| MALACHI WRIGHT-FOWLER |
| Catch Me If You Can | | |
| I was cold, alone, and tired, but I had a job to do. I needed to escape. I sat in darkness for what felt like hours before the door suddenly opened. My first instinct was to hide, but when I felt around the room I realized that it was completely empty. Not a chair in sight, just blank walls, a window, and a big metal door with bolts running up and down it. The door only opened enough to where whoever was keeping me here could slide a metal tray with food on it. I wouldn't really call whatever they gave me food, it was more like just a wet slop of carrots and soup.From day one, I started planning my escape. Step one was to find a way out and then figure it out from there. There was a window but that wouldn't work because it had bars made out of what felt like titanium. I tried everything I could think of in the tiny, enclosed room. I hit the bars with the tray, I beat on the door, and I even tried to pry the door open.After a few days of repeatedly beating on the metal bars I started to get one to budge. I eventually got a bar to bend so I could get my head out, and when I looked out the window a wave of shock and fear shot throughout my entire body like a speeding bullet. I expected to be a few feet off of the ground but when I looked down all I saw was sky, the ground wasn't even in sight. I almost had a full on panic attack. Of course they put someone that is terrified of heights on what looked like the highest point in the building. The room all of a sudden got really blurry, my stomach was doing somersaults, and my legs felt weak. Now I knew I had to make it out by whatever means necessary. On my count I had been there about forty days when my chance finally came. The guard forgot to close the door fully after he had given me my food, so I waited about twenty minutes and then took my chance to get out. I opened the door to a blank room with cell doors lining every wall. I saw the stairwell door and sprinted through it, almost falling when the door practically flew open. I thought it would be an easy, smooth run all the way down to the ground floor. I couldn't have been more wrong.As soon as I stepped foot in the stairwell, I heard the one thing that an escaping prisoner doesn't want to hear, "PRISONER HAS ESCAPED! I REPEAT! PRISONER HAS ESCAPED!" I sprinted down the stairs as fast as I could, but the guards were not far behind. I could hear their footsteps maybe two or three flights up. After what felt like hours I made it to the ground floor. I stepped through the door that read GROUND FLOOR and ran to the first exit sign I saw. My body was telling me to just stop and give up but I knew that I couldn’t stop, no matter what. As I was running through an empty field I thought to myself, I finally did it. Out of nowhere I saw lights and felt something in my arm prick me and as I looked down I realized that it looked like a dart of some sort. Then everything went black. |
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