The Constricting Present

Chapter 5

I got out of the classroom as quickly as physically possible as soon as the bell rang. S#101 followed me. "It's just us 6, R#21, C#1, E#404, you and me, and O#801, of course," she said. I had no idea who E#404 was. A guy poked C's shoulder. "And me, if you wish for your little plan to remain secret," S#101 looked surprised at him. "I want to get away from here as well," He lowered his eyebrows, "After lunch, right?" he said and left.

I grabbed my metal bottle lunch; another gray substance. Is all food gray? The cafeteria was full of people. Most of them wore black, white or gray. We were more colorful than our clothes. I walked over and sat down between R#21 and the guy who joined earlier. All of us sat at the table. Also a girl who I assumed was E#404. She had pale skin and black hair. Her eyes were cold, and they looked like they had been in too much pain and had seen too terrible things. "Okay, so this is the plan," O said. He took up a map from his bag and pointed. "After lunch C#1 will on my commando hit the fire alarm," he explained. That was how we were going to escape. "We take this exit," he pointed at an exit on the map. It was between the physics and math class room. There was always a ton of guards there. "Where did you get that map?" the guy asked. "I can't remember," O admitted, shrugging. He moved a lock of blue hair away from his face and asked, "What's your name any way?" He smiled, "It's M#379." O nodded and continued explaining. "If that door is locked, then we take exit 15," he pointed. "Just follow me, C knows the way as well, but we have agreed that I lead the way, any questions?" R looked confused, like he didn't know what to ask. M seemed pretty confident, but he was eating his metal bottle, literally the bottle. "What? I'm nervous, and I eat when I'm nervous," Well I guess that didn't make him weirder than the rest of us. R has 4 arms, I have wings, M likes eating metal bottles. The grey substance wasn't tastier than earlier, but it was food, and it made me feel full.

I bit my lip. We're leaving, we're finally leaving! I looked up. The rest were done with their lunch as well. "Ready?" O asked. "Born ready," R said as he slammd his fists on the table. "Let's leave before Mr. Four-arms catch too much attention," M said. O signaled to C, and then hell was loose in the cafeteria. Nobody knew what to do expect us, but with thousands of children in a room it wasn't quite easy to escape. A few guards came inside the cafeteria. It's now or never. O began to run and the rest of us followed. While the others were panicking, our little room was moving closer to freedom, reason and adventure, but most importantly we got closer to escaping. The fire alarm had never been triggered before, so of course most went to the nearest exit, which wasn't the one we were going to. While the guards were trying to get control over the cafeteria, we ran down the hallway. A few of the guards came out of a room. We stood totally still behind a wall. "Quiet," C whispered. The only noise I could hear was the guards' steps and M's breathing. The guards disappeared around the corner in a couple of seconds. O opened the door. In one second, one simple, little moment everything was frozen. The air was cold and smelled of so many new things. I took a big breath. The sun shined brightly, and the air that hit my face was warm. The ground was brown and the sky was light blue. The lovely moment wasn't very long, before we had to continue running.

We ran over the field. My lungs were burning, when we finally took a break. "Welcome to eh, the outside world," E said. Most of us laughed. The air was so different, so light. There were thousands of new smells and colors. After a bit R asked what everyone else was thinking, "What do we do now?"

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I hope you liked this chapter. Thanks for still reading!

-BirdLysdahl