January 12th

• Jake Gamer, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2008

January 12th, 8:45, was the first thing that came to my mind as I regained consciousness. Although I seemed to remember that date so vividly, everything else up until now was a blur. I had no idea who I was, or where I might be. Klaxons sounding in the distance made me assume I was near a busy road, maybe a highway. Evaluating my surroundings proved a challenge at first as my vision was obscured from what must have been a blow to the head, which left me unconscious for quite some time.

As my eyesight cleared up I saw…

Nothing. My eyes chose the worst possible time to start working again. It was pitch back and I couldn’t see more than ten centimetres in front of me. All I knew was that I was sitting on a cold concrete floor. I quickly decided to stand up and try to feel my way around. One wall, okay that might be the side of a building. Two walls, hmm… must be inside considering I had taken half a step and already hit two walls. A bed, now why couldn’t I have woken up on that!? Bars, now that was unusual, I seemed to be caged in.

“Ay bud”, a deep voice whispered, “You ready to bust outta this joint?”
“Uh, yeah sure” I replied, not wanting to argue with such a brutal sounding man.

He led me to an underground tunnel, insisting I go first. We travelled for about twenty minutes until we got to our destination. The man opened the hatch above him and the two of us crawled out.

Now we appeared to be in another small room, maybe a storage room. I flung open the door and we both stepped out into a tower.

“Wait here”, the man insisted. He climbed the staircase. Five minutes and two screams later emerged with two weapons and a big grin on his face.
“Just in case” he smirked.

As we exited the tower I saw a heavily fortified wall rising up in front of me. Luckily the gate was open. We ran out into then darkness of the night feeling quiet triumphant about our escape. Although we were out we didn’t turn back, we just kept running. I still had no idea who or where I was, but that didn’t matter now. We just kept running. Ahead I saw the road from which I had heard the car horns earlier. We ran to cross it.

***

“These the two?”
“Yes doctor” the nurse replied.
“What a mess. How are they holding up?”
“Vitals are dropping rapidly, we’ve done all we could. There’s nothing we can do now but wait”.
Suddenly the machine hooked to the first patient flat lined.
The doctor wrote upon his clipboard, Mr Gavin Franksworth. Time of death: 8:45, on the 12th of January 1983. Cause of death: MVA

“What a shame”, the nurse sighed “ He was two days away from parol. His friend must have talked him into it.”