The Escape.

I know its been like almost 5 months or something since I've posted here, but there isn't really a good reason for that.. I just had school, life, and all the pros and cons that came along with it.

In the period of (4-something/5) months of inactivity, I've read a lot of books, listened to a lotta music, and dreamed a lot of Dreams. Speaking of Dreams, I wrote this piece a long time ago. A few of my friends might remember this but Im putting it up anyway.

A while ago, we were given an assignment to write a "short" story of any genre. This is what I submitted. Enjoy.  :)

 Escape

       by Narayanan Mohan

A boy awoke to find himself in a small room. The room was small, with nothing in it except one bed, a sink in the corner, a mirror on the wall above it, and a single door. There were no windows. The only source which provided the dim light that barely illuminated the room was a small candle burning in the corner of the room, behind the bed. Turning to see the candle, he saw that it was nearly spent; only the base of the candle remained.

       He walked to the mirror to have a better look at himself, despite the dim lighting. His skin looked pale as if from lack of exposure to sunlight; Blonde-brown hair, that stood up in all places; and a scar running from one corner of his right eye, to the end of his nose. What was the most disturbing fact about his appearance were his eyes; his right eye was green, while his left eye was a bright blue.

He gently touched the scar on his face and moved his finger, tracing it. When he reached its end, he felt a painful twinge behind his eyes, followed by a severe headache. Screaming, although no one could hear him, let alone help him, he collapsed onto the floor where he twitched and writhed as though his blood were turning to fire. He soon lost consciousness, though he sometimes gave weird, occasional twitches every few minutes.

The people that could see everything in the room through the hidden cameras merely sighed and shook their heads. Two made a small note on a clipboard and exchanged a few glances between them, but did nothing else.

A few hours passed and the boy woke up again. This time, weak and shaking from his previous convulsions, he crawled to the back wall and holding his knees between his hands, sat there, rocking from side to side. He remembered two things that he had forgotten. His name: Aeon, and one simple word that he now remembered he had been repeating to himself over and over again: Escape.

He didn’t know where he was, or what he was doing there, only that if he didn’t get out of that confined space - possibly a prison - that very day, he would die, very painfully, and very slowly. He was about to start formulating some plan, when he heard a shriek from behind the opposite wall. The wall with the door. He saw a shadow go across the bottom of the door and then he heard the scream again. It sounded like a female’s scream. Rushing to the door, he tried to get it open, but to no avail. The door remained shut. Stepping back and looking at the door thinking of a way to open it, it suddenly creaked open. Running out, he stopped in his tracks.

The door opened out to a corridor. The corridor was very well lit and Aeon had some difficulty adjusting to the light at first, but as soon as his eyes managed to adjust completely to the light, he wished he had never left his room.

The floor was bloody and a corpse wearing a white overcoat with an eagle logo on its back was on the floor. He stared at the body for some time, unable to register that this was not normal, till he heard the same scream again. Jerking his head upwards, he saw a woman bending over the head of the body holding a scalpel. She had various wounds all over her body, of which most were concentrated on her arms.

“Hello… Are you alright?” asked Aeon as he slowly inched towards the woman. He didn’t like the way how the woman was just crouched over the body like that. He was sure that this lady had somehow managed to kill the person with that scalpel in her hand. Her head snapped up at the sound of his voice and he saw a wild and crazed look in her eyes. He barely had a moment’s notice before she lunged at him. The scalpel was aimed at his face, but he just managed to avoid it. Scrambling away from the mad woman, he slipped in the pool of blood. She suddenly stopped and began screaming like she had earlier and started to convulse on the floor next to Aeon and the stiff. Aeon got up and quickly turned on his heel and RAN, as far away from her as possible. Taking a left turn and continuing to run, he stopped only when he say a door at the end of the corridor with a bright green “EXIT” over it. The mad woman’s screams echoed through the halls behind him.

As soon as he stepped out, he heard a voice whisper in his head saying “welcome to the 4th Basement floor. Neurotoxins.” Looking around, he saw no one and heard no one. Looking up at the stairs in front of him, he noticed a medical tray next to the stairs. Walking over and picking up a scalpel, he thought to himself “Well, better than nothing.”

Climbing to the higher levels, he heard the same voice whisper in his mind: “3rd basement. Nightmare; 2nd basement. Mains; 1st basement. Traverse” He shivered at the last word. He continued his climb and reached the first basement level. He stared at the door that led to the “Traverse Levels” for some time, before turning his back on it.

The people watching him from the cameras sighed and shook their heads sadly. Two more notes made and three more shared glances. Then silence.

He went to the top of the stairs and then onto the ground floor. This floor was extremely large and the entire floor was filled with crates. Some of them were broken and the contents of them were strewn across the floor. On closer inspection, he saw that the contents included syringes and more medical equipment. Walking past the debris, he made his way to the front of the floor, where the Exit sign was marked clearly. On his right and left were two counters, where two speakers were kept on either side. From the speakers, rang out a female voice.

“You are not permitted to leave. Your tests have not yet been completed, nor have they been verified. Please return to the compound immediately or prepare to be ‘evicted’.” The message kept repeating itself.

He managed to reach the Exit sign, when he heard something buzzing. Turning around, two burly henchmen, both wearing black shirts and the same logo from the corpse on the neurotoxin level, were holding rods that glowed.

“You die now if you try to escape or you go back,” smiled one of the henchmen, “withminimal injuries.” He said nothing. The last thing he remembered was the sensation of god-knows how many volts of electricity running through his body, causing him to suffer the same episode that he had earlier in his room.

He woke up to find himself in the same room as he was earlier. He felt a numb pain from his shoulders. Looking down, he saw, where his arms should have been, two bloody stumps. Staring at them in horror, Aeon started to scream and shout. His voice echoed through the corridors, till it eventually ceased. The people behind the cameras smiled once, wrote two notes, and pressed the third button from the right, and the feed from the camera stopped.

******

A newspaper floated along the streets as the wind picked it up and threw it wherever it could. No one paid any attention to the newspaper, but they did keep giving the lab behind it very uneasy looks.

The newspaper read “The Dr.Verstoberne Institute, which once conducted experimentation based on neurotoxins, has recently been shut down. There are rumors that an escaped prisoner of the institution had escaped and had gone to the authorities. The authorities (whom we cannot name at the moment) had ordered an evacuation of the entire surrounding area led a full fledged assault on the building. After three days, the authorities came out of the lab last Friday and the findings are most shocking. Its is confirmed that all the kidnappings of our city were facilitated so that the ‘researchers’ of the lab would have people to test on. Many families have been reunited with lost loved ones, but alas, more have discovered that their families had died earlier, and within the hidden      basement laboratories of the Dr. Verstoberne Institute. Read more on page 3.”

Nearby, the Police stood next to a young boy whom they had covered with a blanket to protect him from the falling snow.

“Its gonna be alright, son.” Said one officer.

“Yeah? How?” asked the boy. The boy looked up and fixed his mismatched, blue and green eyes on the officer and asked him again, “How?”

And thats Basically it. Hope people enjoyed reading it. :)

(yeah,  nothing overtly bright and shining nor Sweet here. :P )