#fridayflash: Breakout

I must get out. I must get out. I MUST!

I was conscious that I was muttering away to myself, as well as rocking back and forth slightly, but I had known for a while that insanity wasn't far away. I was desperate. The situation had become unbearable. I had been cooped up in this dark, crowded, dank space for about six weeks now. I couldn't bear it any longer. The claustrophobia was finally getting the better of me and, with a new addition shoved through the cage door just yesterday, it was worse than ever. Even more cramped and squalid. We were waist-deep in our own filth. The smell was putrid and the darkness merely heightened the vile odours.

I tried to distract myself by working out a plan of escape. The chink of light that glimmered under the door was the only thing that had given me any hope throughout this torturous time. The main door was opened occasionally, when our captors came to do a check. They opened the cage and counted us and sometimes brought a new prisoner who was thrown in on top of us. As we gazed up at them, blinking in the blinding light, they were prone to kicking one or two of us before locking the cage securely again. Then they left, always laughing at some joke that one of them had made, and this only served to accentuate our misery and deepen our despair.

Now, however, I was formulating a plan. If it all worked out, I would be out in the fresh air, touching the velvety grass, in no time at all. I couldn't rely on my companions to help me so I was going to do it alone. The crux of it, I knew, was down to timing. In the last few days, there had been more activity than usual outside our cell door and my instincts told me that something was brewing. Something big was going to happen.

"But what?" I asked myself, and more importantly, "When?". I decided that whenever the day came, I would be ready to go. I might only get one chance, and if I didn't take it, I could imagine the remainder of my life would be spent in this very room. That was not going to happen.

Step one was to escape the cage. Unbeknown to the others I had for some time been reconnoitring the cage, checking its structure. I had found that several bars on one side were rather insubstantial. I clambered over the bodies of the other prisoners, apologising for stepping on them, and wriggled into a tiny space in a corner where the weakest bars were. There was a big guy already there, but I was tiny compared to him and although he grunted and tutted a bit, he eventually squeezed up. I then spent the next few days grinding the rods away with a small rock I had found. It was hard to do this without the others noticing, but the light was poor and thanks to the constant moans and groans of the other captives, the noise was drowned out. Two and a half days later, the deed was done. The external movements had increased and our abductors had been in three times today alone, removing a hostage each time. These poor victims had been the more elderly of the group and we knew, without a doubt, that we would not see them again.

Then the chance came. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. First of all the door opened and all my fellow hostages were thrown out of the cage before any of them could protest or resist. I acted quickly, forcing myself through the gap in the bars and into the deepest darkness behind the door. As luck would have it, I had picked up my small, worn piece of rock and I managed to squeeze it into the hinge, just as the door was slammed shut. It didn't close fully and, knowing that the enemy would come back soon to lock the room up again, I crept forward and pushed the door open, just enough to see what was happening.

What I saw stopped me in my tracks and nearly convinced me to stay in the room, that familiar place that had been my prison for so long. But something inside me took control; it pushed me through the precious gap in the door and along the edge of the vast room that it had opened on to. The room was full of the hated enemy, kicking my fellow captives about, whilst laughing malevolently. They were torturing and tormenting my friends, making them scream. Some of my allies were in a corner, lying flat out on the ground, clearly dead.

Without any further hesitation, I headed for an open door just a few metres away, through which I could see outside: glorious sunlight and real trees. I nearly made it...but in the final stretch, one of the kidnappers spotted me and kicked me hard in the guts. I was winded and collapsed, completely deflated, but oddly this seemed to fool him into thinking I was of no further use. So, in a fit of anger, he hurled me as hard as he could through the door...and into the back of the net outside.

Goal! I was outdoors at last, inhaling the sweet-scented air and sitting upon a luxurious carpet of grass. I was free! The world was mine and I was going to roll around it for the rest of my days, happy to be alive. Oh, I was so ecstatic, I was fit to burst...but luckily I didn't.