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It took a couple of weeks to come up with a plan to escape. Working any quicker didn’t hold any advantage. My leg was slowly healing, but I needed to be at full health if I was going to escape. I spent most days trying to stretch it, test how it felt putting weight on it. The room wasn’t big enough to get a full sprint in. But as I rebuilt my strength, I kept trying at least a jog across the room to make sure the knee could take the weight of a fully-fledged run.
It was hard to be certain if the other prisoners knew what I was doing. I suspect many of them reasoned it must have been my way of dealing with the confinement. Whatever their thought processes, despite the many strange looks I got, no one ever seemed to tell me to stop.
However, eventually, I felt more certain my leg could take the impact of a run, and so I began putting the plan into motion. For the first step, I needed to find a knife and something to start a flame. Both were surprisingly easy to get hold of.
The knife could wait till nearer the time. Still, I spent my next time cleaning memorizing where each one was kept, how easy they were to access, which ones I could conceal quickly and easily. But each home had a kitchen, I just had to enter one on my final day.
As for the second item, I returned to the home where I had spotted the display of gas lighters. The lighters were piled high, chucked in with intentional apathy to show off the exuberance. It seemed unlikely they would notice one missing. The lighter also had the bonus of being small enough to slip into the side of my shoe. The guards would briefly pad us down when we returned each day, but their efforts didn’t extend to such extensive searches.
The next part of the plan was getting an accomplice - a much harder task.
I waited the day before we were next due to be working before even bringing the idea up with Jacob. I knew I would be asking a lot of him, and I was worried if I asked him at the beginning of the week he would change his mind come the end of it.
Around late afternoon the guards brought us our daily loaf of bread to share. As we sat down to eat, I dared to suggest my plan.
“I have a favor to ask of you…” I began hesitantly.
“Yeah. What you got planned?”
“I’m going to escape,” I whispered.
Jacob let out a small chuckle as a few crumbs flew from his beard. It was a strange laugh that mixed disbelief with almost mild anger that I would dare even ask. “I’m not going to try and escape with you.”
“I didn’t say we…” I replied. I smirked intentionally, assuming he’d enjoy the gall.
“Then why should I help you?”
“Because I’ll come back for you all.”
“Yeah. I’ve heard that from a bunch of guys before…you know, before they were shot.”
“Trust me,” I insisted.
“Don’t be dumb. That’s not enough,” he muttered, as he tore off another piece of bread.
“Look. You won’t be in danger. What have you got to lose? Either I succeed and we get out of here, or I fail and I die and you get slightly more room to sleep at night.”
“Because I don’t want to watch you die,” he said, scrunching his face.
“You just watched Mary lie dead in a ditch three weeks back. One of us is going to see the other die sooner or later.”
He thought for a second, chewing on a small piece of crust. “So when you escape, and you come free all of us, then what you gonna do?”
The idea had been forming in my head for a while. I knew the answer. But somehow saying it aloud seemed stupid, like a child’s make-believe. “I’m going to leave the Kadear Coalfields. I’m going to visit as many different islands as possible, learn all about them, and I’m going to try and learn enough to understand what led to all of this.”
“All of what?”
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“The islands.” I said, “There were great continents once, with huge cities that stretched further than this whole island. And then it all disappeared. In a blink.”
Jacob mulled on it a few seconds longer. “Not one for small ambitions, are you?”
“Never,” I replied. “Help me.”
Jacob chewed his slowly, ensuring it lasted as long as it possibly could. Eventually, he sighed, a sort of collapsing, relenting exhale. “You really going to come back for us?” he asked.
“If I succeed,” I replied. “You will all be free, and the whole Citadel will be gone.”
He calmly reached over to me and took my piece of bread out of my hands. He tore off half of it and threw it into his own mouth. My payment was made. “What do you need me to do?”
---------------
The next day we were taken outside and given our duties for the day. Jacob was initially to be put to work cutting the grass, but he managed to switch places with someone to get on window cleaning. It didn’t take much convincing for the man to swap. The ladders were wooden, and the constant moisture from the sea air left them slowly rotting. Too many of the prisoners had lost their lives when a step snapped, or the uneven ladder tipped.
I was back on cleaning duty. The very first home I was sent to, I began cleaning in the kitchen. I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I headed straight to one of the drawers, opened it up, and took out a small sharp cutting knife. I quickly placed it within the elastic of my trousers, before returning to my cleaning duties in case a council member or guard should wander in.
I spent the day nervously waiting. The cold steel of the knife was pressed tight against my torso. In my pocket, I could feel the slight weight of the gas lighter. It was a long day, knowing that this cleaning, this pointless fruitless chore, might be my last action.
The end of the day came and the guards marched us outside to be herded back to the prison. The sun had already set over the horizon and painted a beautiful red sky that was slowly fading to the black of night.
We slowly marched forward, but I intentionally kept my pace slow. I stayed parallel to the last guard, far enough forward to be in their peripheral vision and avoid suspicion, but far enough back so that the other guards were ahead of me.
I looked over to the building where the window washers were. I saw Jacob, slowly making his way down from the very top of one of the ladders. He looked over and saw me walking up the hill. Upon my sight, his frame seemed to change; he begun his motions, a performer entering their routine.
Jacob paused about six feet off the ground. He leaned down, and tapped his foot against the rung one beneath him. His eyes turned to meet mine, and he let out a quick smile in my direction. I nodded back. One small, final pact of trust and faith passed between us.
Quickly, he slammed his foot down on the rung, snapping it in two. People looked up at the sound, as Jacob calmly let go of the ladder and leaned back into the empty air. He fell sharply, landing awkwardly on his right leg. He let out a loud, agonized groan as his body crumpled against the grass.
People rushed toward him. A mixture of motivations from concern, to fright, to morbid curiosity brought a halo of onlookers to his side. Even the guards began picking up their pace to check on the event.
“Help!” He screamed. “I can’t move my leg.” The more he screamed, the more people were drawn towards the spectacle, and soon, there were a good ten metres between the final guard and all the others gathering by the screaming, distracting, Jacob.
I only had one guard back where I was. We were a little closer to the building than I would’ve liked, but I couldn’t wait any longer.
I reached into my trouser and took out the sharp knife. Then, my heart racing, I moved hurriedly toward the guard. He noticed me, but not before I was able to grab the back of his shirt, yank him around, and press the point of the blade against his spine.
I whispered into his ear. “You make a single noise, I stab. You can live. But you need to stay silent.”
I could hear a faint whimper of agreement in the guard’s uneven breathing.
I reached down to his gun and pulled it out. “I’m going to back away now. You make any noise before I’m out of sight and I shoot.”
Once more, he nodded his nervous consent.
I slowly backed away from the guard, my eyes, and the gun, locked on him. I stepped back cautiously, slowly shuffling. Several paces away, I checked over my shoulder. The wall, and at least temporary freedom, were only a few seconds away.
I only had another ten or so metres to go. However, with my eyes fixed on the guard I wasn’t looking to the crowd at the top of the hill.
“Stop!” One of the other guards had looked up to check his surroundings and spotted me, the barrell of a gun pointed at his colleague. I turned to see him remove the gun from the holster and point it my way. Every other guard and prisoner turned too, the entire eyes of the Citadel staring down upon me.
I paused for the briefest of moments, till some subconscious part of my brain decided for me. I ran. I ran hard for the wall. I heard the bangs of the guns go off behind me. I jumped for the top of the wall, grabbed the rim, and heaved myself over, to the sound of missed shots hitting the brickwork, and whistling through the trees.
I landed the other side, the soft dirt of the forest floor cushioning my fall. I ran deep into the woods. My legs sprinted along the uneven ground, trying to maintain balance. The fading light failed to penetrate the forest canopy, and it was difficult to make out which direction I was heading. My only orientation was to keep heading away, away from the light that came from the Citadel behind me. To run into the darkness.
I knew that I needed to hide. If I ran too far, and found myself back on the main paths, I would be found. I had to find somewhere in the forest to pause. Somewhere, where I could attempt to outlast the guards.
Another hundred meters into the forest I came across a thin trench that snaked and curved between a few trees.
I charged down it, turning the corner a couple of times, before diving down as low as I could. I scurried on my hands and knees and pressed my back firmly against the muddy wall. I tucked my legs in tight, wrapping them up in my arms, trying to make myself as small as possible. And then, I waited.