The Encroacher's Trilogy: Dystopia (COMPLETED)

Chapter 19

A long time a go, back when I was in the Lab, I overheard an old scientist telling the bald man that a prisoner was missing.

"How could they have gotten out?" He demanded,
"I don't know sir, but it appears that they have picked the lock somehow."
"What? That's impossible!"
"Not impossible sir, there is a lot of junk on the prison floor from previous prisoners."
"Well, it's not my job to clean it out!"
"No when else wants to do the job either, sir."
"Well! This.... this is preposterous."

Recalling that conversation gave me a proposition that there would be junk on the floor.
I could't move a lot around my cell, however if I lay down I could scavenge the floor with ease.
"What are you doing?" Mother enquired.
I couldn't tell her just then in case someone (or something) was listening. I ignored her and returned to my search.

It was around half an hour of scavenging before- out of pure luck- I found a bobby pin.

My hands were roaming around in the dark when I felt something cool underneath the palm of my hand. I grasped it and pushed it closer towards me. It took great effort to unlock my handcuffs but soon enough we were both free.
"Oh Flora, you're a genius!" She exclaimed,
"We haven't got out yet." I replied, for I knew that we had accomplished the first step of unlocking the handcuffs... but there was still the escape and the saving of Noah to take place.
"How are we going to get out?" Mother asked. That was the problem. I sat back on my knees and thought, and thought, and thought.
I tried different scenarios but they all ended up with capture.

Hiding in the darkness?
Infrared detector.
Pretending to be dead?
They'd throw us in the incinerator.
Needing the toilet?
There would be a constant guard.
Slipping out when food comes?

Slipping out when food comes.

A brainwave came to me.

"When our dinner comes, the woman will open this door and put it in. What we are going to do is hide in the darkness, on your side- the right side of the door.
The woman is going to notice we are not there and freak; that's when we sneak out and slam the door. The thing I don't know is... how are we going to save Noah?"
"I didn't want to tell you this... but that keypad entrance is a finger print scanner.
Anyone from Katherine's family can unlock that door... including Brian and his wife."
"What?"
"How is Noah related... to him?"
"Brian... is the brother in law to Noah's mother."
"Meaning... Brian's wife is... Noah and Ailis' aunt..."
"Correct."
"So that means Ailis can unlock that door!"
"Yes." I felt like a burden had been lifted from my shoulders.

Noah would be saved.
Ailis was accessible.
The bald man would be punished.

And that was when the woman who served us our food came.
That was when the escape began.

***

The escape went in a blur. As soon as we heard her footsteps, mother and I crawled to the darkness. I had to support mother, as she hadn't moved by herself in months. The door opened with a loud creak and the woman shoved our dinner into the cell without caring how much went onto the floor.
'Dinner' was half a slice of bread to share and two half glasses of water. When the woman noticed we weren't there, she foolishly stepped into the cell and exclaimed in surprise that we had gone.
I pushed mother into the corridor and slammed the door shut behind us, just as the woman realised what was happening. I laughed at her through the window like she did to my mother, for the only way into the cell was from the outside. The only way she would be saved was when the bald man or a scientist noticed she had been gone for a long time. Who knew how long that would be. Once in the corridor, I took mum by the hand and we ran towards Ailis.