Dear Journal,

Happy Valentine’s Day! Not actually, I don’t think, although I’ve definitely lost track by this point, so maybe it actually is? But I’m not sure what that would even mean now. Like, even if Hansen wanted to, it’s not like we could really go out to dinner or anything. Maybe a romantic night in the kitchen or something?

So tonight, I was waiting around for Rex to come and get me, hoping that he’d be super puking his guts out, but instead of his normal self. And obviously it was hard to figure out if it was actually time for him to come get me or not, but I was trying my best to count the alarms to figure out if it’d been a full 24 hours. I didn’t even really sleep, but just made sure I was taking quick naps instead! Because like, if he ended up being super late, I figured that I could just assume that he wasn’t coming, and even if that wasn’t the best case scenario because he wouldn’t have forgotten to lock the door, maybe I could figure some way out of the room anyway. I mean, I’ve seen old heist movies, I know what they can do with a hair pin! Not that anyone would ever bother to wear those anymore, because like, formal updos are so out of fashion now, you know? And I say that because if I’m the only one around who cares about fashion, then I’m the one who gets to decide what’s actually in fashion. I guess one of the perks of the apocalypse is that I’m the style icon!

But anyway, I had stayed up as best as I could trying to count the alarms, and I heard a fifth one! And I know I talked big talk about that meaning that I would be able to escape as soon as I knew he wasn’t coming, but it was still pretty early, you know? I wasn’t sure, but if I had to guess, I’d say that Rex has been taking me to dinner around 6 PM every day, so hearing an extra bell just meant it was like 8. That’s still early enough that, if I wasn’t being held prisoner, Garrett and I would have probably still been hanging around outside! So, instead of trying to make a run for it then, I decided to wait for a while, because if it was closer to midnight, more people would be asleep. I hadn’t heard the footsteps from a passing patrol for quite some time, so while they might have been out there, there was something in me that told me that they’d decided that we were just going to listen to them and wouldn’t try to escape anymore. I don’t know why, having met us, they thought we’d be easily broken, but I guess we showed them!

So anyway, I was waiting for the next alarm, looking around the room for anything that we could use to get the lock open, when I heard the door click. I immediately ran back to my bed and sat down on it, so I could act like I’d been patiently waiting for Rex to come when the door slid open, but as I tried to look as innocent as possible, nothing happened. Rex didn’t swing open the door or anything, it just…was open. So, after a few more heartbeats of considering, I went to the door and pulled on it myself, and to my surprise, it did open!

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I peeked my head out slowly, trying to figure out what had happened. The hallway was silent, but then I saw my mother, crouched down by the door next to me. All of her attention was on the door handle, as she prodded it with a fork. I walked up to her, but she didn’t seem to notice me as I approached. She had pulled the cover off the back of the doorknob and was prodding the interior part with her fork, and after a few more prods, there was the slight click of the door unlocking. She stood up without speaking and raised her finger to her lips so I would be silent, which like duh, I can read a room, you know? But I followed her to the next room, eventually with Jared emerging from the now unlocked room.

As my mom worked on the next door, I watched what she was doing closely, making sure to gesture to Jared to watch the corridor in case somebody else showed up. If Rex showed up and he wasn’t actually super sick, I wasn’t sure what we could do, but maybe we could deal with someone else, you know? But anyway, I watched my mom closely, and then went to the other doors in the hallway and at least loosened the cover thing. Obviously every room in the hallway was not going to be for one of us, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything if the covers were off them, too.

I don’t know how my mom knew whose rooms were whose - maybe Rex had been taking her out, too, for some reason? But she did, and as soon as she got her next door unlocked, she pointed to the others before starting on her fourth. I nodded, but since I hadn’t been eating in my room for so long, I didn’t have a fork, but I managed to gesture what I needed to Jared and he went to get one. It took me a bit longer to open the door than my mom because it was way more complicated than it looked, but eventually I was able to get it figured out, and the door clicked open. Instead of just letting them figure it out, I pushed open the door, and saw Hansen inside.

We hadn’t even been captured that long, but he somehow looked thinner than the last time I saw him. Thinner, and way more tired. But he looked like he was going to say something, but I quick shushed him, because if we got caught at that point, why even bother? But I went up and hugged him quick, and despite how totally gross we both smelled, I think it was the best thing I ever felt.

Between my mom and I, we went down the hall and unlocked all of the doors within maybe 15 minutes. I think it was purely luck that was didn’t get caught while we were doing it, because it was kind of late I guess, but not so late that I would have thought everyone would be in bed already. Granted, whenever I’d been walking back after hanging out with Garrett, I’d hardly seen anyone in the hallway either, so maybe everyone here just went to bed super early or something? But it didn’t matter why, but somehow my mom and I managed to get everyone out without anyone from the power plant seeing us. Then, my mom gestured us to go back into her room, which I don’t think any of us really wanted to go back into one of the rooms now that we’ve gotten free, but at least my mom had already showed that she could get out of there once, so we all followed her. As soon as the door clicked, she whispered “we can talk now, as long as we’re quiet. They can’t hear us from the hallway if we’re quiet.”

Garrett was the first person to speak, saying “and what the hell are we supposed to do now?”

I’m out of room here, so I’ll skip to the next page.

Love,

Kayla