet, abandoning the pretense that I was asleep, and crept over to the door. I gently pulled it open a little farther, squinting into the darkness beyond. While our cell was still dimly lit, as it had always been, the hall outside was dark. From the small rectangle of light slanting out through the doorway and the red emergency lights spaced evenly along the hall, I could see for a considerable distance. Still, I saw no one.

I went back into the cell and looked at my friends. Maya was stretched out on her side, face pressed against the wall. Erin lay near Maya, on her front, with one leg under Maya's head. Her arms were folded under her chin and Maya's makeshift bandage of someone's sock was still wrapped around her neck. Sofie sat back against the wall, legs drawn up tight against her chest and her forehead rested on her knees.

Will, on the other hand, was all over the place. Most of him was in the center of the room, over the drain, but he had an arm under the unused pile of worn blankets, a leg pointing towards a corner of the room, and the other leg bent so that his foot was flat on the ground. As I stood there staring at him, he shifted and his other arm flopped over on top of my foot. He was still snoring softly, his mouth open wide and his eyes shut tight. It was clear that none of them had heard anything.

I flicked Will's arm off my foot with the tip of my toe and tapped him on the shoulder. He didn't respond, so I gave him a light kick.

"Not more oats..." he mumbled. "Hate 'em..." He rolled over and went right back to snoring.

I gave up and moved over to Erin. I gently shook her shoulder and her eyes snapped open.

"What is it?" she whispered.

"Door's open," I replied.

"What?" she twisted around and winced, turning back to me. "Ow."

She got to her feet, rubbing the sock and muttering to herself. I caught the words "neck", "Tarron", and a few others I'd rather not mention.

"That's strange," she said when she'd seen for herself that the door was, in fact, open.

"And what's even more strange is that I heard it open," I said, "but I didn't see who'd opened it, or hear any footsteps. I even looked out in the hallway and there's no one in sight.

"Weird," she brushed her hair out of her face and bent to wake Maya.

"Huh?" Maya looked up at us, blinking the sleep away. "Did something happen?" She yawned and stretched, then sat up straight when she noticed why we were up. "Oh."

Soon, Will and Sofie were also staring at the door in disbelief. None of us had any clue as to why the door was ajar, but we all agreed on one thing.

"This is the opportunity we've been waiting for," Erin declared. "We should get out while we can."

"Come on. I'll lead the way," I moved out into the hallway, my friends close behind. I tried to retrace the path we had taken from the main room, but it had been so long since then, I couldn't recall the whole thing.