The Outside (#wattys2016)

The Plan

     Hours and hours were spent making the plan. And me, being as bored as I was, actually helped make it. Well, the first hour of it. James had told me about how he was good at math, but I had no idea he was this much of a tech geek. I looked at the drawings on the ground he had made, but he erased them shortly after. I knew this was going to take awhile but I waited as long as I could before falling asleep.

     "Wake up!" James yelled and grabbed me by the shoulders and sat me upright. The sky was dark out and I could barely read his notes. "Your going to go blind!" I exclaimed. He looked at me like he didn't know what I was talking about. "Anyway," he said sleepily, "the cameras should have a three-sixty view, except for above them. I studied them. Your going to walk toward the explosive grounds, and I'll be in the tree that has the camera that monitors the trap. You'll act like your committing suicide, and then right before you step onto the grounds I'll shut the camera down. Then, just to trigger the signals, we'll set off all the bombs so much that it'll take up too much energy. The cost to keep the trap going will be to much for the government. And they'll shut it down." Somehow, I understood exactly what he was saying. "Okay." I said. "But can we go to sleep now?" He nodded. "I completely understand." He said and almost immediately went to bed. I slept right beside him. He's kinda cute when he sleeps, I thought. I almost laughed at myself. Then I fell asleep.

     Bright and early in the morning, that's when he woke me up. Great, I thought, the perfect time to commit suicide. "Time to get going!" He said enthusiastically. It was kind of like filming a movie, except we only had one try to get it right. I had the simple part, just to walk up to the traps and throw a twig where I should have been. James, he had the hard part, he had to destroy the camera at the right time and yell at me to stop. It doesn't sound too hard but when are lives were depending on it, he was doing all he could to prepare. We worked all day rehearsing, and most of the scenes I ended up laughing or something right in the middle of supposably dying. Oh well, I tried to tell myself but it wouldn't work. Not for this. I had to get this right. It was late afternoon when I had convinced James I was ready. I could tell he was worried about himself messing up, and luckily that meant he wasn't the least bit worried about me. He claimed a tree near the one with the camera and then climbed closer to it until he was right on top of the camera. 'Go' he mouthed and I walked toward the traps. I let out a heavy sigh, trying not to laugh and discreetly took the twig out of my jacket pocket and let it fall to the ground, causing an explosion. "Stop!" James yelled and ended the video as soon as the sparks flew up, which was right on time.

     It was done, I thought. I ran up to James and hugged him and he kissed me. He felt warm, no hot, with sweat, but somehow it gave me comfort to know I wasn't the only one freaking out about this. "Well now I know how awful an actress you are." He said jokingly. "And I got to see how well you handle pressure." I said. "And that by the way, is terrible." He laughed and I did along with him. Then, changing the subject he asked: "Do you wanna check? See if they shut it down?" I thought if was a little early, but agreed anyway. I threw a long stick onto the plain. Surprisingly, nothing happened. "So my acting isn't that bad after all!" I joked as we walked across. Nothing, it was too easy, and I could tell James was thinking the same thing. We got to the end of where we thought the explosions ended when we saw it. A battleship. I had heard stories about them and all of us knew the Inside had them. But never, had I been attacked by one of them. Until today.

     "Run!" He yelled and we both ran for our lives. He was a lot faster than me, but he waited for me to catch up with him. The battleship was dropping bombs everywhere, exploding everything behind us. Every foot we ran got blown up in a matter of seconds after we stepped of it. I saw a huge rock and leaned on the other side to catch my breath. "Come on we gotta go!" He yelled but stopped too. I could tell he was tired. I saw something ahead of us and grabbed James' arm. "I think I see something." I told him and ran to it until I could make out was it was: a huge wall made of iron. But today must have been our lucky day because I saw that there were cuts in the metal: the shape of a door. James came up behind me as I said: "I think we found it."