by HL TRUSLOVE
The slaver pauses. You have his interest.
“Why’d I trust you, prisoner?”
“Because I could do what? Run away?” You jangle your chains. The slaver looks at you for a long moment, before grabbing the machete at his belt.
“You try anything and you’re dead, all right?” he states. You don’t doubt that for a second. Gingerly you inspect the arm and decide it’s only dislocated, not broken, so a simple fix.
“I’m going to pop it back into place, but it’s going to hurt, all right?”
He nods carefully. As quickly as you can, you grab his arm and twist, putting the joint back into its proper place. He gives a grunt of pain but then experimentally moves his arm, pleased with the result. He doesn’t thank you, of course, but he does leave you alone for the rest of the day. You take the time to try to recover more from the journey here, sleeping as much as you can.
You’re awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of keys jingling. Blearily, you open your eyes and see the guard again, but this time he has company. A younger man is clutching onto him for support, his leg gashed open bloodily. Your door is opened and the slaver brings you this new patient, who’s groaning in discomfort.
“He’s been shot,” you’re told by way of explanation. You sigh and point for him to bring you your medical kit, which he does with bloodied hands.
“Hold his arms,” you say, bringing out a roll of bandages and placing it in the young man’s mouth for him to bite down on. You wipe the blood from the wound and bring out your forceps, trying to pin down his leg as best you can before digging inside the open flesh. The prisoners wake with the sound of muffled screams at every movement you make, no matter how small. The other slaver, to his credit, is a good assistant and keeps the patient as still as he can with his powerful body. Digging around, you close the forceps over something foreign and bring out your prize – a small piece of sharpened metal, almost like an arrowhead, shining and covered in velvet-red gore. You throw it all to the floor and retrieve your suture tools, beginning the process of closing the wound.
The other slaver is speaking softly to the younger man. He’s panting heavily, the shock of the pain having worn off. He still winces slightly as your needle goes through his flesh, but seems to be far better off than when he came in.
“Keep it clean. You’re lucky you came to me. If you didn’t, it might have gone septic,” you state, taking the bandages from the young man’s mouth and wrapping the wound with them. The older slaver nods, as close to a thanks as you’re likely to get, before helping the patient to his feet and out of the door, locking it behind him.
As they leave, the silence overwhelms you. A few prisoners watch you with surprise, but you can’t be bothered to answer to them. Instead, you lie back against the stone wall, look down at your bloodied hands, and let sleep overtake you.
The next day passes without incident, but that evening, you hear the sound of keys again. You sigh and wonder who you’ve been brought this time but find yourself being pulled to your feet and hurried out of the cage. It takes a moment to blink the sleep from your eyes and your brain, but you find you’re being stolen away by the raider in the mask. He has your pack on one shoulder and guides you deeper into the building, coming to an empty room – an empty room with a hole in the wall to the outside. He undoes your restraints, and they fall to the ground with a loud clang.
“What?” is all the question you can summon.
“You helped me and my boy. This is a favour in turn. Don’t let them catch you,” he states, shoving your bag and a map into your hands and leaving you. You don’t need to be told twice, and put your arms through the straps and run into the night. You don’t stop running even when your lungs begin to burn, instead going as hard and fast as you can to get as far away as possible.
END.
Add Bloody Shrapnel (F.16) to your notebook.
Add The City Centre (Chapter 13, L.13) and The Battlefield (Chapter 26, L.26) to map.
16.14
The next day, you take your usual spot at the bench. As the day passes you look up at a young woman opposite you. Her hair is cropped short and her eyes are a rich, deep brown. You make eye contact with her a few times – enough so that she knows it can’t be coincidence your eyes keep meeting. Each time, she looks at you for a moment before returning to her work. Eventually, you hold her gaze for long enough to glance down at the screwdriver beside her. She looks at it and then back to your face. With a subtleness invisible to anyone not watching your work, you nod slowly and go back to sorting.
Her expression unchanging, she continues her work. She picks up the tool and unscrews a fan before placing it carefully into the folds of cloth in her lap.
Long moments pass and you keep the guards in your sight as much as possible. When a knock at the door comes you know it’s your chance. Your overseers walk over, past you, and with a swift movement the woman drops the screwdriver into your own lap. The other captives around the table look at you with knowing glances. There’s a hum of something in the air between the group of you.
Attack now – Turn to 16.21.
* * *
Wait for nightfall – Turn to 16.22.
16.15
The next day you return to your work with a plan percolating in your eager and excited mind. The morning’s work passes, as it always does. Each piece of machinery before you is stripped of its precious metals and working parts, before the rest is heaped into a pile of scrap at the end of the room to be hauled to some unknown location in the night.
As you work, the rust falls and collects around your workspace, as it always does. Today, however, you push the fallen flakes and granules into a small pile to your side.
Midday passes and you stand to heap more waste onto the scrap pile. Nobody notices you bring back a tangle of copper wires, nor a pinch of powdered aluminium from another captive’s workload. As you return to your work, you allow the powder to fall from your hand, mixing into the rust.
You wait. More hours pass as you bide your time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to come. In the afternoon, a slaver places an old heating element before you and you quickly get to work. Even though the mechanism is ancient, firmly pre-war, you recognise the outdated spark ignitor.
Carefully unscrewing the heater from its mounting panel, you turn the machine on its side. You quietly sweep the rust and aluminium into its metal body and activate the switch. With great delight, you feel the buzz of a still-operating battery as you wave your hand to the guard to indicate you are finished. He walks over to collect your scrap. As he awkwardly picks up the heap of metal you feel your heart pounding in your chest as he walks towards the scrap pile.
Your bomb is heating... heating slowly... and then, BANG! – it explodes in the guard’s hands.
A flash of brilliant white light erupts and he screams in terror. Droplets of molten metal burst out across the floor and the man’s body as he falls backwards, writhing in pain. In a moment the horror is over, and the captives rise quickly to their feet. Acrid smoke and the smell of burned flesh fills the room as you run and begin to smash down the door. It takes a few rough shoves, and a couple of other prisoners help, but when the hinges finally give way the door falls to the floor with a heavy crash.
The panicked and fearful prisoners pour from the room with the smoke, spreading out in chaotic uncertainty. You keep your head down and run back to the holding cell, a route which you’ve memorised – nobody’s there, thankfully, and you grab your pack.
You can hear the sound of gunshots ringing out. You run back into the corridor, wild and fast, until you come to a window. Outside, you can see prisoners fleeing for their lives. A rough shove frees the glass from its pane and you clamber outside to freedom, landing heavily on the grass. Then you run. You run and you run, ignoring the chaos behind you, going until your legs burn and your lungs are on fire from the effort, until your prison is nothing more than a dark cloud on the horizon behind you.
END.
Add The City Centre (Chapter 13, L.13) and The Battlefield (Chapter 26, L.26) to map.
16.16
You bide your time. There’s no point rushing this. If you play it messily, you die. There aren’t any second chances.
The next day, you get lucky. You’re at the workbench, sorting through piles of mess. Your fingers are red raw, but you keep going. There’s a knock at the door. The other captives, conditioned by fear, keep their work up as your guard leaves his stool to answer it, but you swipe a file from off the table up your sleeve.
The woman across from you with cropped hair watches you, making knowing eye contact but saying nothing.
The guard returns and so does the routine, but your heart is in your mouth. That evening, you wait for the other prisoners to fall asleep before getting to work, taking the file out and finding the weakest link in your shackles. You’re lucky to find one far more worn than the others, old and crudely made. You begin to file it down. The work is slow and exhausting, and you have to work to match the scratching sound to the noises of heavy breathing and snores.
When it breaks, it falls away, as do the chains keeping you tethered. You shake yourself free and massage your sore ankles.
Your cell door is open. They’ve become complacent with you, clearly thinking you’re no threat when kept in place by the restraints. You push it open and creep out, grabbing your pack that’s been kept by your cell. You think you’re home free when you feel a hand on your leg.
It’s the woman that saw you get the file. She’s looking at you, desperately. With a nod, you push it into her hands. She nods back, thanking you, and begins to file her own chains away.
You sneak into the corridor, moving each foot as quietly as possible. You come to a window with a view of the outside. It’s small, but you open it and force yourself to contort your way out, landing heavily with your pack onto the grass below.
Then you run. You run before anyone can see you. You run and run until you can’t see the base any more, past the point of pain in your lungs, into freedom.
END.
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16.17
Night falls. Everyone sleeps, everyone but you; you sit awake in nervous sickness and watch the moon. When you’re sure there’s absolute quiet, you twist the bobby pin into the right shape with your teeth. It only takes a few deft movements and you feel the sole tumbler of the lock fall into place. It pops open. You easily do the same with the shackles around your arms and legs. They fall to the cold, stone floor – a man’s breathing hitches at the sound but then continues gently, mostly uninterrupted.
You think you’re home free when you feel a hand on your leg.
It’s the woman who gave you the pin. She’s looking at you, desperately. With a nod, you push the pin into her hands, now the right shape for her to use. She returns the gesture, thanking you, and begins to work at her own chains.
You sneak into the corridor, moving each foot as quietly as possible until you come to a window with a view of the outside. It’s small, but when it’s open you manage to contort your way out of it, landing heavily with your pack onto the grass below.
Then you run. You run before anyone can see you. You run and run until you can’t see the base any more, past the point of pain in your lungs, into freedom.
END.
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16.18
You twist the bobby pin into the right shape with your teeth. It only takes a few deft movements before you feel the sole tumbler of the lock fall into place.
It pops open.
You easily do the same with the shackles around your arms and legs. They fall to the cold, stone floor.
You rush out and get to your knees in front of one of the other prisoners. They watch you with surprise but let you do your work, freeing them with a few quick and clever movements. It takes only a few minutes to get all the prisoners free.
A man opens the door to the cell and is visibly relieved to find the corridor empty. He gestures for everyone to follow him, which you do after grabbing your pack. Your little escape group keeps travelling until you find a window in the corridor with a view to the outside. It’s tight, but likely that you could all fit through it.
The prisoners open the window as far as it will go and begin to climb out, people helping each other with leg-ups and shoving. Then you hear a shout. A guard has come across you and is beginning to sound the alarm. You’re about to go after him but are stopped – the older man from the cell shakes his head and points to the window, telling you to go, before running at the guard and tackling him to the ground. You don’t need telling twice and haul yourself up and out of the building.
As you run with the other prisoners, you hear the sound of gunshots. You see a man go down beside you in a spray of red, but you keep going, not stopping even when your lungs feel fit to burst.
You run until nightfall, and only then do you allow yourself to collapse. You lie on the ground and stare up at the stars. You’re on your own by now, far separated from the other prisoners, who scattered. A smart move. Makes it impossible to come after all of you.
You shut your eyes and feel the cool air. It’s refreshing. You’ll never complain about the wind again.
END.
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Add The City Centre (Chapter 13, L.13) and The Battlefield (Chapter 26, L.26) to map.
16.19
You stand with your back close to the arena wall. The figure prowls around you like a wild beast, rolling his shoulders as if getting ready to lunge. You match every step he takes and the two of you end up circling each other, carefully and deliberately, waiting for any sign of weakness, any opportunity to strike.
Suddenly, he darts, swiping low, and you dodge to the side – he doesn’t stop, striking again and aiming for your face. You manage to avoid it again, and as you do so you swing your elbow hard into the side of his neck. The force of the strike throws him off balance and he stumbles backwards, placing his weight on his back foot.
That’s all the invitation you need.
He raises his fists to protect his face but you go low and sweep his feet out from under him. He falls to the ground and you jump on top of him. Pinning him down with the full extent of your weight, you rain punches onto his face. His struggle eventually ceases and you begin to ease your assault.
The crowd around you is going wild. They shout and scream, louder and fiercer than when the fight began, baying for blood and destruction. It seems like they don’t really care who wins, so long as someone dies. Revelling in their shouts, you step up from the floor, raise your arms, and they roar in appreciation – you reach down to pluck the man’s mask off and hold it aloft.
And then you see the face beneath it. Despite the muscles, you see the face of a boy. He looks no older than sixteen, with wide eyes, looking at you in stunned terror. The noise of the crowd fades and you feel your heart beating in time with his shallow breaths.
Finish him – Turn to 16.23.
* * *
Help him up – Turn to 16.24.
16.20
With purposeful and deliberate movements, the two of you slowly circle the arena. Each motion is calculated, both examining the other for a sign of weakness, any opening to be exploited.
He places his right foot to the side, shifting his weight in one smooth and fluid motion. Your mirrored dance continues, and the crowd grows restless at the lack of bloodshed – until you quickly change the direction of your movement. His step fumbles in response and you take this as your opportunity.
You rush, leading with your shoulder, and collide harshly. The two of you crash to the ground and you’re winded from the force of impact. Your full weight lying on top of him, he squirms and tries
to break free, landing a single punch across your chin, breaking the fragile skin of your bottom lip. You raise your fist, but he locks his legs around you, keeping his ankles together, and squeezes you with his thighs hard. He uses one arm to grab your neck and the other to throw sharp-knuckled punches into your ribcage.
You’re worried – his hold on you is firm. You can’t see any way to force him away from you, and the noise of the crowd is deafening. Desperately, you open your mouth and reach forward, clamping down on whatever you can find – you feel flesh between your teeth and a quick inspection with your tongue makes you realise you have his ear.
You clamp down until you can feel your teeth meet and rip your head back. He wasn’t expecting it, and doesn’t have time to put up any resistance. You feel the sinew and flesh rip away from his face and your mouth is splashed with the taste of blood. The sound is horrible, like fabric tearing.
You spit his ear off to the side and the crowd roars in approval. The shock of the pain is enough to make him let go of you as both his hands go to his ear in agony. You get to your feet and raise your hands in triumph. The spectators love it, cheering the word ‘outsider’ wildly. High on adrenaline, you reach down and pluck off your opponent’s mask.
Then you see the face beneath it. Despite the muscles, you see the face of a boy. He looks no older than sixteen, with wide eyes, looking at you in stunned terror. The noise of the crowd fades and you feel your heart beating in time with his shallow breaths.
