Flight Into The Forest

• William Patston, Grade 6, The Peninsula School
• Short Story
• 2011

Excellence Award in the 'Step Write Up 2011' competition

Spears of lightning flashed across the Swiss sky as rain cascaded down and the thunder made a loud explosion in the dark dismal sky. Sprinting along the dank, dirty and damp ground with the police hot on his tail the man felt as small and scared as a mouse being chased by a big hungry cat. Suddenly he saw ahead of him a dark gloomy forest that that looked even worse than the prison. But he quickly decided, following his instincts had worked before so he ran into the forest, similar to a cat in the way he ran.
Still darting along the mysterious criminal frantically looked for a place to hide and then it somehow appeared out of seemingly thin air. The deep hole in the grimy ground couldn’t be seen unless you were right next to it. So the man decided to send the guards on a false route. Looking around for something that would make them believe he had went a different way he saw a way to make it happen. Tearing off some of his shirt he wiped it on a branch then put it on another branch. ‘Hopefully’ he thought, that would deceive them. At least for while.
Suddenly he heard voices coming nearer. He quickly and quietly jumped into the horrible hole. Nearer and nearer the voices were coming until suddenly they were about seven metres away from the hideous hole that was all mud, and sewer water. But it was necessary, to live, to escape, to be free and to get revenge. All of the voices seemed to be getting closer and closer until he decided to climb deeper in to the hole to make sure none of the crack shot guards would see him. But wait; suddenly he saw a policeman’s silhouette in the hole from a faint piece of sunlight in the hole. ‘No’ the man thought, ‘not now, not when I’m so close’.
Then the man called ‘nothing here’ and the man breathed a quiet sigh of relief. ‘Look over here’, he had found the piece of fabric. All of the guards crowded around, one of them with a weather beaten face gave orders and said ‘everyone split up and not stop until the Sergeant has been safely captured again’. Meanderingly, the guards wandered away, looking bored about the job at hand. Finally the man now known as the sergeant was free to escape from the dank, despairing prison, once and for all. As he climbed out of the pit, he stated to the empty air, ‘when I find the man that did this, I will get my revenge and he will die’.
Once again Sgt John Willow had escaped from prison and it wouldn’t be the last.