Falling Ever So Fast

• Jake Roberts, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2014

I was falling ever so fast. The car was hurling towards the ocean at frightening speed. Rocks flew past and the police cars' sirens were blaring in the distance. It was all just a coloured blur and then, splash! The car hit the water and I was unlocking the door as the car was filling with water. I grabbed the briefcase and swam upwards as fast as I could with my clothes dragging me back. We couldn't make it.

It all started when a old friend called me up and said "Oi Sammy, I have a job for us that we just might get good at and we'll get a lot out of it if-I mean when-we succeed."
"What kinda job?" I said feeling uneasy.
"Listen, there's a bank down the road from your place, and I thought that since there's no one really sharp 'round the place I reckon we can pull it off."
"I don't know about this"
"Oh come on it'll be easy, you and I go there tonight, pick a few locks and then we're in!"
"Ok, tonight at 11:45 I'll meet you out the front of the bank and we'll go from there, seems easy enough."
"Alright now your talking, seeya then." Then I hung up my phone and walked over to my couch and sat down thinking what I'll need for the night.

Later that night I crept out of my house trying as hard as I could to keep as quiet as I can, and approached the bank down the road.
The bank was a large, square that looked like an office building, if David knew what he was talking bout then apparently the money was kept inside a large metal safe in the centre of the bank that was locked by a four number pin code.

David was already outside the bank sitting on a bench when I arrived. "Bout time" he said in a loud whisper. David was a large man, larger than I remembered. He had large burly arms and a thick neck. His nose was crooked and his eyes were very close together. His hair was short and dark, which was all rustled up and looked like a plant on his head.

"Let's just get this over with" I said, hoping it wouldn't take too long. We crept along the outside of the bank and approached the front door. Obviously it was locked. David approached it and stuck a bobby pin far into the lock and it opened with a silent 'click'. We wandered inside slowly, looking around cautiously in case of any hidden cameras or movement sensors. Then just as David was walking I said "Stop". Just ahead lay a hallway, where from the end of it, came a glinting light. "That must be the safe" I said excitedly, but there was one problem, the floor and walls were scattered with thin, bright red lasers, if anything touched them they would obviously set off an alarm and they would be done for. "Let's go back" I said, scared of the look of the hallway. "Oh come on you baby! It's fine, we just have to slowly step between the lasers, it's easy!" David said with easiness.
"Ok but if we fail I'm blamin' you"
"Ok, ok I'll go first then" David said as he stepped forward over the first laser and ducked under another slanting across the hallway at about shoulder height. The next one was harder, he stepped through two that were very close together which I thought was impossible considering his size, but he got through it without having to duck under any this time. He made it look easy as he did the rest with an easy speed, ducking and stepping round and round over and over until he finally got to the end. It took him about four to five minutes. I thought it would take me double that time. I stepped cautiously towards the first laser, I stepped over it and ducked under the one above it. It was surprisingly easy, I stepped, ducked, turned sideways and slid gently through two vertical lasers, then as I was about half way it got too carried away and slipped backwards, missing two lasers by a hairs breadth. I landed on one arm and sprained my ankle but I still didn't touch a laser. I was shocked. I looked up at David and he stopped trying to unlock the vault and he looked at me amazed. "Ok, now slide slightly to your left, bend forward and stand up, slowly." I did as he said and in about thirty seconds I was on my feet and standing up. Not long after I was with David right next to the vault. David stood there with a square screen with buttons attached to the keypad of the vault by loose red and blue wires. It made a few quiet beeping noises and then a long louder one. "Yes!!" David said "Got it!" The door made a creaking noise and then swung inwards.
Inside lay thousands and thousands of dollars, all in notes, layered from the floor up to their knees. They were awestruck. There was so much and they had only brought two small pillowcases with them. "Just fit as much as you can and then let's get out of here" David said as he already started to pack in the money into his pillowcase. I stuffed as much as I could into mine and before long we were squeezing in between the lasers on the way out. But this time something went wrong. I was just about to get out of the tangle of beams when, suddenly, an extremely loud, blaring siren set off. My elbow had just hit one of the beams. "RUN!" David yelled. We sprinted through the front doors and jumped into David's car that was sitting outside. He sated the car and we sped towards the far end of town. We had made it out there alive but the question was whether we would stay alive. We heard sirens and I looked behind us. "Oh damn the cops have found us, drive drive DRIVE!" The edge of town slanted upward and the road wound round a very tall hill towards Charmar point, which was a picnic area right near a a cliff with one of the worlds best views.
We almost reached the top of the hill just as David said "The pedals stuck! We sped towards the top of the hill and skidded across the fresh green grass, I looked back and the cops were slowing, obviously knowing that we had nowhere to go. The road was blocked by the police and there was only one way out of it. "We have to go over!" I yelled above the angry rev of the car engine.
"Are you crazy" David yelled "I'll get us killed!"
"It's the only way!" He obviously got what I meant because no more than a second later he turned round and we zoomed towards the cliff edge. We flew almost twenty meters out from the cliff and then we fell. Down, down, down and not slowing, only gaining speed at a disastrous pace. I closed my eyes and all was dark, the only noise was David and I yelling. Splash! We hit the water. Hard. My head hit the ceiling and my nose was bleeding. My eyes were filled with water and I struggled to even get a hold of the briefcase. The doors weren't locked but it didn't make much difference as I couldn't see the handle. I got the door open and water rushed at me, pushing me back into the car. I lunged out of the car and swam as fast as I could upwards towards the surface. I couldn't breathe, I was starting to feel tired and then all was black.

The air was moist around me and i was covered in sand. David was next to me and I struggled to say "What? How did we?...” I was too confused but David was talking to me I only heard him mentions things like him dragging me onto the shore and how we almost died during the crash. We were safe at last. We had won. David told me that I had been out for at least two hours and that he counted up the money and that we had $190'000 dollars in cold, hard cash. That meant $95'000 each. I yelled towards the sky in happiness. It felt like a dream. It was too good to be a dream. They were now leaving there life as nobodies and coming out of it as people, people who had done something and succeeded.