The Book of Miranda | gxg | ✔︎

(31) My Soul For A Plan

Nobody but this school's cursed teachers is ever going to find us here. When their footsteps have retreated up the hallway, I pull my knees up and put my head down, trying not to cry again as the fabric strips I'm bound with chafe my wrists and ankles. When I get a handle on my shaky breathing, I test the makeshift ropes around my wrists. I won't be able to get those off so easily, so I let myself drop sideways and arch my back like a constipated seal to get my fingers on the knots around my ankles. A couple minutes of picking, and those come free. Circulation returns to my feet, which have gone numb in their stockings. If I'd known today would end with me getting caught regardless, I'd have worn shoes.

I wrestle ineffectually with the bonds on my wrists again, then force myself to my feet and promptly run into a wall. I stagger backward. By some miracle, I manage to collapse against cold stone beside me instead of cold stone floor, sparing myself a likely concussion. When I've regained my balance, I begin to feel my way along the wall with my shoulder. My toes find the door the hard way. That's what I'm looking for. The doorjamb, as I'd hoped, is a rough-cut stone corner. I lean back against it and turn its file-like properties against the "ropes" tying my hands.

My tactic works. When I can snap the fabric's final threads, I extract my hands and rub my wrists until I can feel my fingers properly. Then I resume my exploration. I run into another wall. Taking inventory of my clumsy body reveals more than just residual incoordination from the infirmary drug. It must be full morning outside by now, I got only a nap's worth of sleep last night, and even pausing for a moment has called me out as drop-dead exhausted. No wonder my thoughts aren't functioning, either.

I'm going to injure myself trying to explore at this rate. I also have at least another day before the cult's dove-book resets and is able to take another student. I let myself drop, and pass out almost immediately. The room is still dark when I wake up again. I run an inventory of my senses. There's no light anywhere, and no footsteps outside. No strange smells. No fire and brimstone. No claws groping for my ankles to drag me down through Hell's nine circles for the crime of being me. Though this place could use a little hellfire, to be honest. It's cold as winter's backside in here.

I blow on my hands and rub them together, an attempt to regain sensation that's about as effective as lighting matches to warm a hall the size of Melliford Academy's. Mental images of the school strike me with a new idea. The door. I feel my way over to it, managing not to run into any more walls. The door of this cell is wood, a revelation that lights my hopes for three taps of a cultist's pen before reality does its thing and returns to rain on my parade. Burning something so big down here, with us trapped in a room behind it, is a sure way to suffocate both me and Barnabas before I can say "Firestarter." I count my matches to console myself, and promptly wish I hadn't. I've only got five left.

Maybe I can deconstruct the hinges. I feel across the door with stiff fingers, but whoever built this cell was less of an idiot than I've been, and put the hinges on the outside. Also the lock, naturally, and I've got nothing on me that's wire-like enough to jimmy through any gaps in the door. I could search Barnabas's body, but the teachers said he's about to wake up. I don't want my first impression here to be groping someone. I sink down against the wall again and make finger-claws through my hair. I should've gone rogue when Exie suggested we rescue a student I've scarcely even met. I agreed to this because Exie cared, and while I don't regret it, strictly speaking, it was Exie's plan that fell through. I'd rather have...

My own thought trails off. Rather have what? I don't have a plan. I know that's the point, but I'd probably have burned something before even trying to get into the infirmary, and it's hard to imagine how that might have changed anything. Maybe someone outside would've seen the smoke and come to save us. Or maybe they already know. Maybe there's no one close enough across the open countryside to see it anyway. Not that it would matter; we could climb the willows and get over the wall somehow. I could've had time to pack my things. I should've focused my attention on escaping this place the moment I saw Colson II. I'm sure I could've made it out and made it home.