Project 43

He would try

Elias sat against the wall and looked around trying to figure out where he was. It was clearly some sort of central ventilation room with a huge whirring matching in the middle. Other than that, there were different kinds of tools by the side of the room presumably to fix the machine if it were to break, and a table for no apparent reason at all.

After a few minutes of deep breathing, Elias got up and walked over to the table. He knew a thing or two about fixing his own wounds so a dislocated joint shouldn't be that big of an issue for him. His father had twice caused a dislocated joint before. Once he showed Elias down the stairs so that his kneecap fell out and once he twisted Elias' wrist hard enough for it to dislocate. Each time Elias had limped to his room, taken a deep breath, stuffed something into his mouth, and twisted. 

Elias screamed into the piece of cloth he had stuffed into his mouth as his shoulder popped back into place. He quickly shut himself up and continued to huff as tears rolled down his face. His shoulder was even more painful but he knew it would slowly get better. 

Elias walked over to the tools and tried to figure out how he could get his handcuffs off. He had gone full robot mode, all tears had stopped, all emotions had stopped, and he only cared about moving forward. Sadly but understandably there was no saw in the room, but Elias saw a utility knife so he picked it up and started to work. 

Luckily it had been Elias' left shoulder and not the right because even moving his left arm sent shock waves of pain through his body. With his right hand, Elias continued to try to cut the chain between his handcuffs near his left one. It was slow and agitating but after a long while, Elias started to see some progress. He let out a happy sigh and took a deep, thankful breath before continuing.

After what felt like hours, Elias let out a happy squeal as his chain broke off. He jumped up and down while dry screaming in pure joy and relief before taking deep breaths and figuring out what to do next. 

Elias ripped a larger part of his shirt off and fashioned it into a sort of carried bandage for his arm and stuffed the knife into his pocket.

After what felt like hours of trying, Elias figured out a way to get back up the vent. It was tiring but he could itch upwards and if he placed the metallic table under the vent, the fall wouldn't be as rough.

Over the next day, Elias explored the facility through the vents and tried to gather as much information as he could. He was drawing a map on the underside of the table he had found and making notes of everything the soldiers said to each other. Even tho Elias' German wasn't as good as his French he was able to interpret most of what the soldiers talked about. 

Elias found out that they did in fact keep the prisoners on the lowest floor. He figured that the exit was on the ground floor which is the third floor up from the basement. He found out the placements of the staircases, the weapons storage the guard placements. Elias realized that most rooms in the facility had security cameras. The only rooms without them were the ventilation room, a heating room, and a laundry room on the second floor. 

Elias found the cells and it took everything in him to not just drop down from the vents and try to get her friends out, but he knew he needed a plan first. He followed the prisoners to see that they were being forced to work on some sort of machinery.

The odd thing about the facility was that Elias had never seen a truly high-ranking officer. They were all just soldiers or low-ranking officers. There was also a weird symbol on the uniforms and guards and such that Elias had never seen before. It was a red circle with something in it but Elias never got close enough to see what it was. Still, the weirdest thing might have been that none of the soldiers seemed to know each other. They never talked about anything except the curt hallos when changing shifts or relaying orders. The only information Elias was able to get from the men was that their boss was named Becker.