Opening Night

There has never been any kind of comfort here, yet it is my home. All I have ever known.

Thick iron bars, cold stone.

Sometimes I have wondered if I am not actually here. But some days, I know that I am. If pain is any indication of realness.

Light is nothing but a vacancy. My eyes have long since adjusted. I think I was born here, but to whom, I have no idea. I've never left the cell. Never wanted to either. For the things I have heard from further within . . .

Beasts. I know that's what they are. Their growling, clawing the stones. Crunches of what I assume to be bone. Night after night.

Once a year the cell doors open. On their own, or of the control of someone else, I couldn't say. But they open. I have never had the courage to step outside. Courage. Another vacancy.

Tonight . . . tonight the doors will open once more. Freeing those beasts and everyone else. It is a challenge. Anyone is allowed to participate, but if the ramblings I hear from down the cell block are of any truth, no one has ever won.

Winning means freedom. But what would I do with it? What is even out there? Where is out there? So many questions, and even more answers that I will never get.

Screaming is the only thing to be heard from my cell on opening night. That and the crunch of more bones. I have wondered what would happen if I just ran. Ran and never stopped. But what if I am not fast enough to escape the things within? I have never ran. I don't even know if my sorry excuse for muscles could even carry me.

It's hard to say anything of contentment. I do not know what it is to be content. But I suppose I have been content to stay in my cell. If only to stay alive.

"What's the point?" I heard from several cells down.

I hate when he responds to my thoughts. You'd think there would be others that have more interesting things to think about. Maybe it is my weaknesses that he spies upon.

But what is the point? Of being alive, if all there is, is this?

Maybe tonight. Maybe I will finally try. The worst I suppose that could happen would be death, but there could be something after. Something better. Anything would be better.

A horn blared from deep within. It was time.

A rumbling came from the floor, through the stone, through the bars that rattled in response. My cell door shuttered. Then it swung open.

A few prisoners streamed past. Running. Bare feet slapped the stone. Then the screams came. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I rose from the corner where I had been crouched. Just a peak. Surely that wouldn't hurt. I approached the open door, leaning my head out ever so slightly. The furthest I had ever gone before.

As I peered around the edge of the bars, someone came sprinting past. Their shoulder knocked into my forehead, and they didn't slow down at all. Not as I stumbled. Out.

I didn't realize what was happening before it was happening. And then I too was running. Through the darkness, past the cells I had never seen before. Around turns that I didn't know where they led.

This place . . . was a maze. I cut left. Ran straight into a wall of stone. I stumbled back, balancing myself against the adjacent wall.

The scraping of claws grew louder. Closer. I didn't want to find out what was attached to them. I ran again. Breaking away the opposite direction from where I had turned into that wall.

There were so many different turns. Some leading down, some leading up. But I had no sense of direction. The way out could be below, but it could be above as well.

I had no time to decide, just to run. And I did. I ran, and ran, and turned, this way that way. Weaving through the passages as quickly as my feet and tired muscles would allow.

Ahead, I watched as a flurry of fur and claws pounced upon a fellow prisoner. The sheer size of that thing sent me scrambling the other way. Away from the splattering and spray of blood. The screams.

I turned off again, descending a passageway that led steeply down. It ended abruptly at a wall. A wall that I slammed into at full force, the breath temporarily leaving my body.

My lungs, my legs, it all burned. I heaved in a strangled breath and turned the only way I could. Left.

There was a light ahead. Rectangular, silvery, pale light. I ran toward it, despite my eyes being accustomed to the darkness.

At the end, was nothing. Nothing but open air, and darkness below. Nothing above aside from a round ball that floated, casting that pale light. There was no more floor, nothing to carry me forward any further.

Snarling came from behind. Growing closer, stalking. There were no more turns to make. No places to hide. No place to run.

But I could jump. I would jump. Away from the beast prowling behind me. I hovered my foot above that open air. It was cold, empty. I planted my hands on either side of the opening, and jumped.

I was falling, falling so fast and far that I couldn't tell where I had even come from. Was this the prize? The freedom they spoke of? Open air, a short flight?

I savored the scent as it lasted. The scent of fresh air, salt. It was new. But it was fleeting.

It came at me fast and hard. Swooping through the air on giant wings. Lifting me just in time. Just before I crashed into the rocky water below.

I blinked. Still alive? Things were still so hard to distinguish. Reality that is. I suppose I could be dead. But these feathers, silken under my fingers as I gripped them.

Surely this new texture, feeling, it couldn't be a dream. Or death. I thought death would be painful. But maybe that isn't so. Maybe it just comes swiftly, sweeping through the dark.

I found my freedom at last.