The P.U.L.L || #Wattys2017

Chapter 39: Gladiola Quiller

Joshua knew that he just had to rely on the girl's plan since he didn't have one in his disposal. All that he could do was wait and hope that the girl's plan will work. Joshua could quite understand the girl's plan after he had given it some thought. Simply put, she had arranged it so that Joshua couldn't be seen by the guards. She beckoned to Joshua to come in her cell since that's where the guards would probably last look at. The padlock would also convince the guards that it was left untouched but if they gave it some thought, they would easily find Joshua inside it. It would also convince them that no one entered the cell at all, making the probability of not being found out higher.

It was quite a plan and the girl was able to think it through in just a split second after calling Joshua towards her. It almost made Joshua wonder if she was someone in his league.

The only thing left for her to do is to send the guards towards the opposite direction on where they are headed, assuming that the plan would work. If it does, not only would they be able to fool the guards, but they would also get to their destination safely without being found out.

This is a really good plan. The success rate keeps on going up the longer I think about it. Joshua said to himself, thinking that they might be able to go through with this obstacle.

The footsteps of the guards, resounding loudly on the corridor, began to get more and more audible as seconds pass. Joshua hid himself from the view of the metallic door in order to not get found out. There's still a slim chance that the guards will look inside the girl's cell and he did not like the thought of ruining the plan in the first place. Since the metallic door is large enough to get the whole view of the room, Joshua just hid behind it since the bottom part of it didn't have any gaps. In other words, only half of the metallic door has bars on it, the lower part is made purely of metal. Joshua thought about the predicament he's in once again and he concluded that what he's doing is the best course of action.

The guards coming from both ends of the corridor finally found themselves meeting in front of the girl's cell. Both squads were quite surprised after they saw each other. After hearing the alarm, both groups rushed towards the scene hoping to catch the prisoner that escaped. But much to their surprise, they didn't see the escapee anywhere. They didn't know what happened, but both groups were certain that the escapee didn't pass by them. Without wasting another second, they began searching the area, hoping that they would find clues regarding the escapee's whereabouts. They knew that they couldn't fail on their jobs since their jobs are on the line. If they fail in their search, their jobs, which are hanging by the thread even now, would likely be taken from them.

Disappointingly, they ended up in a fruitless search. The two squads dispersed once again to search. They began getting alarmed by the minute while thinking about their jobs. Their job was to respond to the alarm and look capture the prisoner. They were quite baffled after not seeing anything. After all, dozens of eyes couldn't just miss something that important, and they had missed it.

If they were the least bit calm throughout the situation, they would have taken a good look inside the girl's cell and they would have easily obtained the escapee. Unfortunately, they didn't and the girl expected the same exact thing to happen. Joshua was right when he thought that the padlock would do the trick. The guards assumed that the cell was untouched since the padlock was locked.

They're really easy to predict, those guards. But that girl is really calm enough to predict them and at the same time, save both of us. I shouldn't have lost my calm back then. Joshua nagged himself.

After a few seconds, the patrol guards were gone. They had given up searching after finding that two guards were inside the cell of the escapee. Joshua began to calm himself down as he heard the fading footsteps of both the squads. Minutes passed, the clicking sound of the boots that they wore completely faded away.

"Phew! That was close! Thanks a bunch, um..."Joshua's voice trailed off. Now that I think about it, I don't know who this girl is! She looked familiar and all but I doubt that we have met before. Who is she? Arghh!

"Gladiola. Gladiola Quiller is my name." The girl interrupted. "So um, Joshua, long time no see! Wow! Now that I got a good look at you, you're way taller than me now and you look more mature than before! Before you look so young and you got what they call a snow white type of skin. But now, you look way tanner but you certainly did grow up more handsome than before. What did you do for the past eleven years? Did you get a plastic surgery?" Gladiola cheerfully ran her mouth. She reached out her hand to pinch Joshua's cheeks, probably trying to confirm that he didn't get any plastic surgery.

"W-w-wait?! What do you mean? H-how do you know that I'm Joshua?! And what do you mean long time no see?" Joshua curiously asked her while trying to remove Gladiola's constant pinching on his cheeks. "You can rest easy that I didn't get any plastic surgery so could you please stop that? Anyway, Have we met somewhere before? I have a pretty good memory but I couldn't quite remember meeting you before."