Later that day, around curfew, two Scarabia students stand outside the door to the duo's room, one of them locking the door and inspecting the door, testing the knob to see that that the door is truly locked. "All right, the Ramshackle visitors are secure in their room," the student says to the other, knowing for a fact that the two were inside before locking the room.
"Let's check in on the other rooms then," the other student says as the two start to prepare, starting their patrol.
The student sighs. "I swear there's been another escape every day. Housewarden Kalim's been very cross about it. It's gotten so bad, he's not even listening to counsel from Vice Housewarden Jamil anymore."
"How long will we have to live like this?" The other student says, tiredness in his voice. "I just wanna go home," he whines.
"Oh, quit bellyaching," the other student says, trying not to let the feeling get to him as well. "You think I didn't want to spend the holidays with my family, too?" The two students walk away, starting their patrol for the night.
In the room, Angel and Grim watched the door, listening to their conversation until it became silent, with Angel looking at the shadows under the door, seeing that they disappeared. "Are they gone?" Grim asks, and the two stayed silent for a while, waiting for anything that might bring the students back, only to hear nothing. The two sigh in relief, happy at the fact that the students were truly gone and that the training for the day was over. "That afternoon training was so brutal, my meal was ready to come up the same way it went down," Grim whines as he sits on the bed, crossing his paws in thought. "We already know the headmage ain't gonna be any help here," he states. "Which means it's up to us to get ourselves outta this mess." He smirks. "Luckily, you've got my towering intellect over here. I've got a perfect prison break plan ready to go."
Angel looks at him in confusion, doubt starting to cloud her mind as she thinks about what he said. I mean...it doesn't hurt to hear it since we don't have many options... "Okay then. Let's hear what you got."
"Heh heh heh," Grim says as he digs into his fur. "I swiped our escape tool this morning." He smiles, grabbing the item from his fur. "Behold: our ticket to freedom!" He announces as he holds the item out, proving to be a spoon. "We'll use this bad boy to dig out way through the floor, one spoonful at a time!"
Angel sweat dropped at the spoon and plan. "That's going to take WAY too much time and energy, and we're already exhausted from the training today."
"They used to call me Grim the Digger back home," Grim says, making Angel doubts more prominent. "Leave this to me while you stand lookout!" He says as he heads to a corner in the wall, starting to chip away with the spoon. Angel watches him chip into the wall, not really making an effect but proceeded to sit at the door, keeping lookout for any shadows and sounds of students wandering the hall. It is the best plan we got so far... She thinks as she watches Grim. Maybe it's as they say. "The most basic plan is the right plan."
After a few minutes, there is a noticeable difference in the wall, looking a little concave, but not too concave where it's suspicious enough. "Wow, this is goin' smoother than I thought," Grim says as he starts to dig faster. "I think I'm actually onto something here."
After about half an hour, Grim sighs, seeing that he was progressing well, but the exhaustion was starting to take a toll on him. "Okay, I'm getting' bored of diggin' into the same spot over and over again..." He mumbles. "Angel, let's switch places," he tells her, waking her up from her lookout position. "I'll keep an eye out," he says as she slowly stands up, trying not to let exhaustion get to her, but woke enough to dig into the wall. Grim hands her the spoon and the two switch places, with Grim laying on the floor and Angel starting to dig.
After another half hour, the hole started to become more noticeable, enough for a few fingers to slip through, but could be a bit wider. Soon enough, Grim jumps up. "Ah, crud! The patrol's comin'!" Grim announces, hearing the sound of footsteps approaching the door. He looks around, eyeing the bed. "Quick, pretend you're sleeping!" He says as the two quickly get to the bed as quietly as they can without arousing any suspicion with the students. The two wrap themselves with the blankets, hearing that the footsteps stopped right at their door, the shadows showing underneath the door. The two were silent for a few minutes, hoping that they wouldn't have to open the door to check on the duo and see the semi-obvious hole in the wall, only release a sigh of relief when the shadows disappeared, showing that the students have went away and they get up from the bed. "Alright, they're gone," Grim says as he looks at the door, trying to hear any other movements. "Let's keep goin'. I'll dig now and we'll switch." Angel nods at him, getting ready for her role of lookout again while Grim starts to dig again.
The two continued the rotation throughout the night, catching up on any sleep as they can as they continued to dig and perform lookout. Soon enough, morning came and the two sighed in relief and exhaustion, happy at the fact that the night was over and looked at their progress, seeing that the hole has increased in size, but still a bit too small for either of them to fit through. "It took 'til morning, but we dug a hole big enough for me to fit two paws through," Grim says as he looks at the hole, yawning.
"That's a good pace for one day though!" Angel says as she looks at the hole. "Prison breaks aren't done overnight, after all. We should be able to escape soon at this pace." Suddenly, the sound of a lock turning starts to fill the room, making the two flinch. The two looked at each other, then looked at the hole, quickly trying to look for anything that could cover it, only to realize that the hole was in an inconspicuous location under a table, which really shouldn't be noticeable unless someone went under the table. The two scramble to the bed, trying to seem as tired as possible (which turned out to be effective since they were pretty tired from digging throughout the night) as the door slams open, making the two flinch as a student walk in.
"Out, you two!" The student commands, making the two groan. "It's time for morning training. We're marching to the oasis again!" The two only look at each other and get up, trying their best to seem tired enough to not raise too much suspicion for the student and quickly looked at the hole behind him, seeing that even the student didn't notice it. The student glares at them and the two quickly get ready, heading to the starting point.
Once the two arrived at the starting point, they saw the familiar sight of students lined up behind Kalim standing on his elephant as he looks down at the students falling in line, with Grim and Angel falling behind Jamil. "Wake up and get a move on!" He commands as everyone sighs at the command. "To the eastern oasis! March!" He proceeds and everyone follows, starting their march through the desert.
"Urgh," Grim groans as the two walk. "It's even harder to deal with the heat when we're runnin' on no sleep," he says.
"Maybe we should have slowed down our progress a little," Angel mumbles as she yawns, seeing that they started to slow down from the group of students, trying their best to catch up without seeming too tired.
Jamil look at the two, seeing their tired expressions and yawns. "You're sleep-deprived?" He asks the two. "Make sure you drink plenty of water, so you don't collapse," he says in concern.
The two look at Jamil's concerned expression. "Aw, Jamil..." Grim groans. "Yeah, we'll do that." The group continues to march, the effect of both no sleep and the heat taking more of an effect on the two through the desert than the other students. Angel looked at the students behind them, seeing that her and Grim's exhaustion wasn't that different from everyone else, seeing that students started to walk slowly, some trying to slow down, and others trying to stop to catch their breath. After 45 minutes, exhaustion started to overtake everyone, some lowering their parasols with their arms being tired from the weight and others almost starting to crawl their way to follow.
Kalim looked behind him and noticed the students. "I see you falling behind at the rear!" He shouts, making the students flinch. He looks to the other group of students holding the parasols. "Lift those parasols higher!" He commands and the students raise their arms higher, arms starting to shake with exhaustion. "Front lines, I can hardly head those bells! Louder!"
The two groans with the commands, at least happy that they aren't directed at them, but it didn't help to give them a peace of mind since the students around them were groaning as well, exhaustion starting to take over. Grim stops for a moment when Kalim wasn't looking to catch his breath, but Jamil noticed. "Pull yourself together," he whispers while Kalim was looking ahead. "If you stop here, the vultures will swoop in."
The comment makes Grim flinch. "Y-yeah, I'll pass on that, thanks." He pulls himself together and continues walking with the other students, hoping that the march will be over soon.
After a half an hour of walking, the progress was extremely slower, with students giving up the idea of keeping in line and trying their best to focus on catching up instead of keeping form, at least trying to seem in form when Kalim looks at them. Kalim sees student panting and huffing at the march. "You're taking longer than yesterday. Hurry it up!" He shouts to the students.
Everyone only groans, the evidence of collapse starting to be more prominent. "Ugh...I can't walk another step," a student says as he starts to get on his knees, kneeling as he tries to catch his breath.
Jamil heads to the student and helps him up while he looks ahead, seeing familiar palm trees. "I can see the oasis. Respite in just ahead!" He announces to the students and the students look at his line of vision, seeing that what he said wasn't too far from the truth. "Hang in there just a little while longer, everyone!" He shouts, hope starting to appear in the students' eyes as they continue to walk, happy at the fact that their march was finally almost over.
"Wow, he's still cheering us on after all of this. What a vice housewarden!" The student says in awe as he watches Jamil.
"Yeah, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm dead tired!" Grim whines as they continue walking, newfound hope in their minds. Angel looks at the students, seeing that despite their exhaustion, with Jamil's words, they became a little more spirited. She looks to Kalim, seeing that he was facing forwards towards the oasis, but a weird feeling came over her, almost as if something was weird about the situation, but she couldn't put her finger on it. What made him change so much...?
"Angel? Are you okay?" Jamil asks her, interrupting her thoughts. "I know Grim said you two were sleep-deprived, but we're not that much farther from the oasis."
"Yes...I see," she says in an attempt to smile, only for the heat to get to her and almost make her fall over, but Jamil catches her in time. "Ah! Sorry about that Jamil," she says, trying to stand up on her own, only to feel herself weak from the heat.
"It's fine. It won't do good if our guests are injured," Jamil says with a smile. "I'll hold on to you until we get there. It's not much further."
"Ah..." she blushes. "Thanks, Jamil..." She says as the two continue walking, with Jamil helping her walk with the group to the oasis.
A/N: Here are the two chapters I was supposed to release Wednesday! I've been feeling under the weather all week after coming back and been writing a chapter a day to catch up. It was the only energy I could muster. Back to regular schedule of releasing 2x a week! (9/30/23)