A Place Where There Is No Darkness

Four

Running was one of the few things I adored. I’d always been good at it. I loved the warm sweat that made my body feel healthy. I liked the pleasant exhaustion that came with it. I liked the speed, liked being faster than anyone else. I liked knowing that no one would be able to catch me. I liked doing something I was better at than anyone else I’d ever met.

With only my heartbeat in my ears, I rounded a corner. I had to stop in order to listen if there was anyone approaching, but it was quiet, at least from what I could tell. At least for now. Though I knew, of course, that soon enough, it would all go to hell.

The prison was big. I had to pass several halls, climb several stairs. I had to take lonely routes so that nobody would see me. It was peaceful with my steps and my ragged breathing as my only companions. There was a meditative quality to it, really. It was unnaturally quiet, untypical of the prison, and I tried to force myself to enjoy it – but found I couldn’t. Not really, not while still being used to all the noise a building full of crazed teenagers could not hope to avoid.

It lasted for three minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Then a shrill alarm roared up and all hell broke loose.

By then, I had only another two halls to overcome. I sprinted along the first one, ignoring the crying sound that was so loud it seemed to want to crush the prison and let my ears explode, going all the way to my heart and disrupting its fierce rhythm.

A sweat pearl trickled into my eye.

And then, somehow, around the siren and the drumming in my ears, I heard footsteps, way too many of them, and I heard weapons being readied for shooting. I looked to the corner I was nearing and froze.

There was a door to my right.

There was a door a little farther down the hall to my left.

I tried the one on the right.

Locked.

I cursed. The wailing sound had swallowed the noise of the approaching guards again, but there was no doubt they were still there. And they were still approaching. Because there really was no way for them to go other than down the corridor I was currently in.

And there was really no other way for me either.

I dashed towards the next door and found it locked, too. “Shit.”

A foot stepped around the far corner and into the hall. It was wearing a black boot with a thick sole, which was a clear sign that it belonged to a prison guard. No one else in their right mind would wear such a shoe. I stood there, perplexed, watching, feeling the blood drain from my face, knowing that it was over. Knowing that I’d lost. Knowing that I’d most likely spend my whole pathetic life in prison now.

The next door was at least three metres away – much too far for me to reach before the guard appeared around the corner and noticed me. Besides, it was probably locked, too.

I couldn’t budge. Now the whole leg showed itself, moving as if in slow motion. I watched, amazed, not actually grasping what was happening. Not actually comprehending what I was losing, that I wasn’t only losing this fight but the whole war. That it was over. Knowing, but not understanding. Knowing that Willy wouldn’t be safe. Because I’d failed. Because I always messed things up for him and because I was always the reason he had such a shitty life.

Knowing, but never believing. Because if I believed such things, where would that leave me?

“Come here!” I heard someone yell through the buzzing in my ears and the hint of a shoulder appeared from around the corner. “I think-“

The door was ripped open from the inside and a person was standing in the doorway.

“What the hell is going–“ the redheaded woman muttered before she took in the person before her and let her mouth drop open. She went from being healthily tanned to deathly pale in a matter of moments. All she did was stand there, gaping.

I, on the other hand, didn’t waste a second. I put a hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming – though I shouldn’t have bothered, since she seemed unable to do anything but stare in wonder – and pushed her into the room, closing the door forcefully behind me with my butt. The hilt of Lungley’s gun, which I’d carefully tucked away in my pants, dug itself painfully into my skin, hard but reassuring.

“Shhh,” I whispered, looking the woman in the eyes intently, silently promising that she would be okay. She didn’t seem to get the message, though, because she finally broke out of her stupor and started flailing as if trying to free herself from my grasp.

Her kicks were pitiful and I wondered why she didn’t know at least the basics of martial arts. This was a prison, after all, and I’d always assumed that all its employees were trained in at least one discipline, just in case. But this – this was downright pathetic. She started grabbing my shoulder – seriously, my shoulder! – when she could have easily gone for my eyes or my throat or at least my hair and I maybe wouldn’t have seen the attack coming. Rusty as I was from three years in prison, she might have even stood a chance.

But the weak punch to my shoulder, not even performed from the core of her body but rather just a result of an uncontrolled slap of her arm, would have been hard to feel even if I had wanted to.

I rolled my eyes, placed a very well-directed punch to her neck, and watched her crumble to the floor, catching her in time and slowly easing her down so as not to cause more injury than necessary.

Five minutes. That’s how long I had before she woke up and told everyone of what had happened in her office.

Seven minutes. That’s how long I had to break out of prison and get to the main prison gate, preferably without getting noticed by anyone else.

Great.

I placed the woman in the corner of the room and leaned her against the wall in a half-sitting position. Her head lolled onto her chest and I carefully c****d it back, feeling for a pulse. It was strong and steady and I breathed out a relieved sigh. Maybe I wasn’t that rusty after all.

I turned away, hurriedly inspecting the room.

It had a window – of course secured with impassable bars. There was a small TV in the far corner and a bookcase with books about medicine, science and the like. In front of the case, there was a wooden desk with a computer, and a chair positioned in front of a sofa.

Had I–

Had I just eliminated the prison shrink? Man, that was messed up!

There was a knock at the door.

“Hannah, are you alright?” Someone called from the other side, obviously straining to raise their voice enough to be able to drown out the sirens. I glanced nervously at the red-haired woman who was sitting peacefully in her corner. Her eyes were closed and her breaths as deep as they get. She wouldn’t be answering anytime soon.

“Hannah?” The clearly male voice repeated, this time sounding a tad more agitated. It was now or never – preferably now because never would mean that they would break in, find me here, take me back to my cell and charge me with assault – of the shrink, no less – on top of everything else.

Though, next to two murders, that probably wasn’t the nastiest charge I’d be facing. Still, I wasn’t going to wait around and see.

“Y-Yeah?” I called back in my best adult-woman voice.

There was silence on the other side of the door, long enough for my heart to start thumping wildly, almost painfully against my chest, but at the same time short enough for me to almost miss his next words in the noise of the siren.

“Are you okay?” he demanded.

God, he knew something wasn’t right. He knew something was off about this. Quick, fix this!

I cleared my throat, trying to get my erratic breaths under control. I moved closer to the door. “Yes, I’m fine!” I breathed as enthusiastically as I could manage, though my voice still came out shaky and winded. I sounded as if I’d run a marathon.

Another few moments of silence, then the guard spoke anew. “Okay,” he said and I could hardly believe that he’d actually bought my act. “Okay, come on, then. We have to clear the perimeter.”

“Ahem …” I looked around, frantic, searching for something, anything that could help my current situation. Needless to say, I didn’t find anything of the kind.

“Ahem … You go, I’ll catch up with you. I still have something to take care of.”

“Hannah, what’s wrong?” the guard started anew. I felt tears of frustration gather in my eyes. I was about to lose Willy if didn’t make this work. I was about to lose Willy because of a guard who couldn’t leave his stupid crush alone!

“Nothing …”

“Okay, that’s it, I’m coming in!”

The blood in my veins froze. My body tensed, my arms and legs suddenly awfully weak. I looked to the door and screamed, “NO!”

It wasn’t complete silence that followed, of course, but it was much too close considering that the siren was still wailing in the background.

“What?!” the guard protested after three seconds. “No, something’s wrong, Hannah, I can feel it. I’m entering and nothing you do or say will change my mind!”

“Wait!” I tried one last time. My brain was buzzing and it actually felt ready to melt from the massive headache forming in the exact centre of my head. “Wait! Don’t! You-You can’t!”

“And why the hell not?”

“Because …” Damn it, what was the most common excuse when you didn’t want a man to enter? This was right out of the handbook! I’d learnt it all! I’d learnt every trick there was about how to mess with a person’s mind.

But damn me, I couldn’t remember at the moment.

“Because …” I started again. And then I just blurted the first best thing that popped into my mind, “Because I’m naked!”

The second the words had left my lips I covered my mouth with my hands, deeply alarmed. Just how the hell a shrink would have ended up naked in her own office was beyond me. But the words were out and there was nothing I could possibly do or say to take them back, at least not without raising even more suspicion.

Why couldn’t I have just claimed to be with a patient and not wanting to break doctor-patient confidentiality by opening the door and letting the guard in? Or I could have said that I was in the middle of cleaning my office and I didn’t want anyone else seeing this mess. Or I could have said that I just wasn’t in the mood to see his smug face and he should leave me the hell alone. There were so many possibilities, so many solutions, but I’d had to go for the most stupid, most unrealistic one.

“I knew it!” the guard yelled, true anger dripping from his words now. “You’re in there with Paul, aren’t you?”

For a moment, I was shocked – had that actually worked?! But it took me only one and a half seconds to find my bearings again and smile. I let out my breath. Thank you, Lord. There we go, an opening.

“Well … yes,” I stated insecurely, as if ashamed. I knew how to do ashamed. I moved a chair out of the way just to make some noise. “No, Paul,” I said then, arguing with the imaginary man. “No, don’t try to stop me, it’s out now anyway. We have to tell him. I have to tell him.” I made sure that I was talking loud enough for the guard on the other side to make everything out if he was eavesdropping – which he was.

I moved another chair and then went back to the door.

“I’m so, so sorry,” I murmured just loudly enough to be heard on the other side. “I never wanted to hurt you. Paul is just … he’s the better choice for me.”

He said nothing back. I only heard his steps, walking away, and then it was quiet but for the shrill siren.

Four minutes and fifty eight seconds left.

I really had to hurry now.

My shaking hand reached tentatively towards the handle. I slowly pressed down and carefully pushed my head through the tiny slit I created between door and wall. The hall was empty, a few pieces of ripped paper I didn’t have the time to worry about lying around. The sirens, now accompanied also by blinking red lights, were wilder than ever, making me go half mad with dizziness and headache.

It really was time to get out of here.

I ran down the last hallway and into the staircase. It was hard to see where I was going due to the blinking red lights. More than once, I stumbled against the wall or lost my balance out of the blue and I was happy when I’d finally reached my destination – the staircase that ran along the whole west flank of the building. I looked down, making sure nobody was approaching me.

It was all clear.

So I started running. I counted the steps, but even that was hard in the face of the piercing noise that was making it tricky to hear my own thoughts. When I came to twenty-three, I stopped and looked to my right.

There was seemingly only hard wall. But when I let my hands roam over the surface, I could feel the difference. It was slight and the wood melted perfectly into the surrounding stone so it was hard to make out its actual form and size. But that didn’t matter, of course, because I had it all figured out.

Or it wouldn’t have mattered if I hadn’t forgotten the ruler in my cell.

The thing was, hidden behind the wooden plate was a window. More than that, it was a window without bars. I’d seen it from the outside the first time I’d arrived and since the guards led me to the doctor’s office through here once a week, I’d had enough time to figure out that the window was nowhere to be found from the inside. Additionally, I’d had enough time to figure out exactly where the window was positioned and how they’d covered it up.

There were only two problems left. First, the wooden plate couldn’t be removed because it had been put in place with glue much stronger than the material itself. That meant it was easier to break the plate than to try and take it off.

Again, that wouldn’t have been a problem at all if I’d had the ruler. I’d punched through wood often enough to know how to do it without shattering all the bones in your body. Never punched through solid stone, though.

Hence, the actual problem was the second one: The window was only 80X90 centimetres big. The length didn’t bother me too much; 80 centimetres was more than enough to fit through even for someone bulkier than me. But the height …

I was one meter and sixty-four centimetres high, give or take – I hadn’t measured my height in a few years. That meant that if I bent my legs and pressed them as tightly to my body as I possibly could, I would shrink to about eighty-two centimetres. If I dropped my head, I could manage to fit through, but even then only just.

I knew that the window was exactly 15.6 centimetres over the step I was currently occupying. I’d calculated it all, even bringing in a few helpers from the outside to assess the window as thoroughly as possible. When you spent all your time alone in a cell, every day, you found that you didn’t have much else to do short of planning your escape. That’s exactly what I’d been doing for the past three years and it had taken me exactly five months and ten days to determine the exact position of the window.

But without the ruler, I had no means of measuring it. Without the ruler, I could only speculate, imprecisely estimate the distance – and imprecision had no business in a plan that depended on millimetres.

I sighed. There was nothing for it. I couldn’t turn back now – and I didn’t want to. This was it.

I ran back up the stairs. The staircase had been made without a railing, so the steps were also accessible from the upper level. I searched until I was standing exactly above the twenty-third step and got ready.

This was it. This was really it. I was escaping the prison I’d sworn to stay in as long as it took. I’d sworn to never bother my brother ever again. I’d sworn to never be a part of his life again because he was a hundred times better off this way. How many more promises was I going to break?

But I was doing a good thing here – at least that’s what I hoped.

Now all I had to do was jump. I felt my heart thumping in my chest and I heard the sirens but yet again, the annoying noise melted into the background, leaving me behind with my racing thoughts. The jump should give me enough strength to break right through the window. It should.

Of course, even if that worked, I could never dream of breaking through solid rock. And if I jumped a bit too high or a bit too low, that would be exactly what I’d have to do to survive.

I couldn’t mess this up. Not for me, not for Willy.

I heard voices in the distance and again decided that it was now or never. In the end, it always is.

And again I chose now. Because in the end, I always do.