It was the beginning of autumn,you could feel it from the cool breeze that escaped through the little bars that was used as windows in these tight cornered place they called cells. That was one time,one could really feel alive again after being locked up here for long. "DEEP ROCK" an underground prison surrounded by large metal buildings,tall enough to lock you far away from the real world. It's security system was one no one to tamper with. A 100 acres of land before you could see those tall fences. Every corner of the prison needed to be memorized cause it seemed to be a maze to prevent a quick escape. The saying goes,you might lose your mind trying to run away. Deep rock was a prison known for it's no means of escape,once you in there's no coming out. Each cell was soundproof,you could die from the loneliness as there is no conversations between the cell mates; it prevented them from making escape plans.
Vinaigrette,a 32 years old lady still with her charms. Her eyes were as bright as the sky. Her figure was something you could say you see everyday but there was something different about it. Locked up for 7 years,vina had closely studied each corner of the prison,drawing every corner on her brick wall which was hidden from eyes. She had used her years winning over half the security guards.
She couldn't spend another year here,she needed to break out but it wasn't going to be easy;She knew that. What hasn't she risked at this point in her life. Vina sat looking out at the tiny bars where little sun rays managed to penetrate into her cells. The thoughts of betrayal and revenge. She wouldn't have wasted all these years here if she hadn't trusted the people she worked with. She needed to find who and pay them back. She heaved heavily and laid her back on the cold floor,it didn't seem to bother her anymore. Thoughts of her escape ran through her mind; Was she ready? What if she doesn't make it out alive? She turned her back against the rays."What's the point?" She'll die here if she doesn't even try. She only had one go.
As thoughts kept flooding her mind,her eyes seemed to become heavy...she looked at the bars,it was already late. She had been thinking for long. She sat up and coughed,then looked towards her cell door. It was supposed to be dinner time. She stood up and walked towards the door and began to bang on it.
"Hey hey dimwits, We getting dinner this night or what? You waiting for us to die?" Vina screamed out
"Fucking assholes"It was no point and she knew it,it was soundproof,no one heard the banging except her.
She was tired of this fucking place. She was losing her mind and sense of reasoning.
"Fuckkkkkkkkk!!!!!" Vina dragged her hair and kept banging loudly on her metal door.
"To hell with you all,You all do worst than we do and let us rot in here" She sat slowly beside the door,sobbing quietly.
She wanted a better life than this,all she could think of was her mother who was ill by the time was captured and imprisoned. All her life,she spent it doing things she wasn't proud of but one had to survive,she needed the money. Her mother was the only thing she got when her father decided to abandon them without warning.She could hear his last words.
"I'll be back Vina, daddy needs to get things done "
Vina laughed
"Getting things done? Getting things done? You married another fucking woman!!"She sobbed
"You had another kid my age"Vina wiped her tears and laughed,you could see the redness in her eyes and she stood and walked over to her drawing of the map of the prison.
"I've stayed here long enough"
A prison that guarded had it lapses,it was an underground prison and it should have connections leading to somewhere; that's what Vina actually thought. A tunnel or underwater passage, something to connected the prison to something outside of it.
"Raphael"a prison Warden,a man in his late twenties,who was also drawn to Vinaigrette charms. He had admired her and longed to be with her .
"Raphael!!" Vina woke him up from his admiration.
"Someone needs to arrest who ever made this prison,don't you think so?"Vina had her ways with words
"Why??Cause it's torturous??"Raph laughed out but stopped when Vina's eyes met his
"Why?" He coughed out
Vina smirked,she had him
"I don't know,maybe give us prisoners a time to do manual labour and spend time together"Vina said looking up at the sky
Prisoners were given days of going out into the field. 10 prisoners a day each with a prison Warden to watch over them. This was to avoid contact with each other. The field was big enough they couldn't even see the other prisoners.
"Why would you want labour when the prison is enough torture?"Raph asked looking at Vina "You sleep on the cold floor and the ceiling of the prison is so low you can barely stand up straight" Raph seemed to feel bad.
"Don't feel bad,We deserve it,don't we?? We're all the states most wanted criminal"Vina smile faded.
"Each of us have done what a normal being won't do and we would still do it again if given a chance"
"Would you do it again?"Raph looked at her with pity,she could feel him telling me to give life another chance but what chance? She was meant to die here.
"Would a dead person do anything" she tried to avoid the question.
"We do have labour here but they're done by the prison labour workers not prisoners,they work there every month beginning"
"Ahhhh,I see" Vina tried to look uninterested
"They clean the sewer under the cells,I feel bad for them sometimes,that work is killing but they get paid"
"Yeah,everyone does what they don't wish to do cause of the pay"Vina smiled slowly, she has gotten her answer.
The alarm rang,time was up, they were going to be locked up again. A sewer means a passage. All Vina needed was to find this sewer. She needed to do something fast.
"I need to see Raphael, there's something I'll like to tell him"Each room had a security camera installed in it;it wasn't facing the side where we did our personal shit. Vina had requested for Raph through the CCTV and Raph came to her cell room.
She smiled at Raph to make sure he was comfortable and had no sense of duty at that point, she moved towards him.
"You asked for me Vina"He asked,you could see the worried look on his face. Ohh poor Raph,how could you let a woman deceive you.
"Yes, I was so scared,"
"What's wrong?" Raph stood still,he was watched over through the cameras,he didn't want to mess up
"Come take a look" he still stood still,this was much harder than a thought. How was she suppose to steal his ID without him noticing. She had began acquiring things she need for my escape. First she needed an iD to help with her easy access through each security system.
"Are you hurt?" He asked from afar
She looked him in the eye and began to breathe fast;yes a medical condition. It would be much believable since her years here she haven't made a fake medical complaints.
Vina actually visited the clinic on times when she had a headache or body ache due to the frequent sleeping on the floor. This will do.
"Are you okay" Raph seemed to look worried. She let out a little cry while holding her chest,like she was losing her breath. Raph was making an emergency call as he came closer to her. This was it.
Pickpocketing was something Vinaigrette couldn't forget,she did little of it while still in prison. She would swipe a few cigarettes out of some prison guards while passing them or bumping into them. A prison had it's blind spots too. Very few sides had no CCTV facing them,so she would smoke a few bits before being found and taken back to her cell.
"How are you feeling?" Raph continued to ask as he moved towards her,Vina used the chance to fall on his body and quietly slip his ID off his belt. With all that commotion who would notice. Other officers rushed in and took her out of my cell. She was laid on a stretcher and taken to the clinic. She continued to breathe heavily to avoid suspicious.
"You get one shot, Vina,don't fuck this up" She kept telling herself,this was her one and only chance to get out. It was either she died in here or died trying.
"I can't give up now,I've never done that"She needed all the confidence she could give herself.
She was rushed into the clinic and laid on the bed. Two officers were stationed at the door while the doctor and nurses moved towards her to know her problem. She was examined and asked different questions relating to how she felt.
"You sure you okay"The doctor asked "How do you feel now?"" No pains?" I reluctantly nodded.
"What should I do,what should I do?" Vina was becoming anxious,time was running out. She was glancing through each corner of the room as if she was waiting for some answers and then her face settled. She has spotted a lighter at the counter near the window of the clinic.
"I feel dizzy doctor "
"Can I vomit?" There was a toilet in the clinic and it was also next to where the lighter was. The nurse assisted her to stand up and walk towards the toilet. Vina made her steps look clumsy to match that of a sick patient. She imitated how patients would act if they were about to vomit. They got closer to the counter and Vina rushed towards it and coughed heavily while slipping the lighter into her clothes. Raph hasn't noticed his ID is missing yet,she still had little time. She entered the toilet and became to trying to vomit.
"It's not coming out" she made it look like she was scared.
"Don't be scared,I'm sure it will be out soon" the nurse tried comforting her while she brought her to the clinic.
"Did she vomit?"The doctor asked while the nurse shaked her head implying she didn't .
Vina was laid on the bed and covered with the bedsheet,that was one time any prisoner got to use the bed. The doctor and nurses moved away to state her conditions to the officers. As they were talking Vina quietly lit the lighter and fire began to move quietly but quicker. Nobody had notice her sneak a highly flammable alcohol under her cloth.she had opened it quietly in the toilet and poured it without the notice of anyone. The fire followed the trail of the alcohol and suddenly began to burn anything on it's part.
"Fireeeee!!!"an officer had shouted,she had to remain calm to prevent attention to her side. Luckily the fire grew bigger every second. More officers came in to control the fire and that was when she slipped out with the commotion. She was avoiding every CCTV she had mapped out. She had studied the corners. She needed to find the sewer.
Her absence would soon be noticed,she needed a disguise.
"Hey,how did you get out of your cell?"Vina stopped right where she was"I said how did you get out?" she could hear the cocking of the gun as footsteps moved slowly towards her from her back.
"Let me see your hands"Vina slowly raised her hands up and calmly waited.
She could feel the presence behind her, the officer's footsteps barely audible over her own racing heartbeat. Before she could turn, a cold, hard barrel pressed against the back of her head. She froze, her breath catching in her throat.
"Don't move," the officer's voice was steady, authoritative. She could almost feel the weight of his finger resting on the trigger, ready to act if she made a single wrong move.
But she wasn't about to surrender. With a swift, sudden motion, she twisted her body, knocking the gun aside with her arm. The weapon went off, the shot echoing through the narrow space, but the bullet missed.
"Shit" she spun around, grabbing the officer's wrist, trying to wrestle the gun out of his hand.
The struggle was intense, a chaotic blur of movement and force. The officer was strong, but she was quick. With a sharp elbow to his ribs, she managed to loosen his grip. The gun slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor. They both dove for it, hands colliding, each desperate to gain control.
She managed to kick the gun away, sending it skidding across the floor, out of reach. The fight was far from over, but now it was on her terms. She gave him a few blows and ran towards the gun. Two shots at his head and he was gone. She needed his uniform.
Thankfully because of the prison's soundproof,the gunshot weren't heard,but it was about time they would be looking for her. She quickly hid him and slipped into his cloth. Any CCTV would identify her as an officer because of the uniform.
Walking down the hallways,she noticed a door and quietly opened it,it was locked,that was when she remembered the ID she had stolen. She quickly slipped it in and it opened.
"Ohh fuck" she has been identified as missing,the alarms were already ringing. She had to be quick. She was sure all eyes would be on the cameras now.
She made way into the room and noticed the underground tunnel right in the middle of the room. She opened up the doorway and quickly moved down the stairs.
"Yes,yes I knew it" she was in the sewer,there was a passage,she had to find it. She was running anxiously hoping for something she wasn't sure of. Just anything, anything to let her out. Suddenly,the grounds began to shake,it was something familiar like that of a train,it could mean only one thing,here was close to a subway. She had to find it quick. Before she could move she was shot at her hand,her while body went stiff. Her agonizing cries could be heard a km away.
"And you thought you could make it away" that voice was familiar,she turned to look at the officer,you could see the tears of lost hopes in her eyes.
"Raph" she gasped while losing her breathe.
"You could have lived more years before you could die" Vina smirked at this thought and it sort of gave her hope to move on.
"No fucking way am I dying in here" she stood up straight looking directly into his eyes.
"I have a revenge pain to go through with,so to hell with death" she smiled boldly and shot at him. Raph who was unaware of the fact Vina yielded a gun barely missed a bullet and was the floor. Vina used the opportunity to keep running but her blood was leaving trails behind.
Other officers had joined Raph in the pursuits. Pain seared through her arm with every movement, the wound from the gunshot still bleeding. The damp, narrow tunnels of the sewer were dark, but she could hear the echoing footsteps of the officers closing in. There was no time to waste. She had to reach the underground subway, where she could disappear into the crowds and escape.
She pressed a hand against the wound, trying to stem the bleeding as she moved forward, wincing with each step. The air was thick with the stench of sewage, and the only light came from the dim, flickering bulbs lining parts of the tunnel. She stumbled, catching herself against the slimy wall, her breaths ragged and shallow.
The sound of rushing water grew louder,she turned a corner, slipping on the wet ground but pushing forward. Behind her, the shouts of the officers echoed off the tunnel walls, growing louder. She could see the maintenance ladder just up ahead, half-submerged in the murky water.
Every ounce of strength left in her body was channeled into one last sprint. She reached the ladder, gripping it with her uninjured hand. The pain flared, but she pulled herself up, ignoring the throbbing agony that spread across her arm. She climbed, one step at a time, the metal rungs slick and cold under her hand.
The officers were getting closer. She could hear their voices, urgent and angry. She finally reached the top and shoved open the heavy hatch. Her vision blurred from the strain, but she pushed herself through and crawled out, collapsing onto the subway platform below.
The subway was alive with the sound of trains, passengers, and the hum of the city. She blended into the shadows, slipping away just as the officers burst through the hatch. By the time they arrived, she was gone, disappearing into the chaos of the underground world, leaving only a trail of blood behind.