The Attached

The Plan

A few days ago...

I grabbed a single sheet of blank paper, one of our lasts ones left as I hurried to our drawing table, grabbing a pencil and writing in thick, bolded letters only one word. Noah peered at me funnily the whole time, as I wrote on that piece of white paper in excitement and enthusiasm. A glee full smile spreading across my face as I finally came up with one last escape plan, one I had given much thought, and tireless planning into. This one had to work. It just had to.

"What are you doing?" Noah finally asked me, placing his hands down on the tiny table, leaning over watching. I didn't pay him too close attention, my energy and that smile lighting up everything inside me, hope more than anything. "Matthew?"

"It's an escape plan Noah. Just wait a second," I explained until I finally slammed the pencil on the table, turning towards my friend who's the same age as myself—eighteen now—as I held the paper up in front of myself with a smile glowing on my face. He still looked at me as if I was crazy, and maybe I was. "See?!" I cheered excitingly, and a expressionless response floated back.

"What do you mean an escape plan? All it says is 'sick' on there. What do you mean sick?" He asked not understanding me at all, placing the paper down on the table, and I tried getting through to him.

"That's our escape plan! Noah, don't you understand?! This could finally work!"

"Can you tell me what the plan is first?!" He just didn't get it, as I thought for sure it was self explanatory, but was proven not. Trying to calm my happiness and energetic expression, splitting up the plan into levels.

"Ok, so this is it. One of us pretends to be sick. And I mean bad sick, like almost to the point of death. He will take one of us out, to a hospital, or even just out of this bunker, and then we run and get help! It can work Noah don't you see?! This is it!" I cheered as a slight smirk began to form on his face, the idea blowing up in his mind as well, and as both danced around exhilarated, our levels of happiness the same.

  I had thought of this plan for weeks now. Keeping it in mind before I told Noah, for I wanted every little detail planned. I knew right from the start this plan would be something more, something more clever, something smarter than all our plans in the past. For if this one didn't work, there would be no anger risen. There would be no violence scorching out of it did not work. But it's going to work, right? It has to. This is the best plan yet. However the only reason it wouldn't work in my head was if he just didn't care that one of us were sick. The only reason it wouldn't work was if he didn't care if one of us died. At first I wasn't too sure of this plan, my thoughts scattering off in different directions like usual. Would he even care if one of us died? If we pretended we were sick to get out of here, would he just let us be? Just let us be, so he thinks we die? Then he could just try and get rid of us then? It would be perfect for him. He wouldn't have to do anything, if Noah and I truly were sick, and we died from it, he would just bury us. No sweat, right? Our deaths would have been like natural causes, he wouldn't have to do anything. He wouldn't have to feel the guilt of killing someone, for our illnesses would have taken us out for him. So would he care if one of us were actually sick? I wasn't too sure, however at the exact same moment, the other side to this ongoing thought appeared, popping up as it demanded the attention. Of course he would care, right? I mean think about it Matthew. He has never threatened to kill you guys. He has never spoken anything around the lines of getting rid of us. Every time he hurts us— the beatings—he has this sorrow look filling inside him. The time he used his belt on you two, leaving those ugly and repulsive scars on your back now, he looked sicken after that. The way he rushed out of there once he realized what he had done, running back to the bunker as fast as he could. Bringing more supplies and helping patch Noah and I up. Giving us pain killers and all those bandages, cleaning our wounds making sure no infections got in. He is no saint for doing all of that. It doesn't make him a good person, or even a decent one since he inflicted those wounds in the first place. However throughout all of those, he has shown some type of care, some type of love towards us. If someone as animalistic as him is capable of loving, or caring for someone else. Maybe he does care for us somewhat, the tiniest amount. And if that is true, then he will have to fall victim to this escape plan. He will have to believe one of us is sick. And he will have to try and get us help. This has to work, right?