Escape by FeatheredTurtle

A scream tore at my throat as claws ripped at my heels.

As the echo faded, I heard a whisper in the darkness of the cell.

"Where you gonna go, where are you gonna run?"

The voice was harsh, and it grated on my ears. It was just a whisper, only a suggestion of a sound, but it echoed in my skull, thrashing inside my brain.

Another scream.

Claws clicked on the steel floor, like nails on a chalkboard. They clicked like a maniacal drumming of fingers, impatient, waiting.

Waiting for me.

I couldn't run. I couldn't say that I tried to save myself because the cell was much too small. There were no doors. The only opening was a vent in the ceiling, where I had first been dropped into the cell. If only I could reach.

The thing hasn't killed me yet. Not yet. Four days, I have been locked, imprisoned in this cell. It watches me, breathes on my neck; traces it's claws along my arms.

Scares me.

My throat was raw with four days' worth of screaming, begging for it to stop. Please.

I tried to flee from the thing in the too-small room, and I tripped into the corner. My elbows were already purple, but now they were black.

As I fell, it jumped onto me. Dug its claws into my back, drew blood. Leaned its head down as I whimpered. Whispered with that voice, that awful voice.

"Where you gonna go, where are you gonna run?"

I begged and cried as it held me down, cried with red and swollen eyes.

And then it jumped. Jumped to somewhere. I never knew where. This time, I felt it leave, somehow. But it would come back.

It always came back.

I pulled myself across the cell, hugged my knees in the corner. The room was empty, save for a bucket. I hadn't used the bucket yesterday. It has been four days.

Four days without water, without food.

I sobbed, there in the corner. Sobbed. I didn't know how this was happening. I didn't know, didn't know anything.

But I did know that I was going insane.

That was the goal, I think. To break me. To make me split at the seams, fray at the corners.

It was working.

In the short periods when the thing left, I pulled at my hair. It covered the steel floor, now, instead of my head. I scratched my legs with my nails and left raw streaks on my skin. I muttered to myself, sang lullabies to make myself sleep.

But the thing always came before I could rest.

I heard a shuffling, a disturbing of dust as the thing returned. No.

No no no no no no no no no no.

Not again.

I struggled to my feet with the little strength I had and heaved myself to the opposite corner, where I hoped the thing was not. I could never tell, though, as the cell was completely dark.

It grazed my cheek with a rough, matted tail, and leapt away.

It left again.

The movement of walking re-opened up a cut on my arm, a cut that the thing had opened yesterday, with razor-like claws.

I didn't know what the thing looked like. It was too dark for that. But I have felt the claws, and the disgusting, slimy shell. I don't want to know what it looks like.

But I was fading. It had been four days without food, without water.

And I knew The Rule Of Three.

Three hours without shelter.

I had shelter. A cold, steel cell, underground and without light. Four walls and a roof.

Three minutes without air.

I had air. The vent made sure of that...

A cold wave washed over me as I realized:

THE VENT

The vent. Maybe I couldn't run, but I could escape. I could escape the horror of the thing, the torture. I could escape. Not run. Just escape.

Three weeks without food.

I grabbed the bucket, turned it over. The contents spilled onto the hairy floor. The smell made me gag, and I dry-heaved onto the floor.

I gathered my remaining strength as I stepped onto the bucket. My head was pounding; my vision was dimming.

Three days without water.

I wasn't going to wait to die. I wasn't going to wait for the thing to have mercy. I wasn't going to wait to die of dehydration like I already was. But I wouldn't let it finish me. I wasn't going to be driven insane.

I still had dignity.

The vent was open, just a hole in the ceiling without a cover. I screamed with pain as my wasted arms lifted me into the vent, using the wall to push myself in. My legs were hanging out; my head turned to the expanse of the vent.

I knew it would be there. I knew it would not let me leave.

A distant, dim sunlight shed a glow on the face of the thing.

The twisted, malicious, shredded, ruined features of a face. The mouth spread into an approximation of a smile, teeth glinting.

"Where you gonna go, where are you gonna run?"

Another grating whisper.

But it thought I was trying to run.

I screamed one last insult at the thing.

"I'll see you in Hell, you bloody maggot."

I pushed myself out of the vent, screeching as my emaciated arms put forth their last effort.

My skull was smashed by the floor as I landed headfirst. Blood gushed from my head as my bones screamed in pain. Blood.

The thing's smiling face was branded into my eyes, the only thing I saw.

I heard laughing as I died.

***