My own hero

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. The smoke doing nothing to help my already dry throat. I was not worried. I still had time to escape and this time I only carried my weight on my shoulders. If I had to die by fire, I would die knowing that I had done justice to the children that once walked the halls of the looking glass.

Both dead and alive. 

When I brought up the escape plan, everyone thought I was crazy. But they listened because I was the oldest and we all knew that it was our only chance of survival. If we died on the way out, it would just be bringing forward events that were inevitable anyways. But dying wasn't part of the plan, not my plan.

It was simple enough, the plan. Probably not as well constructed as it should have been, but I'm only twelve. And it worked.

It was a Sunday and the security was lacking. It was always lacking. They obviously underestimated us. Not that I blamed them, we were a bunch of kids. Most of us were brought up in sheltered homes. Kept away from the world's ugliness.

The children of the looking glass didn't exist. A bunch of missing cases from all around the country that has been huddled up in one of the smallest towns you could imagine. 

Put into a three story house in an abandoned corner of the street where nobody wanted to live because it was too close to the noisy train tracks. The Captain had joked a few times that it should have been part of the train station. His jokes weren't funny though, just malicious.

Unaware kids that had grown up with comfort and loving parents stripped away on their way to school, or when playing in a park or just left unattended. 

But not me. They were wrong in taking me. I wasn't some naive twelve year old that didn't know better. I had grown up tough. My dad was a drunkard who cared less about his family and my mom had fallen so deep into depression that she barely acknowledged me.

I always fended for myself. I had learnt to escape my dad when he had his violent tantrums, I had learnt to make my own food when my mom forgot that I needed to eat. I had learnt to study hard without being pushed to do so.

I was smart. I was tough. And I wasn't going to let a bunch of crazy, psychotic scientists take away the future that I so badly fought for. Not my future, and definitely not the future of ten other innocent kids.

So I chose a day and rounded up my soldiers. Ages seven to eleven. They told me that they had started abducting older kids because the little ones were too fragile to withstand the trials. But the older ones didn't make it either.

In the beginning there were a total of fifteen children. Now there were ten, excluding me. I got here a month ago, they had been here for longer. But I wasn't about to let that go on.

Sunday. Rayne, number nine (which was her age) would round up the seven and eights and hide in the kitchen downstairs. Whilst my two tens, Lucas and Joy would start the fires in the rooms upstairs. As soon as we had gotten the captain upstairs to check, we'd sneak all the kids out of the kitchen door.

We would hide behind the shed whilst Coco and Skits set fire to the trees. When the guards got distracted, we would run out and cross the train tracks and keep running. It was a Sunday night, not the most busy night but the streets wouldn't be empty either. Someone would notice a group of kids running and asking for help. My hope lay with that someone.

The plan was easy, too easy that I sometimes doubted it would work. But we had to try. Like most plans, everything didn't go accordingly.

It happened in the kitchen when we were supposed to all sneak out. An idea had struck me, so I sent them all to continue with the plan and ran back into the house ignoring their protests. 

I had to get something, anything. So I ran into the captain's office. I don't know why we called him captain, I didn't care. What I knew was that he was a bad man who used children as guinea pigs to test out his ridiculous theories about supernatural powers.

I also knew that there must have been some file that had proof of illegal activity and I wasn't going to leave until I at least had grabbed a few. Everyone had to know what was going on here.

I grabbed the first few files that were on the desk and tucked them underneath my shirt starting to choke up at the smell of the spreading fire. I didn't read because I was pretty sure that I would not understand anything, and also because I was out of time.

I just hoped that I had grabbed something useful. I was doing a whole lot of hoping.

The smoke fell into my lungs making it hard to breath and I turned to make my escape but as I reached the door, I was given a blow so hard that I fell to the floor. The Captain. 

My cheek stung from the blow but I wasn't scared. My dad could do worse. He spitted a large amount of profanities and promised me I wouldn't leave the place alive. 

I ignored him and started crawling away, the constriction in my throat getting worse as smoke filled the room. He came towards me and grabbed my hair, making me scream in pain and even more when he kicked me in the stomach, squashing the files. Luckily, he didn't notice them. 

He was throwing me around the room like a rag doll. I could distinctly hear screams of panic and footsteps of people running. This made me smile despite the pain because I knew that it meant the fire had spread to most of the house but the smile faltered when I realised that I was still inside it.

The footsteps also meant that there were people after the other kids. Panic set into me. I hoped they had made it, even if I didn't. But survival was my everyday mode and when the captain pushed me towards his desk, I saw my chance. Grabbing the glass lamp that was placed there, I swung it with all my force towards his head and it caught him off guard. 

He slumped to the floor and I wasted no time in running out of the room. I was limping from the pain but I kept going.

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. So was the shed and just about every corner of the backyard. There was smoke everywhere and I could barely see.

If I died today, I would die my own hero. That was enough for me. 

I touched my stomach and felt the files and that gave me new energy. Running out and over the train tracks towards my freedom. Running despite the pain. Running despite the fear.

Running towards a chance at change.

[Word Count: 1231]