Blind

[Storyteller]

I remember.

[spoiler]Before

I remember hearing the forks and knives scrape obnoxiously against the ceramic plates. I remember the flashing gleam of warm light on my skin, the same light that bathed the entire room. My mother was wearing a smile that touched her eyes, my father, he was scowling a bit, but he meant well as he chewed ferociously on the slice of steak he chomped on his fork. And my brother? His lips had arched to resemble a boat, his eyes shifted all around the room, while my mother attempted to airplane his next delivery into his mouth.

“Whoosh!” The landing had been successful, after the umpteenth try. Orange goo had spattered everywhere, and was a nice addition to the flaking wallpaper.

We had a nice home, filled with love and care, despite how the actual house was falling apart. It wasn’t much, but it was ours. Time seemed suspended now. Suspended in this little memory. One so full of everything familiar, I had no reason to doubt it’s existence as I felt my senses being swept away.

It had been dinner time. Sensations like scent and taste leaked into my mind while my brain registered it. I was safe, so my brain had no need to sweep my surroundings, and of course, no need for caution. Sure an earthquake could have stricken, but really, who would imagine that?

I remember the taste of the food. It was a Saturday. The ol’ family had had a non-meat dinner last night, and that meant tonight we didn’t need to celebrate lent. My dad had grilled up the steak on the BBQ, and everyone, save little Toby, got to share in the wealth.

The steak was juicy and moist. When the choice piece was sliced, it wept crimson tears. For sides there were crispy french fries with extra salt - the way I liked it - and a serving of peas. The green orbs rolled about on my plate, neglected as I grasped the yellow strips in my hand and for a moment pretended it was a broadsword, meant to skewer straight into my steak, and eviscerate the lean beef to death. Of course this got old, and my fry got soggy, but that was just the cut of the deck.

It was an all-American dinner, with my all-American family. They were good people. My dad had a job, my mom was on maternity leave, and I, well I was in school. I slacked off a bit, and am in denial that my grades define me and my future. I want to choose my own path, but the guidance councilor, and my mom, telling me that options can actually help you decide a path, and when you get to be a certain age, having options, is something that can make you very successful, even if you choose not to pursue them.

I’m sixteen. I’m a girl with brown hair and brown eyes. I’m completely normal, and in my free time, I listen to punk music, complain to my friends about things that annoy me, and I rebel against any authority that tries to tell me there’s something in the world I don’t know, or can’t do.

I was just so damn typical at that time. Why couldn’t I stay in this ignorance forever?

I guess that’s the way it goes though. Regret, and the “should haves” that I never did. I’m an all-American girl, if that even means something. I’m so easily definable in this moment, playing with my peas on the plain white plate. They’re rolling all around as I lift the plate to match the angle. I wasn’t much hungry, but today was a bit of a celebration. Funnily enough, I couldn’t remember what...

But anyway, back to me. I like horror movies, I obsess over anything goth, and I love zombie movies. They’re the best in the world, and I think when they are done right, they could easily win an oscar or some hella standing ovation in Hollywood.

I have two close friends, and a crush who doesn’t know I exist. That’s okay though, my friends and I have a plan so that I can win his heart. Trisha and Jacob are my two best friends. I’ve known them most of my life and they love everything I’m into. We all wear black -yes, I’m one of those kids- and frankly, I don’t care if people tell me my hair is too short or too long. I don’t care when people tell me I’m too thin or too ugly. I don’t... Care.

I once punched a kid in the face for calling my friend a whore. I can still feel the crunch of his bones underneath my skin now... That was a story to tell my parents. I got suspended for a week, and was put on academic probation. Still, I never regretted it. Not even after when it earned me the reputation for being unruly, unpredictable, and just plain un-attractive. I guess no one likes a girl with fists, but I could care less. The one thing I had was honor, and I wasn’t going to watch my friend be bullied just because some guy wanted to start a rumor.

School was rough. I was always an outcast, but I found friends that were similar to me, and had similar interests. Later, looking back on it, I even had a few moments of peace. Sure, I expressed myself through the color black and listening to screamo, but to me, that was normal. I didn’t have to be the richest kid in school, I didn’t even have to worry about what they thought of me. I let that all go and chose that the path I wanted to be on was the one I was on today.

And I didn’t ever have to be a person I hated.

I never had to be fake.

My mom wanted what was best for me, she wanted me to have a normal childhood and to make friends like the other kids, but once she realized I wasn’t going to conform the “right way” she began to respect my beliefs. It wasn’t like she was going to stop loving her only daughter because of the clothes I wore, or the activities I did or didn’t do.

I’m sure that you’re wondering why I’m telling you all of this, or if I’m telling anyone this. You see, from what I remember, you start backwards when you die. Your memories don’t go by in a flash, rather, they slip away painfully in your fingers as your entire world falls away.

That dinner was the last memory I had before I blacked out. My consciousness was the only thing that remained, and there was a moment I spent in limbo as everything I’ve ever felt crashed into me with a passionate sense of nostalgia that came in waves that were delivered with smiles and corresponding frowns.

The pain.

The love.

The regret.

And the hardship.

These are all struggles humans go through as they evolve into their best self. So why did I have to endure it when I was devolving? Why did I have to die? Because that’s what I’m doing right now. I’m dying. How do I know?

Because all my sensations were swept away. I could no longer feel the air in my chest, nor the chair underneath my thighs. I could no longer see the light of day, and instead, I was plastered in the darkness of night. There were no stars. There was nothing to tell me I was alive. Meanwhile, the memories, as though they were files being transferred from one chip to a hard-drive, came in rapid succession. I saw things I never knew I remembered. Baby me, doing a dance and singing karaoke while my mom recorded it, baby me crying, and my mother’s eyes looking at me with genuine, unadulterated compassion as she wiped the slime of food from my cheek. The impression of love, bound to my soul at such a young age.

Finally, I saw what I knew was my first memory. Pure white as I was born from darkness. My eyelids seared with pain of too much light. And I could no longer see, because babies, as you know, do not immediately open their eyes after they are born. My eyes were closed. My body so frail and small, and yet, I felt the warmth of my mother’s arms. I heard her so familiar heartbeat. I remembered the undying love, because it was something that could only ever be felt, never seen or defined with an image.

I heard her humming me a song, while my father’s hand caressed the skin on my head. His voice rumbled low, but the words, while they had no meaning to me at the time, were soft and kind. That one moment, I was borne out of love. I imagine my parents now, their eyes glowing with life. Their happiness filled my soul to the brim. And the pure love of life I felt in that moment alone, was enough to last a lifetime.

I got one last ‘look’ as I imagined the smiles on their faces, before they, like everything else, were gone.

That memory, the last of myself, was finally swept away.

And I was left for a moment, longing for that same sense of love, if I had been able to speak, or breathe, or cry, I would have gotten down on my consciousness’s knees, and begged for that feeling. One. Last. Time.[/spoiler]

After.

There was nothing but darkness. I felt the weight of my body suddenly pull me down. Dawn was something that would never come. Never again would I see the light of the sun. Never would I see my mother’s eyes look at me adoringly. Never would I see my father’s scowl burrowing on his brow.

My body had weight and form, and below my fingertips, I could feel the ground. My subconscious must’ve been pretty damned clever, if it thought it could convince me that I didn’t just die and get delivered to the afterlife.

But hold on- there was air.

Not that my body after so many muscles knowing what it feels to breathe, couldn’t mimic that in my time of doubt and fear as I waited for the inevitable oblivion. What the hell though, right? I could do whatever I wanted, I could create whatever scene I wanted, if I was just waiting for the angel of death to grace me with her presence.

It suddenly occurred to me, that what if I died, and this was all that there was. A large, empty place, engulfed with darkness. I couldn’t even seem my hand or body below me as I raised myself up from my -what felt like- previously laid down position. It was a spooky thought. This room was death. My own little piece of the afterlife, not even a tangible place, nothing visible, nothing to interact with, just sheer nothingness bathed in black.

So of course, I was startled when I heard a muffled voice shout in my direction, “HEY, YOU THERE!”

I jumped. I felt my head move around as I tried to face the direction of the voice. I felt the braid on my back spin with my movement and my body square up like that time I punched Demetri Malkovich in the nose.

Every muscle in my swirling body was tense, and I felt the shuddering sense of fear creep up my spine and grit into my teeth as my jaw held steady, bracing for a blow. My imagination went wild, the worst monsters I could visualize became nearly lucid in my mind. I suppose that was the shock though. My body fell out of balance and I felt nausea clench my stomach.

This surprised me, because I didn’t think dead people felt nausea, or imbalance, or their bodies at all. I more or less visualized a disembodied soul leaving my body, but none of that I ever saw. No, I didn’t even feel anything kill me. Sure, I, at sixteen years of age could have been hit with a stroke, but I would have felt something like a sudden pain in my chest before it all went black. Not... Not what I was feeling now.

Still, footsteps grew closer, and I heard something being raised to my head. “YOU THERE, STEP AWAY FROM THE CRIMINAL.”

“What?” I asked, my voice feminine and weak as I realized that the flood to my senses were going to get the best of me. My head dipped as I slammed into something that felt like concrete and sounded like water, while I wretched up a foul version of the dinner that my family had cooked.

“Gah...” I felt my body wilt as the rest heaved out. I leaned against the concrete now, and dipped my hands in what felt like water. The chill was so refreshing, I submerged my entire head. Probably bewildering whoever it was that had approached.

I determined that they were not monsters of the most incredulous kind, but man. I determined, but the distinct sound of their voices, so recognizable from all the times that my dad had watched Starwars with my mom, that in my limbo world, I was hallucinating storm troopers.

Of all the things, I wondered why my subconscious had delivered me storm troopers. It was ridiculous. Utterly unimaginable. Maybe it was trying to tell me something, but I highly doubted that.

I heard them near with the clacking of their armor. The floor was smooth below my feet, and I could tell I was in a roomy space. There was probably a whole legion of them. I could picture it now, their white and black armor, so distinguished. I bet they never got lost. But I had one advantage against their numbers. One thing that couldn’t compare to the empire’s unrelenting power.

They couldn’t see in the dark either!

I sniggered as a confident smile crept up on my lips. I was no jedi, but I was sure I could take ‘em. I held my fists up, and my eyes narrowed in the darkness.

You’ll never take me alive, scum of the empire. The funny thing was, I was so convinced too.

“What are you smiling about, girl? We said, PUT YOUR HANDS UP, OR FORCE WILL BE USED. NOW STEP AWAY FROM THE CRIMINAL.” The voice was muffled but quite commanding. Had I not expected this, I would’ve jumped out of my skin...

... Wait. How did they know I was a girl? How do they know I am smiling?

I gulped down my doubt and felt my brows fold together. My shoulders swayed and my squared posture became a firm and upright stand. I rubbed my fingers together in my palm. I felt the sensation, that of stimulus and movement on my skin. The careful caress of my digits on my palm that I usually did when I was nervous. Then, I clenched my fingernails into my palm with enough force to draw blood.

The pain was sharp and the stabbing ripped holes in my soft skin. I imagined so vividly what had appeared had happened. My hand was once by my side, but now the pale white surface would be stained with blood.

As my wounded palm rose to my face, I did not see the blood. But leaking to my tongue and enveloping my throat was the thick, metallic taste of iron. The smell of my blood.

I gasped. So loud that my voice cracked. So shocked was I, to find myself blind in a situation that was as clear as black and white. So blind was I in my ignorance, that I could not see the light of truth.

So blind was I, in my unrelenting panic, that I could not see the chaos what was sure to come next.

-

This was as story that would not be told by shapes or light, but by sound. I heard the scamper of feet, a rustling skirmish that turned into a wrestle among men, and finally, I determined by sound alone, that someone had been apprehended. It must have been the fugitive the troopers had mentioned earlier. Well, I could only assume that much.

I heard the clack of the handcuffs, there were no Miranda rights read to him. This wasn’t America, but some far off place, far off from my world. Far off from everything I ever knew or saw.

“We’ve got ‘im, nothing to be worried about miss. We had ya scared there for a minute, I apologize, but his man is wanted in three vers-”

The sentence was cut off by the immediate cry of a blaster. It sounded like a gunshot, but more advanced, as though it was a gun equipped with a laser. A clatter followed, and the man that was speaking to me fell at my feet. I felt the reverberations in my toes, and I felt my head and eyes dart around. There was still darkness. I heard more shots being fired, I felt the heat of battle, I felt my fear snatch my logic away with my sanity.

I remembered that feeling, and I held on tight to it. My mom, my dad, and their love for me when I was born. I didn’t dream of the day anything could ever have the power to overrule that sensation. And even more true, was that I’d never have guessed that this would be that day. My mind was masked by a blizzard of blind denial. Maybe it had even been living a lie its entire life. But then, that would mean that I had been living a lie... And surely, that couldn’t be the truth.

More blasts were fired into the air, the smell of blood, and smoldering flesh reeked into my still swaying sea in my stomach. It wasn’t until the moment that followed that I realized that I would never see again, not to mention, hear the voices of my family ever again.

[Storyteller]

A blast ricocheted off of someone’s armor and bore straight into my stomach. At the immense distraction, I was knocked from my feet. Never had I felt such pain in my entire life. Immediately I tasted blood, I couldn’t tell if it was actually on my tongue, or had just filled my nostrils with the smell of it.

Agony drenched itself inside of me, and wove into everything that was my entire being. My muscles convulsed pathetically, and despite that I was caught in a firefight between a legion of storm troopers and one crazed unknown, I heard my own voice as though it was not coming from my body, and I was yelling at the very top of my lungs.

I’m sorry that this story’s not in color, but I think you’ll understand, that the color of pain overrules anything else, even the last bit of sanity I had to hold onto - the image of my mother’s face, no, the feeling of my mother’s love. God, I wish I could’ve held onto that feeling, that loving benevolence while the hole in my stomach gushed an immense flood of warmth that simply slipped away in my fingertips.

Blood stained my hand in much more rich ways, as my entire arms were covered in its sticky substance. But it was the pain that would not be overruled. Mercilessly it tore through every vein, as my body detected danger and I gritted my teeth, wishing for a bullet to bite. But no, my body, after having lost its sight, had made every other feeling so much stronger. I laid there in wreathing agony as the unimaginable, indescribable pain weaved itself into my consciousness. Everything was black. And in that moment where the burn of the blast melted through the cartilage of my body, there was nothing that existed. Nothing to be felt.

In that moment, I knew nothing but pain.

For some reason, my body had inspired a wave of emotion along with it. A sorrowful, mourning longing, if you will, associated with the brief devastation that I assumed would be my demise.

I no longer had that feeling of love in my heart. It no longer existed. And for a flash, a brief flash in this timeless moment of torture, fear, and suffering, I felt a surge of grief and heartache overrule the pain.

Then, I felt the corners of my body chill. And I held the last bit of heat in my arms. The world went numb around me, and I no longer felt my body. I was suspended in time once more, and gone was my ability to fight. Gone was my ability to believe in anything but the pain or the inevitability of death.

Gone, because that’s what I was.

I no longer existed in the realms of man. No longer existed in the reality that had threatened to tear my soul from my body. No longer was I willing to feel that eternal torture from a wound I could not see. I remember only a part of my time holding onto my wound, it was measured by the screams that were hot on my throat, and the sounds of blasts and cannon fire, or rather, grenades.

But you see, I didn’t register any of that. Sound had no effect, for my brain was trying to preserve the little life I had left in me. During that situation, I was broken, and I was stuck in a state of perpetual misery.

I could feel it now, the ache in the pit of my stomach. I hoped this pain had not been what my mother felt when she gave birth, they say that that is the worst kind of pain, after all. I wished in this moment to reassure my mom that I loved her too, with all my heart. But she was no longer here. She had gone away, and gone too, was that hot blaze in my stomach. Gone too, was the lucidness of this dream I was living in.

I wished it to be gone. I wished it all to be washed away. At that moment, I accepted death. Perhaps he had been an old friend, before I was granted life. We would surely reunite, on good terms. I would tell him I accepted the terms of my fate, an hope to be born anew in the next realm.

But it was not so. Just as I heard the angel of death sing to me so sweetly, my ears perked to the sound of a purely incessant beeping and my breath revived.

My lungs swelled with air, and my voice croaked, though it was not filled with words. A groan left my body, from where, I could not tell, and I could only feel the pain of pricking needles in my arm, as my fingertips moved with my hands, wishing to find something to grab, in order to see.

In my flailing moments on the stretcher, I managed to grasp someone’s shirt, I heard my own voice muffle in an out of the erosion of pain, “Mom?”

While the man’s voice growled, “No! You musn’t move. You’re stitches, they’ll come un-”

“MOM!? MOMM! MOMMM! I NEED TO- UGH, FRRRRRR,” I was interrupted by a liquid coating my throat, as though I had broken a pipe, and my voice was flooding while my lungs drowning. All this while swathed in darkness. The pain had lessened though, but my mother was no where in sight. No, she was no where at all. And suddenly, as if willed by the man who had scolded me for wanted to find my mother, my body became dormant, and my sensations all fell away to the blackness that I felt weighing in my mind.

I no longer fought it, and soon, I was motionless too. Sleep looked like anything and everything else to me now. I felt the tugging weight of the lids of my eyes as they descended, like a velvet curtain during the last act of the play. With the inherent nothingness delivering me from this moment of anguish, I was still, inevitably, engulfed in black.

It could have been hours, it could have been days, it could have been weeks for all I know. But finally, my body was stirred awake by the distinct smell of peanut butter. It filled my nostrils and the emptiness of hunger poured from my stomach.

“Ghhh-ahhh,” came from my parted mouth as I attempted to move forward, but was met with a striking and flinching pain.

“Oh look, she’s awake.” A nurse - I assumed - spoke, and then I heard the rustle of her robes as she grew near, “Hello dear, you’ve been through a rough time, but I’m here for you now. Do you remember your name?”

Her voice sounded almost animatronic. Like a robot from space, but of course, I had just encountered what I perceived as storm troopers, so why was this any different? Though, I will admit looking back on this moment, that I wished she had used a more human sounding setting, because I really could’ve done with some motherly compassion.

I felt a chill go down my arm as she touched my shoulder, and I flinched at the sharp coldness of her metallic skin. “Who the hell...”

“You’re in a hospital dear. We’ve done a few tests on you while you were asleep. It appears you are blind, but we were unable to tell whether you were born with it, or it developed over time from natural or outside effects.”

Blind?! I guess this was really no surprise to me, but hearing her say it with her chafing voice and the so very precise acuteness of her words, the truth was finally something I could not deny. Still, I had to try, “But wait, we’re in a hospital right?” In space, even! “Doesn’t that mean you can find a way to cure me?”

I was grasping at straws, I was desperate, but of course, who doesn’t want to see color again? Instead, my ears did most of the “seeing” and well, my stomach was longing for a bite of the peanut butter that still lingered in the room. And my ears did not like hearing what came next.

“I’m so sorry my dear, it looks like there’s nothing we can do for you. The MRI shows that there’s an essential part missing, necessary for vision. I doubt even the mages at Dalaran could do you any help.”

“Dalaran?” I parroted.

“Yes, haven’t you heard of it? Wait my dear... Do you know where you are?”

Silence. Her terrible, terrible question could be met with only unrivaled silence.

“You’ve been summoned to the Omniverse, dear, and you’re in for a long stay.”

[Storyteller]

Summoned?

Summoned like some demon from hell, summoned like some useful fool, summoned like I had no life of my own! The idea was revolting, meanwhile, I could still hear the scraping of the forks and I sobbed wet tears, which rolled down my chapped cheeks. My eyes were still intact, that was true, but why wouldn’t they see? The pent-up fury rose from inside of me as though it was spawned from the depths of hell. And the battle that had nearly killed me, fresh on my mind.

The nurse told me, in detail, about some horrible deity -I saw him as a sadistic creature, however- who brings people and Primes here from far off worlds to his own. If you’re selected as a prime, well, you’re pretty much set. But apparently I hadn’t been so lucky, because if I had been a prime, maybe I would’ve been able to heal the glitch that had made my eyes not function.

After the summary was over, I lost track of the tingling sensation in my hands. The darkness I saw, or rather, didn’t see, was filled with insurmountable rage. It was at this moment that I had realized I had not been created blind, but that I had been made blind, later I found the name, which intrigued me, and fit the shoe very nicely.

I had been made blind by the one they called Omni.


-

The next few weeks were a blur, filled with food, drink, and the occasional click of the television’s channel changing. I grew fond of the android nurse, and when I asked, she would tell me what things around the room looked like. I could picture color, and I could pretty much distinguish what kind of surface an object had based on sound. It wasn’t like I was at a complete disadvantage, but starting out this journey had been rough. And what made it even rougher, was that there was no home for me to go back to. I missed my mom, I missed my dad, and of course, I missed little Toby too. I wish they’d come visit me, but apparently I’d been brought to some place called Coruscant, after the battle. Along with some other people who just happened to be passing by when they got caught in the crossfire.

One person even died.

A part of me envied them. While they got peace I got served up a whole lot of nothing.

And then there was the grief. It was gruesome and drowned me like a million unrelenting waves at the most inopportune times, or just when I thought things were getting back to normal, then came the memories of the family I no longer had, or a sudden flash of a beautiful color or ‘view’ I had once seen, but would never again.

“Tell me about the view outside my window, will you Nurse two-eight-five?” I requested in a clear voice, so there would be no confusion in her programming.

“Of course,” I heard her mechanisms lead her slowly over to the window, which lead into the beyond and mystical, Coruscant. “Of what would you like to know about the view?”

“Tell me all that you see, please.” I requested, a bit modestly, but I was always curious and intrigued to hear how the description changed from day to day.

“We are approximately four hundred and fifty seven floors from the surface. The architecture is modern and contemporary, matching the time period that Coruscant was created from. It is dark out, and the lights are a warm orange, while there is the occasional passing by of a hovercraft, there are no birds to be seen and the sky is not visible from this Tier. Instead there are many lights speckled in a pattern of two-three-one-four, each leading upward at a ninety degree angle, like a ladder to the sky.” Her metallic voice began to get more technical, but I interrupted her, with my petty musings.

“Wow... They must look like stars.” After all, spots of light on darkness, surely had to resemble street and city lights a little bit, even if the tint was not necessarily blue. It made me wonder, though, whether or not computers in robots even saw. But of course, this robot was obviously able to see more than I was. It was too bad a machine couldn’t appreciate beauty in the same way it made man marvel with wonder.

“Would you like me to continue?” Her voice paused. She would wait exactly five minutes before departing the room if I did not request anything or say much more. There were other rooms in the hospital after all, and my wounds had healed up. I was only recovering my ability to stand before they would set me free. I didn’t dare tell them I had no money to pay for my hospital bills, because then I would have no where to go, and the idea of staying in a hotel room for the rest of my life, or trying to find an apartment on my own with no furniture or funds didn’t exactly appeal to me. I decided that being diagnosed blind was something that warranted a busy vacation.

Before I knew it, the five minutes of prolonged silence was up, and I heard her stiff movements lead across the room and the whiff of astringent air glide towards me with the corresponding close of the automatic door.

I sighed and exhaled an extended breath of air.

I liked the sensation as it filled my lungs so full, it made me feel as though I was brimming with life. Another sigh left my lips, I felt a bit regretful about it all and I found it strange that I would never again see myself wear the color black. It was ironic, that was for sure. Or perhaps eye-ronic was more accurate. Even so, the days dragged by, and my sanity was brought to the brink. I needed to escape this cage.

I hated the hospital. I hated it even more knowing it was based under the Empire’s name. What had once been a fictional scenario from my own world, had sprouted wings on its way to reality. I grew tired of hearing stories of the adventures people had experienced in the other “verses” as they were called, and I simply craved to make my own.

It didn’t matter what I would lose along the way. Even my life wasn’t worth rotting in this hell. It would be worth it, even if all I could do was try.

So try I did.

...

It was quarter-past seven when I sprung my own escape. And you can imagine how hard that is, when you’re blind, the corridors were a labyrinth, and I had to have Nurse two-eight-five tell read me the fire escapes a million times before I remembered the exit. This blind thing was sure as heck a strain.

There was nothing to look at, and nothing for me to see, as I recounted the order of turns “left, right, or straight” that I was supposed to take. As I strode around in my hospital dress, I took the wrong turn and had to retrace my steps after a face-full of wall. The ache stung on my nose, but still I pressed onward, with a backpack full of food on my back, and the cold tile floor beneath my bare feet.

A little too early, the alarms sounded. It wasn’t that I wasn’t allowed to leave, but it was “dangerous to my health” for me to leave my room without an accompanied guard or nurse. Not to mention, the hospital, without paying my dues.

The sirens were extraordinarily loud in my sensitive ears, so that I had fumbled with my headphones -which were sound-canceling- I had asked the nurse to retrieve for me from the lost and found. I assured her they wouldn’t be missed, and now they held snug-as-glue around my ears. Ahhh sweet relief.

I relaxed and the only thing I heard was the pumping of my own heart, and the rush of thick blood as it flowed throughout my veins. There was slime on the floor somewhere, which put off the acute balance of my brisk pace and I was sent with a tumble, as I slipped and slid into the hard ground.

“Ughh.” I heard my vocal chords complain as I picked myself up. The lockdown would begin soon, and there was no way I would be around for them to find me. I was too close to escape now. This was my prison break- and just like the movies, there would be only one chance.

I had memorized the overall layout of this floor of the building and had been glad to go through the elevator without problems. Speeding on the road to freedom, I had a few more turns to make and I’d be on the street.