by Ryan Sova
Thus far, Garry had never actually conjured a spell himself, and so the question of whether he actually had the willpower that was necessary for this escape was a concern for Garry. He decided to carefully start practicing magic in his cell when the guards were not looking both day and night. In doing so, Garry could strengthen his willpower and be completely ready when the time came for him to escape.
Practicing magic was actually easier than Garry thought that it would be. The magic came easy for Garry. Most of the legwork in conjuring magic had already been done by Nephal, so when Garry finally started he already knew exactly what he was doing. At first, Garry feared that he might get caught by the guards during some random inspection of his cell. Over time, though, he realized that he could mitigate this risk by only casting spells that were invisible to anyone outside of his cell. Garry learned that simply changing the temperature inside his cell would leave guards clueless as to what he was doing. As Garry already knew all of the spells that he was casting, he didn’t need to learn or practice anything, he had Nephal for that after all. Garry also mitigated his risk of exposure by carrying out his chanting in a quiet voice. He figured that an occasional guard might eventually walk by and hear Garry’s chant. They might even hear a strange eerie echo. But that echo would stop the moment that Garry realized that he had company, which would then leave the guard to wonder if he or she was just hearing things.
With twenty-three hours a day alone in his cell, Garry had plenty of time to practice. He was actually surprised when he started practicing magic as to how strong his willpower already was. It was like suddenly waking up in the body of an athlete. As Garry started quietly practicing magic from his cell, he realized that he had actually started off with a willpower that was stronger than what Nephal had only achieved after eight and a half months of study. How did I become so powerful, Garry wondered?
Garry had continued preparing for his escape over the next seven and a half weeks. During this period of time, he had appeared at his term day hearing where his case was then transferred from the District Court to the Circuit Court. He was then scheduled for his second arraignment hearing before the Circuit Court on a date three weeks later. At this arraignment hearing, Garry was required to restate the plea that he had originally made before the District Court and choose whether he wanted a bench trial or a jury trial. For Garry, this decision was a no-brainer. Upon entering the courtroom, Garry could instantly tell that this new judge was undead, which was something that he had suspected for a while now. Garry would choose a jury trial. The judge then scheduled Garry’s trial for a date that was just two weeks later.
Garry was anxious. Today was day three of his trial and as his attorney had already informed him, the day that the state will most likely rest their case. Any escape plan that Garry might have needed to happen today. Garry knew all too well that, with the evidence that the state has against him, coupled with the fact that Garry had no evidence of his own to present for his defense, his trial could quite possibly end today. And if I get convicted today, this judge will waste no time in sentencing me and shipping me off the Red Onion State Prison without delay. My time for planning is now over. Today is the day that I need to make my escape!
Garry was not sure as to what time it was, but he knew that the guards would be arriving at his cell first thing in the morning to transport him and get him ready to be loaded onto the prisoner bus. Garry could not sleep at all and instead spent his time going over the plan that he had formulated in his head, making sure that he was not missing anything.
Garry thought about the magic that Nephal had been learning recently during this quiet moment of reflection. After Nephal had attained the rank of Acolyte, Atonick had made a request of the council to immediately transfer the task of Nephal’s training to Heragald. This request was granted.
On the very next day, Nephal began his study of advanced magic in a separate classroom with Heragald as his teacher. Advanced magic was not what Nephal had expected. In fact, the first month of Nephal’s study of advanced magic was strictly book learning. He would occasionally return to the red hallway to practice some simple spells, but this was only to keep him proficient in casting magic. For this first month, Nephal’s study of advanced magic was only on an academic level.
For this month of study, Heragald presented Nephal with reading assignments, lectures, quizzes, and one on one tutoring. The subjects that he would learn about included, advanced physics, relativity, mathematics, plate tectonics, biology, chemistry, DNA, meteorology, and so forth. Nephal quickly learned that in order to manipulate the world around you, you need to understand the world around you. After all, how can you expect to bend space and time to teleport instantly between two distinct locations if you don’t understand the physics behind it? After only a few days of this advanced learning, one thing became abundantly clear to Garry. We don’t know shit about physics, mathematics, or even science in today’s society. We think that we are so advanced today, while in actuality we are nothing more than children compared to this ancient society.
Nephal’s mind absorbed the advanced subjects that he was learning like a sponge. He didn’t feel like he was learning something new as his lessons carried on. Instead, it felt like he was being reminded of something that he already knew. Heragald was amazed at how quickly Nephal was able to retain the information that was being presented to him. As a result, she frequently insisted on pushing their lessons for much longer than normal, many times not finishing until seventeen hours into the day.
Nephal had finished with his academic study of advanced magic in record time. There were still far more advanced topics that she could have taught him, but that study would be reserved for the Master and Arch-Master levels of sorcery. Nephal still needed to achieve the rank of an Adept before Heragald could start teaching him the even higher levels of academic learning.
Over the past three and a half weeks, Nephal had been studying how to actually perform the magic that he had just spent the last month studying. This part of Nephal’s study was taking him a much longer time to grasp than the academic side of things. Nephal quickly learned that explaining complicated things to the elementals was hard. At first, Nephal felt like he was right back to where he was initially when he was first trying to cast spells. In fact, Nephal would occasionally switch things up and cast a simple spell just to reassure himself that he could still do it.
In the three and a half week timeframe that Nephal had been practicing advanced magic, he had managed to perform some of the advanced spells at the Adept rank, but there were still some spells that had eluded him. One of the spells that Nephal was still struggling with was the teleportation spell. This was very frustrating to him as this particular spell would allow him to go back and visit his wife whenever he wanted to. Although, at this stage, he would only be able to see her in a ghost form. To teleport both body and soul was a spell that was only available to a sorcerer studying for the rank of Master. Nephal had made it a point to try and learn this spell first, but after repeated failures, Heragald had instructed him to start working on some of the other spells in the Adept rank. She also went on to reassure Nephal that the teleportation spell is the hardest spell that an Adept can cast. The same would also be true once he started learning the more advanced version of this spell.
The new spells that Nephal had learned gave Garry a few more options to work with than what he had seven and a half weeks ago. Garry still didn’t have the ability to teleport though, so his easiest solution was still off the table. After a great deal of thought in the days leading up to today, Garry had finally come up with a revised escape plan.
While sitting alone in his cell, Garry tried to cast a spell on himself. It took him a couple of tries, but then Garry finally succeeded with his spell. After casting his spell, Garry waited. After a few hours, a couple of guards arrived to escort Garry to the prison bus. First, they took him to the showers with all the other inmates that were leaving for court that day. Then they pe
rformed a full body search and changed the inmates into orange jumpsuits. Once the inmates were changed into their orange jumpsuits, the guards then put their shackles on—handcuffs which were secured to a waist chain and ankle bindings which linked their legs together. The inmates were then led to a small holding area where they would wait to be loaded onto the bus. They were also given some food and some Kool-Aid while they waited. This would be the only thing that they would eat or drink throughout the day. After what seemed like an eternity, the guards finally started calling names for inmates to start filing out to the bus.
Garry filed in with the rest of the inmates after he heard his name being called. He was then directed to his seat. Every seat on the bus had its own metal cage with two bigger cages in the back which were used for seating the general population. Garry calmly took his seat and waited for the bus to begin its journey to the courthouse.
He continued to patiently wait until the bus turned onto Interstate 264. The moment that the bus finished merging, Garry made his move. The spell that he had cast on himself earlier changed the DNA and chemical composition of his hands and wrists. The bones in Garry’s hands and wrists were now just slightly harder than a thickened form of Jell-O.
Garry grabbed hold of the handcuff on his left wrist and pulled. His hand and wrist stretched and squeezed with remarkable ease and then, within moments, Garry’s left hand was free. Garry then repeated this same process with the handcuff on his right wrist and then left both handcuffs to dangle from the restraints around his waist.
The next part of Garry’s plan was something that he was not looking forward to. Unfortunately, though, Garry could see no way around it. If I don’t find a way to stop the undead, everyone is as good as dead anyway. So what does it matter if a few more innocent people die? If I succeed at stopping the undead, billions of people will be saved, which is the only thing that really matters now at this point!
Garry began chanting. About midway into his chant, Garry heard a yell come from one of the guards. Obviously, someone had seen that his hands were now free. Garry was only vaguely aware of the guard just outside of his cage that was unlocking the door. Then Garry heard his door open, but it was already too late for the guard, he had just finished with his spell.
The rear end of the prison bus suddenly lifted up off the ground until the bus was nearly vertical. Then the bus was thrown violently on its side. As the bus was descending, Garry quickly conjured a second spell and wrapped himself in a shield of energy.
The bus’s impact with the road made a horrendously loud noise. This was followed by the bus violently flipping over on its side repeatedly. At one point the bus even did a partial end over end due to the speed that it was traveling down the interstate before the crash.
Garry’s body bounced around like a piñata inside the bus but his magical shield absorbed every impact and blocked every shard of metal and glass that might have harmed him during the crash. Garry looked around the bus as it was finally starting to come to a stop. There was broken glass everywhere and the cages inside the bus were mangled beyond recognition. People were piled in heaps throughout the bus. Some of the inmates and guards were still moving slightly. Garry could also hear several people groaning in pain and calling out for help. Then a second impact came. Garry had never before witnessed anything that could even compare to the force of this impact or the hellish ride that later followed. Without even seeing what had happened, Garry knew that it had to have been a semi-truck still traveling at full speed that had just hit them. Garry’s shield was just barely strong enough to save him from the aftereffects of this new impact. Garry observed the bus disintegrate all around him as the semi-truck tore it apart. In a moment, Garry found himself lying on the road in a pile of debris left behind from the bus.
Garry immediately rose to his feet. The semi-truck was still skidding to a stop behind him. With a quick glance, Garry noticed several pieces of the bus that were scattered throughout the intersection. Garry assumed that the truck had carried the piece of bus that he was in as the bus disintegrated, then finally deposited him on the road. He could still faintly remember feeling the incredible weight of the semi-truck on top of his shield as its many wheels ran him over. He was certain that no one had survived from the bus except for him.
Garry wasted no time, he hopped on both feet towards the guardrail on the right side of the road (he still could not run due to the ankle restraints that he was wearing and hopping was faster than walking). Once Garry reached the guardrail, he used both hands and lifted himself up over the rail. This was slightly harder than he had expected due to the fact that he still had Jell-O hands, but by shifting his body weight after his hands and wrists gave out, Garry still managed to tumble over the guardrail, though not nearly as gracefully as he had initially planned. After making it over the guardrail, Garry then quickly disappeared into the trees.
It was very important to Garry that he hide from view immediately after the crash. This was because of the fact that one of the main reasons why Garry chose this plan was that it would make his escape look like an accident. Garry did not want the Master to figure out that he now has magical powers, which is exactly what would have happened had he stuck to his original plan and just blasted his way out of jail. Also, this way, the police would have to examine the wreckage and identify the bodies before they would ever even realize that Garry was missing.
Once Garry was hidden in the trees, he cast a spell on his hands and wrists to return them back to normal. Then he cast a spell on his ankle bindings as well as his chest bindings. This spell altered the chemical composition of the metal in his bindings making them as brittle as chalk. Garry then simply snapped them off and removed them, discarding them in the foliage nearby. He then returned the metal bindings back to their original state just as he had earlier done with his hands and wrists.
Once this was done, Garry considered what he was going to do next. He reasoned that he would not make it very far on foot in his orange jumpsuit without being spotted by someone. Teleportation was also not an option for him, so this left Garry with only one choice, flying.
The first thing that Garry did was to cast another shield spell (he had already allowed his last shield to dissipate once he was safe from the accident). Then, he used his magic to lift himself into the air. Garry poured a great deal of willpower into this spell and was soon thousands of feet in the air. Unfortunately, as soon as he had lost his upward momentum he started falling back down just as quickly as he had ascended. This was where things were going to get tricky. Garry quickly conjured another spell and, this time, he instructed the elementals to alter the shape of the invisible shield that was surrounding him. This redesigned his shield from the simple bubble that it had been to a sort of invisible glider. Garry was careful with the design that he gave to the elementals. He thought back to the many lessons that Nephal had received on aerodynamics during his recent study and carefully molded his invisible glider into an aircraft that could glide seamlessly through the air.
Once Garry had formed his invisible glider, he felt himself quickly gaining speed as the aircraft continued to soar at a downward angle. After a short while, Garry’s aircraft was traveling at a remarkable rate of speed.
Now it was time to steer the aircraft. To do this, Garry used his magic to adjust the trajectory of his invisible aircraft. Pushing down on the tail would cause the nose to rise which would, in turn, make the aircraft fly straight or even start increasing altitude depending on how much Garry wanted to push down on the tail. Pushing up on the tail would subsequently have the opposite effect. To steer left or right, Garry would need to push the tail either to the right or to the left. If he wanted to make a sharp turn, all he needed to do was lift up on one of the wings and push on the tail in its corresponding direction which would cause the aircraft to bank.
It took Garry about a minute or two before he finally got the hang of steering his aircraft, but after that he was then able to fly like he had been doing it fo
r years. To anyone watching Garry from the ground, he would have looked sort of like Superman dressed in an orange jumpsuit soaring through the air. While Garry traveled, his chant carried on almost non-stop. Garry needed to do this in order to continue steering his aircraft.
While Garry was flying, he thought about where he was going to land. Garry decided that he didn’t want to stop anywhere that people might be able to see him during daylight hours. Then it finally occurred to him. The Fisherman Island National Wildlife Refuge is just off the coast of Norfolk and is almost completely devoid of people. That will be a wonderful place to hide out until nightfall.
Garry flew peacefully to the Fisherman Island and then landed. When Garry went to land, he suddenly realized that he still had a thing or two to learn about this particular aspect of flying. He still managed to safely land, but the landing was anything but smooth. I am going to need to practice this a bit more, Garry told himself.
Garry’s time on the island passed by very slowly. The fact that he didn’t have any food or water made this wait rather unpleasant. While waiting, Garry made a few more attempts at landing. After a couple of hours, he finally felt confident enough with this ability to give his magic a rest for the day. He would conserve his energy until nightfall at last came. For Garry, nightfall could not come fast enough!
Once nightfall finally came, Garry continued to wait for several more hours. Once Garry was confident that most people would be sleeping, he took to the air again. Garry piloted his aircraft back to Norfolk. Once he had arrived back at the mainland, he searched for housing developments. This task was much harder than he had anticipated and took him several hours, but then, at last Garry finally found the street where Detective Grant lived. Garry didn’t bother looking for the house at this hour as it was hard enough just finding the street.
