MisPrints

•Chapter 18•

 -4.46pm-

 -Ely’s POV-

  I thought that getting the straps off would get me one step closer to getting out, but no, I’m just as stuck as I was before. I rest my head back against the wall and stretch out my cramped limbs, my wrists and ankles still aching from where the plastic had dug into my skin. I press my fingers around my wrists to try and bring back the feeling and it begins to creep back in slowly, but it only makes the aching sensation worse.

 Eve is sat beside me leaning her head on her knees and looking in my direction. Any hope that we had quickly vanished in minutes. There was no way to open the door from the inside, the only opening there was small window above it, but there was no way it could be smashed because the glass was so thick, and neither of us had anything to break it with even if we wanted to. There were no buttons, no openings, no circuit boards, just nothing. But what was I expecting; Eve had said this was one of the securest vaults they had.

 “How did you try and escape the other times?” I ask eventually running my fingers through my hair, pulling at the knots and tangles. She turns her head and looks straight ahead, her fingers wrapped around her toes.

 “Well the first time it was easy, one of the officers left the key in the lock so I just fiddled with it from the inside and it opened and I got out. The second time I managed to get underneath one of the bars because it was loose, again they caught me within about ten minutes…” She laughed limply, “because lets face it little blind girl is going nowhere. Even if she wanted to.”

 “But you tried though,” I tell her, “If it was me, I wouldn’t have even tried. I would have just crawled up into a ball and never moved again. I’m just a coward; I can’t help other people, let alone myself. Also I definitely wouldn’t have succeeded so many times if I was...” I catch myself before I say it but she already knows what I meant.

 “If you were blind like me?”

 “…Mm.” I murmur, ashamed at how blunt that was. “Sorry I didn’t mean it like...”

 “It’s okay I know you didn’t. I’m used to the idea now…just about.”

 “What about the other times?” I ask, wanting to avoid the subject, I just don’t know how to handle it.

 “Third time wasn’t very successful; I managed to get one of the key cards because it was lying on the group outside the door. I managed to get it but they found it on me even before I’d had the chance to try and use it. And the last time I waited until one of the Overseers brought me my food and I pretended I was in a lot of pain, so she took me out to the medical room to give me a drug or something.” She breaths in quickly and then sighs.

 “I was pretty close that time, I kicked her over and then ran for it, and because there was no one else around I managed to get down quite a few corridors, but still. Where was I going? I had no idea, all I knew is that I wanted to get away, to find a way out but I couldn’t, it was never going to happen. They found me within half an hour and then I ended up here. That one hurt a lot; I don’t want it to happen again.”

  “Did they punish you then?”

 “Yeah they punish you every time if you get out, the first few times they just didn’t feed me properly for a bit, but that time...” She stops and refuses to say anything else, but I don’t need her to explain. I’ve seen the things they use to control people, all those machines up in the window room, yeah, they hurt. Suddenly a thought comes to me.

 “Wait they bring you food right..?”

 “Uhuh.” She nods, “Every few hours. They took it away just before you came in; sorry if I’d known you were coming I would have kept some for you.”