under the mask (page 2)

The escape:
For me to get to the hole, I first have to sneak into prison. In the light tower in the far back of the jail yard, there's a so-called map of the New World. If the legends are true there should be an area on the half of the world, the abyss where the Keeper sulks around, the lair. The Keeper is a shadow, the king of shadows. The Keeper eats off the work, fears, misery of the shadows, which is how he lives. The Keeper would be changed ground to the New World unable to provoke the lost souls to an eviler place to feed himself. (Which I would not even think to be possible compared to this damp Hell.) But with any kind of greatness, even one like this has some kind of cost, I guess. The king of souls would grant any of your one desire as another defect toward creating a New World, so the legend told.
      So I was off running in every direction. Starting off at the far east of the prison boarder gates blocked me from any chance of me just walking right on in. The prison's designs were so that no one gets in or for that matter out. I guess it's the hard way in. First I had to prevent being seen. Charred clothes scattered around my feet. Nobody would mind if I just borrowed some…
           Dressed all in black, I blended right in the background.
The borders of the prison were 100% barbwire fence. Trying to get a running start, to jump- the point itself seems fatal to find the answer to a question no one needs to know. Actually there is no one to know, just souls. (And they are so helpful. They are shadows of the dead.) But yet, I feel as if there is something – someone else around, watching over me. Like there is something to fight for and so I go on. Finally I had jumped hard and high enough to actually make some sort of distance up the retched fence. Poking and prodding up, my is skin tearing at the scene. Blood rushed out of my system. And my body unable to heal with the dagger knives pierces through skin and muscles like they were made of nothing more than the simplest of fabrics and the wires were the scissors tearing me apart limb by limb.
     And then as if it hit me like a sweet dream, I felt a feeling more than sorrow. More than anger, a feeling beyond anything I felt in a long time. Sweeter than the smell of hickory when I was five foolishly getting my hands coated with its wonderful scent. Something even beyond words itself. I pause and looked where I am and the location around me. At the top of the gates blood covered my trail. On the opposite side of the puddle were skulls. Skulls scattered around my feet were peculiar to my wandering eyes and how they were varying from sizes and shapes. Cracked bones and chips scattered like puzzle pieces. Prison lights scanned the area never an inch toward the gates. But suddenly as I was locked in daydream that was just as bizarre as it was warm. There seemed to be a sun beaming down on me. But unlike any sun I've came to know and lose this one was cold. And chills came crawling up my spine. I've been discovered! Looking then staring at the source of the beam of light, like one of those deer caught in the head light of what used to be a car, I knew I was dead. Sirens horned and that awoke me from my bizarre yet most serene slumber I have had in a long time. Struggling to jump quickly down the way I came a loose piece of the charred black shirt that I had borrowed from the skeleton with maggots still eating away at the corpse would not budge. Turning toward my backside, I then realize that it was not just one single piece of my shirt but my whole outfit.
I was stuck!        

Hazing back to the serene daydream of nothing I become unaware of my surroundings and how doomed I really am. The wasteland, which I am forced to call the world, home seemed to fade away around me. But unlike before, this daydream took me away from this terrible reality to a life I am not sure I knew. Screaming filled my head, but whose? Was this reality? Was this my reality? If anything it was too late to tell. Soon the screaming was the only thing left to here, left to follow, the only thing left to grab on to until that was gone too. Four walls tower around me and transformed to a shade of color I grew to miss. The dull and unfavorable color did not age with grace and was coated with a thin layer of dust to hide its original store bought quality. Just as quickly as it died, the screaming arose once more. Clear and precise, this time I knew who it was. This was impossible. This was improbable.  This was impossible but here it was. "How- how –but that is me!" I spoke viciously to myself. With one single breath I spoke those simple words but they felt as if they would never end. Redundantly I spoke again, louder, faster "What is this place?" seconds maybe even minutes passed when my life came to more of a shock. The wall formed in front of me to a large gaping black hole. This would be a miniature version of what the Hole would be a swirling vortex of endless proportion. Suddenly the never-ending, soul-sucking portal stopped. Stopped swirling, stopped growing, just stopped. Frozen in both time and space, as was I…
Tears roll down my cheeks, washing them from weeks' worth of grease and dirt.
"Let me out…Let me out…NOW!"
And through the tears I sob out just one last word "…please"
I had a feeling that a whole month gone by before I awaken. But when I did awake; I was not hanging awkwardly off the bloody fence- bloody from my own flesh, my veins. Where I was, was in a prison-no I was in THE prison. The bars of my cell cast a vindictive shadow across my body from face to torso to my worn out shoes giving the feeling of melancholy to my ambiance. At that moment I didn't know how to feel, exhilarated because now I don't have to climb that demented fence of horror and I was in the prison which was my goal to get the mythical map but now that I'm captured I need to escape my prison cell, sneak into the tower to steal the map and escaped the prison building without getting caught. (Piece of cake …I hope.) But first, before I can even focus my mind around the arrangement of how to get this so-called map, I have to release myself from this half man cubical. I spin in the region of myself trying to discover a concept to my escape.
I came up with the only possible solution I could bring to mind; and I brought my ill strategy to life. "Picket, I am in need of your aid!"  I await a response but received none. I shout that one single word like it was from my last dying breath for if I didn't acquire some outside reaction of some variety, it just may be my last, dying, declaration. No one retorted my plea and I fell to my knees, my face lightly coated with my own tears as they plummet to the concrete floor before my knees. And I did something that I haven't done in years- I prayed. I don't why or to whom-who could it be I'm the only living thing left. But at that moment, at that time and space none of that mattered- nothing mattered.
It must have been days inside the penitentiary cubicle until I realized that one of the bars that were containing me in this revolting rank was off centered. Could this have been the solution I have been looking for? When I discovered this somewhat heart wrenching focus, I nearly fell to the floor. At my knees, I quickly brush my unkempt hair off to the side of my face. I move myself cautiously toward that one bar and examine it. Coming to the conclusion that if this rail is given the right amount of strength it will seem to let off. So I did just that, placing both my hands on the shaft and pulled with every last fiber of my being and sure enough the shaft broke loose. Dropping the rail to my side, I made it my insinuative to let myself out. As soon as I take one foot out of my cell and on to the hallway floor alarms were set off.  I softly whisper to myself "But how –How could anyone even know? Who could possibly know?"  I bolted toward the closest thing to an exit I could find. It was a window; the height was about 5 to 6 feet tall with glass of blue. Shattered at its core; as if smashed with a blunt object, my mind too perplexed to care about what happen to the window and jumped.  The first thing that came to my head as I was falling to what seems like my death was "Wow. How stupid am I?" Waiting for my face to hit the terrain, with my eyes closed shut and holding my breath for impact.