The Untold Tales of the Notorious High Five

Chapter 2

The hard floor and the smell of must make it hard to get any sort of rest. That, along with the constant wailing of my fellow prisoners, has kept me on edge. Ragnar and I have established a sort of friendship. He has told me all about his tribe and how they were demolished by a race called Bugbears. I thought they sounded cute but apparently they are ugly and viscous. Since he had no where else to go, he decided to go everywhere and learn all about the world around him, which he says is odd for a barbarian, since all his clansmen spent their days beating on each other. 

He continues to shut down any hope I have of escaping this place, but that does not stop me from praying every spare moment I have. Mask has yet to reply and I can't help but let that sliver of doubt spread. It seems as months have gone by but down here there is really no way of telling. Still, I keep my eyes and ears open waiting for any chance I get at escape. 

"You're making that face again." Ragnars voice breaks through my thoughts.

"What look?" I reply not bothering to look at him.

"The 'I'm looking for a way out' look. I don't know how many times I have to tell you, we are stuck here. For permanent."

"Have a little faith big guy." I finally turn to flash him a wide grin. "It might do you some good."

Ragnar just scoffs and crosses his arms. So I continue, "If I could just find something, anything, I could pick this lock. Then all we would have to do is stick to the shadows and find our way out of here."

"You make it sound so easy. There's a lot of 'ifs' you should add to that. If we can pick the lock, and if we can sneak by all the guards, we may be able to find a way out. But we could easily get caught at any point. And you know they wouldn't kill us if we got caught, they would just make us wish they had."

I wave him off and go back to examine the lock "Orianna I need you to be serious. We may be slaves but it could be so much worse. I don't want you tortured and honestly I don't want to be tortured either. I quite like my skin attached to my body."

"I told you we can do this. I didn't finally leave my little part of the world to end up getting trapped in another one." I turn towards the him and look straight into his eyes. "I am serious. I am serious about getting out of here. I am serious about taking you with me. And I am very serious about living the life I was meant to live, up in our world." I take a deep breath to try and calm myself. "I know it will be tough, but I would rather be tortured or kill or whatever you think they'll do to us, for trying to escape, then lay down and take it. So are you in or not."

Ragnar lets out a long sigh and rubs his face. "Okay but we have to plan every little detail. Every obstacle. Consider every possible thing that could go wrong and figure out how to deal with them. It will take time."

A smile stretches across my face. "Well my friend, all we have is time."

So we spent every waking hour either planning while we were in our cells, or gathering any information we could while we were out working. The days went by faster and our spirits were lifted. We went over our plan what seemed hundreds of times. Our only problem was trying to figure out how to get out of the cells. I was trying to come up with ideas when Ragnar turns to me, a mischievous grin on his face. "If you're ready now, I know how to bust us out of here."

"Oh and you were just going to keep that information to yourself, were you?"

"It's not something I usually do. Or i haven't in a very long time." He pulls the rag of a shirt off and cracks his neck. "You remember the plan?"

I roll my eyes in return, "Of course I do, we have only gone over it a thousand times."

He nods, cracks his knuckles and begins to shake. As he does, his body begins to grow, his veins pop out a growl is forming.