The Tale of "The Dangerous Escapee"

The lonely girl had finally come upon a safe place, in a damp little swamp in the woods. Her knees were exhausted and she fell almost immediately onto the brown, moist log obtaining only a few scratches, she at last felt safe, at least for now.

At first, this lonely girl used to be in a labor camp with other young girls and boys that took in kids from ages 10-16. The reason for being in a labor camp was if you committed a crime or held suspicious of a crime, or if your parents could not pay their taxes and payments which sent their family separate by age groups, to different labor camps in order to pay it off – this was the reason how Agnus came into her labor camp. Agnus had barely turned fourteen last month in September. She despicably hated the camp, at least only in secret. You were supposed to “love” and “worship” the government, and if you didn’t, they would do horrible things to you. They would break you, keeping you barely alive in order for them to manipulate you more until you loved them. They made sure of this, by scanning the human brain in a machine called, “The Mind Scanner” which indicated your feelings, thoughts, motives, even dreams. The whole goal of the government was for you to love them only over the value of human life.

The government owned a whole new continent that had developed for many centuries. They called this continent, New America. An easy name you might say, although it is a little smaller than North America but slightly bigger than South America. Today came to be, when not more than somewhat a hundred years ago, large groups from all parts of the world who supported dictatorship, set out on a expedition, to create their own government. But this was not some small group of people of about a hundred, but of hundreds of thousands of people that kept growing mostly from their biggest influence (also “leader” and founder of the continent) Jeplin Ferristock who changed his name to just “Leader Jeplin.” Together with him, they created the “new and improved America.” They made all religions illegal and created the new religion of “Government Worship” as the national religion, and anyone who did not join “Government Worship” was executed. The bad thing about this continent is that it’s hard to escape it unless you were a shipper or a tradesman or a business man working for the government to trade goods and loans.

The labor camp even enforced to love the government, once a week playing the same video over and over again on how great the government is and how it benefits all of us. Some girls had given in, and there were some girls didn’t fully give in, but did as they were told. However, Agnus, or “Aggie” as her mother called her, did not fully give in. Her family was deported to different labor camps, she had reports from girls who had “connections” that her mother, father, and little brother, died from exhaustion many months ago. So, she did not hold onto the hope of being back with her family, and began making plans to make her escape.

It was on a dark day when the large clouds covered the sun, and the wind was cold and chilly. The labor that day was fast and deliberate, and the motto is “The sooner you work, the more work you’ve done, the quicker you get to eat” – and this was true, because we were given flexible shifts, meaning, we were able to chose when we wanted to work, but if we did a large amount of work and in a matter of time, the sooner you get to eat, in which after you’ve worked, you have to receive a blue card from the manager in charge of your particular work field, take your brown slip of paper with your number on it in order to walk to the office so you don’t look suspicious, and check in your name and number and age and work field to the lady at the front desk, in which she will give you a red paper that gives you the opportunity to have your lunch break whenever you want, but it’s best to get it soon because the lines are exhaustingly long and there is hardly enough food for one serving for each of us. Aggie had obtained this card after she had woken up at 3 a.m. to start her labor work in which she was able to finish all of her work for that day. She was free to do whatever she liked at 8 a.m. She went to her room to grab a small cloth she had partially ripped from the bottom of her mattress and secretly when everyone else was working, and when no one was there serving lunch, she put however much she could into her cloth and flattened it with her hands and slipped it in her boot covering it with her pant leg which also contained a tarp she had sewn for cleaning the gutters that was large enough to cover her whole body. She slept in her bed afterwards until she heard the running of feet and groans of girls who were anxious to get in line first. She snuck out in the back door of the bed room, and went to the west gate which she always knew had a covered hole in the fence by a large wooden board. She squeezed herself underneath that wooden board (almost knocking it down), and her small, frail and skinny body gave her the advantage to squeeze herself through that hole. She’d made it, and covered herself with the large tarp over her head and tied it with a string across her waist to stay on.