Sleep.

WN here. This is my attempt at third person. :)

She awakens to the taste of blood. She can’t see clearly in the twilight. Is it morning or evening? Is this even her own bed? Her own room? Her mind spins crookedly and then flips upside-down in the momentary panic of waking up in a strange place. Her hand automatically reaches to the bedside table for her iPhone. What time is it?

But her hand doesn’t move. She can’t move her arms. Legs? No, not her legs either. She swallows painfully despite the metallic tang in her mouth. Did she bite her tongue in her sleep? There is a crushing weight on her chest, like an enormous stone is pressing her into the mattress. The red terror that is hovering around her peripheral vision begins to subside. This is a nightmare. Horrible, yet comfortingly familiar at the same time. She has had this dream since she was a little girl. Just like that dream where she’s falling, she can either force herself to wake up, or she can retreat deeper into sleep, where it’s safe again. She slips into the black.

She’s throwing papers. It’s 3:30 a.m. Her night job. She hikes up one short flight of stairs and emerges into a beautiful, quiet upscale apartment building. 2401, Times. Orange County Register at 2404, 2405, 2406. Quickly to the elevator and up. She collects the papers for the the third floor, then quickly stands before the elevator begins its quick ascent. She has learned from uncomfortable experience that if she is bending over her messenger bag when the car lurches upward, the force pulls unmercifully at the soreness in her lower back. She allows herself a quick glance at the phone in her pocket. No Service, it reads at the top. For such a lovely and obviously expensive apartment complex, it would be the most annoying thing ever to have no phone service. She slips the phone back in her pocket. Not likely anyone will be texting or calling at 3:45 a.m., but every night she is hopeful enough to wear pants with a pocket so she won’t miss it if someone does. She leans back and half leans, half sits on the handrail in the back of the dark, wood-paneled elevator. She rests her head on the wall and allows her eyes to drift closed for the ten-second ride. April 12, 2014. That is the date the certificate of inspection expires. She knows the expiration date for every elevator she rides.

It’s getting light enough to see. Definitely not her own bed. She struggles for consciousness. To remember. Is she traveling? Has she been sleepwalking? There is light coming in the window. Flashes of light, actually. Shadows rise and fall amid the blinding flashes. Glowing orange, black, more flashes. Is she awake? She reaches for the phone but as she fumbles around, there is no bedside table, no phone. No alarm, no text. No familiar smooth button to recognize her thumbprint. It’s another dream. There is a momentary feeling of relief. She gets another few minutes of sleep. Maybe an hour. She has three alarms set in her phone. The first goes off at 1:35. The second, with a more jarring alert tone, at 1:40. At 2:15, if she has somehow managed to sleep through the first two alarms, a seriously nerve-shattering alarm labeled “Late to Work!” will propel her from awake to mild heart attack within two seconds. She hasn’t even heard the first one yet. Sleep. Glorious sleep. She leans into it and submerges back into the black.

She’s playing the piano. It has been weeks. Weeks since she even touched it. It doesn’t matter. The keys love her. She doesn’t look, or even really think, about what she is playing. Her mind makes the music, and it floats out of the beautiful Yamaha grand. There is no sheet music. It isn’t even something she is playing by ear. It just… is. Clashing. Two songs. Someone is playing John Legend. She loves that song. Usually she gets tired of a song they play that often on the radio, but not this one. She was just listening to it on her way home from the route this morning. “All of me… loves all of you…” But she can’t play her song and listen to that at the same time. It’s so loud. And underlying both songs, screaming. Someone nearby is screaming. She leans her head forward as she has done so many times and rests her forehead against the cool lid of the piano, and closes her eyes. Back to black.

Her room is on fire! Maybe the screaming was coming from her own parched lips. She can’t even tell. There is just fire. It’s getting closer. The very little she can see is distorted in the  waves of heat the blaze generates. Would you rather die by burning or drowning? Neither, she smiles. It’s one of those moments she is so glad it’s just a dream. She even knows what this one is about. When she got home from work this morning, Mike was on her computer. “Did you hear about the bus tragedy?” he asked. No, but could it wait until she had had a couple of hours of sleep at least? Okay, she thought it, but didn’t say it. “No, what bus tragedy?” Turns out a Fedex truck jumped the center divider near Orland, California and hit a bus full of high school students on their way to Humboldt College in Northern California. Both drivers, three chaperones, and five kids, all dead. Not only that, but some lucky(?) motorist managed to stop and take the most graphically, horrifically awesome photos of both vehicles entwined in a mangled metallic mess, completely engulfed in flame. Just like this. Just a dream. Just this morning. Or was it yesterday? She couldn’t remember.

What she did remember was Mike’s question: “How could this even happen? What would make him jump the divider and take so many lives?” I remember thinking, “Do you really not know? Because I do.” She had just gotten home from work like so many other mornings where she would strip off her sweaty clothes for a shower, and see red handprints on her thighs where she had slapped herself at red lights to keep herself awake for that twenty torturous minutes home. There is nothing quite like trying to stay awake when every instinct in your body and mind is pulling at you, is there? Sleep… sleep. just sleep. It’s so easy. It feels so good. Sleep. Was that just this morning, or was it yesterday? Day before yesterday? The heat is starting to sear her lungs with every breath. She takes practiced, shallow breaths and thinks the alarm hasn’t gone off yet. Sleep. Blessed black sleep.

Mike is getting their youngest ready for school when he hears it. There is nothing worse than the sound of a crash. There was a deadly accident there at the intersection in front of the shopping center two mornings ago. They really need to do something about the lights, or something. He checks his Facebook on her computer, and yells at Cade to hurry and get his shoes on. He has too many tardies as it is, and he doesn’t want to get one of those stupid letters from the school. It seems like all they care about is that they get their money for attendance, so why do they care?

Put them on in the car! He grabs his son’s backpack and shoves a napkin-wrapped pop-tart into his hand. Breakfast of champions. Middle seat, he insists. Cade is too small for the airbags in the front seat. Mike urges him to tie his shoes and eat at the same time. He carefully drives the speed limit the one mile to the drop-off area. The place is always crawling with police just looking for some poor, unsuspecting soul this time of day. In fact, right now, it is literally crawling.

There are at least three police cars, a fire truck, an ambulance. And his wife’s car.

His heart stops. One beat. Two. And then it catches up and it is in his throat and behind his eyes and he suddenly can’t even feel his fingers on the wheel, as he pulls over behind the smoking wreckage. His knees buckle a little as he gets out of the car and walks over to the police officers milling around, and there are dark spots drifting around his vision as he sees a sheet-wrapped gurney sliding into the ambulance. “Somebody turn off that radio,” he hears someone order. And all he can hear is that song his wife likes so much. “My head’s under water, but I’m breathing fine.”

The Failed Escape: Armon, Steffi, Grega

This is an exercise in writing in third person. Much more challenging than the conversational style of first person. This is very very thin. I'm getting tired and didn't describe it as well as I could have but I wanted to get the idea on paper. I'm trying to create the enemy in a way that makes them seem more monster than human so that they aren't as sympathetic. Let me know what you think.

The three of them run. Each covered in sweat, mud, and blood, some of it theirs and some of it their friends. It’s been easily an hour since they’ve seen anyone but they keep running, fear and panic on all of their faces. 

Daggers shoot through their lungs and each keeps rubbing the sweat away from their mouths in an attempt to keep their loved ones blood from running in their mouths. 

It’s an island, so eventually they will run out of places to go. This fact does not stop any of them from trying to put some distance between them and the brutality behind them. 

Ahead they can hear water washing up on the beach and know they must soon hide or try to swim away. Once they exit the trees they see a lone hut that must have belonged to an island of the resident long ago. It’s been abandoned for some time now though, judging by the amount of grass they can see growing through holes in it’s exterior walls. 

Each enters, knowing it is all they have at the moment. Armon finds sits down against one of the walls and starts whipping blood off arms and neck. 

“We made the right choice you know?” He says, trying to convince himself more than the two girls. “If we had stayed we would have ended up like all the others.”

“Maybe it would have been better to stay,” Steffi says passively. “I’m not sure that living without my father is worth it.” She seems the most calm out of the group, like she has finished her chores for the day and weariness is pulling her body down to sleep for the night. 

Grega stands watch, looking through a slit in the wall to make sure they weren’t followed. The fingers on her right hand stretch out and then flex back in, then out and back in again. They seemed to missing the handle to her sword. In her panic to escape she had not remembered to retrieve it.

“It was not better to stay,” she says in a low voice. We have a chance now to warn King Erde. He needs to know that his own people are killing each other.”

“How do you propose we do that?” Armon interjects. “It’d be half a day before we even reached (Island Name). I love the kingdom but I’m not going to drown out in the water trying to get somewhere I know my body cannot reach.” He runs his hand through his auburn hair and lets a sigh out. He knows that his only other option is to stay on the island, be found and die like all the others. 

“We shouldn’t wait. Any minute we will be found and be butchered,” says Grega stepping out of the hut. She pauses right outside the opening to see if the other two are going to follow her. Steffi is still sitting in the corner with her knees pulled up under chin, staring at the ground in front of her. “Steffi, did you hear me? We need to move. Get it together and lets go.”

Grega looks at Armon. He shrugs his shoulders at her but he doesn’t get up either. The events of the day and the shock of what happens seems to have immobilized the two of them. 

Grega gives them both a look of complete disbelief and starts for the water. As she’s walking she hears a crash in the forest behind her. When she turns she sees twenty or more men coming through the tree line. Through their black cloaks she can still tell that they are heavily muscled. They each have their hoods down. They’re mouths are sown shut and every sign of hair has been removed from their heads. They have been covered with dark ink, the only white on their faces are their eyes. They aren’t running, yet. 

“Armon, Steffi, get out of there! They’ve found us! Run! Run!” She screams in complete panic. 

Armon emerges from the hut, and upon seeing the men, turns white as the sand he’s standing on. He races for Grega, who is already nearing the water. He turns back to look at the hut. Steffi is still in there and the men are ten feet away from her. 

“Steffi!” He shouts. “Steffi, you have to leave! Get up and run!”

The men converge on the hut, each entering from different openings. They find Steffi still sitting in the same place. One of the men raises his sword. Steffi lifts her head and looks the man in the eye. He doesn’t hesitate, his sword falls.

By now Grega has reached the water and she is looking back as well. Armon is still a good sixty feet behind her and he’s not moving. She sees the hut and knows it is what Armon is fixated on. Coming out of the hut are the men. All but two are headed for them now. Those two carry Steffi’s body out of the hut. 

Armon becomes a mixture of grief and rage. He yells at the men and then at Grega for abandoning Steffi. Regardless of this hysteria he begins to run towards the water. He only makes it a few feet when he feels searing pain in his right calf. He falls to the ground face first. He lays there for a few minutes and then rolls over to see a knife embedded in his leg. He gets back on his feet and hobbles toward the water but he’s not fast enough. The black cloaked men are now in a dead sprint and they catch him. Effortlessly the first man there runs his sword through Armon chests. He falls to his knees, the sword still in him. Then the other men arrive. They furiously and viciously stab repeatedly and then the last man removes Armon’s head. It hits the sand in a silent thud. 

Grega has wasted too much time already. More men are headed her way. She crashes into the waves and pushes against the water with her legs struggling to get deeper. When she’s waist deep she dives into the water and begins swimming out into the open sea. After a few minutes she stops and looks back to shore. Many of the cloaked men are still on the beach looking out at her but they are not following. Three of the men are chopping down large trees and others are digging holes in the sand, a hundred feet apart, closer to the tree line than the water. 

As she treads water she takes in this unusual spectacle. Two the trees have been felled by now and the men remove the branches and then shorten the log to about fifteen high. Then several other men help them carry the logs toward the beach. Grega sees the men lift Steffi’s body and place it on the long side of the piece of timber. They use rope and nails to hold her body on the tree and then place it upright in the hole on the beach, putting Steffi’s body up for display. The same is done is with Armon’s body on the second tree.

The third tree is not down, trimmed and carried to the beach. Grega becomes uneasy when all their eyes look toward her. She searches the water around her but sees nothing. Surely she must be safe this far out with no one in pursuit. Her eyes scan the water and the beach as she continues to swim backwards.

I’m safe. I’m safe. She keeps saying. No one could reach me out here. Then she feels a hand on her leg and looks down to see a black face coming up through the water towards her.

No one will be reaching King Erde today.  

Degen

This one is a take on the Himmel story. And with this, suddenly we have a trilogy. haha! :)

I am twelve. There is blood everywhere. The edges of my vision shimmer, and the sky is where the earth should be. I have never fainted, but there is about to be a first time. Blood drips from my hands, soaks my gown. Not my blood. My own blood is thunder in my ears, mercifully drowning out some of Mika’s cries. Suddenly a pair of boots. My frantic mind randomly notes the thick caked mud on the soles. He kneels by my little brother and rips away the cloth around his broken, shredded ankle, revealing the spiked trap into which he has stepped.

He gently places both hands on Mika, quietly speaking a few words, and that is when it happens. Mika’s screams subside to quiet whimpers, and his tortured body falls slack with relief. A stark calm washes over me, trickling down to my very bones, like water flowing down a stone fountain. A single word spoken to my mind. Peace. “Peace,” I repeat aloud, and he turns in surprise, as though he has forgotten I was there. I look into the face of Himmel. The most beautiful boy I have ever seen. That is, until about ten seconds later, when Erde appears over his shoulder. Erde is as darkly handsome as Himmel is fair. His face is not cruel; never that, but in that moment somehow less kind.

Erde is all fluid, powerful motion. In the time it takes me to register his presence, he has removed the sash from his tunic, and is binding my brother’s ankle and lifting him onto his horse. I expect Mika to be thrashing with pain, but it is as though the calm has washed over him as well, and Himmel keeps a firm, gentle hand on his arm until Erde has situated him in the saddle. I know in this moment that my life has changed forever.

My carefree days of roaming the beautiful countryside looking for childhood adventure are numbered, but before they slip away entirely, I have time to fall completely, irrevocably in love. With both my boys. My princes. Prince Himmel, sixteen summers old, and Crown Prince Erde, only six minutes his elder brother, two different facets of the same flawless gem. We ramble through the kingdom together until the leaves begin to fall and the air begins to chill and I begin to outgrow childhood. Erde has the heart of a warrior, and teaches me to fight with my fists and with a sword. That is the one thing Himmel cannot bear to watch. He is strong too, but has the heart of a priest, and from the first day we met, can share thoughts, feelings and ideas with me, without even speaking a word. They are united in their adoration of me, and their fierce devotion to each other. If I could choose, I would not marry either of them, so that we may stay forever like this.

I am seventeen. I am old enough to be a bride. Old enough to wear a crown. Old enough to bear children and rule a kingdom. Old enough to know a broken heart when I feel it. I walk down the aisle in the most beautiful lace made in the kingdom. I can smell the jasmine I carry in my hands. I look ahead, and there are my boys. Sun pours unrestrained through a cathedral window behind them, and makes a halo of Himmel’s fair hair. His hand is on Erde’s shoulder in a gesture of love and loyalty. I feel ecstatic looking on the one, and then a crushing pain in my heart and stomach when my eyes find the other. My choice breaks three hearts. But there never really was a choice. I know it. Erde knows it. Himmel most tragically knows it. I could never be permitted to marry a prince, if I can marry a crown prince.

Piercing through my love for Erde, I feel Himmel speaking to my mind. I am the happiest, saddest bride. Send me peace and love, I beg him. Instead of peace, there is determination. Duty and honor. Yes, love. But in place of peace, unutterable sadness. Today I marry the king, and lose my best friend. I look on Himmel for the last time. Surely he knows that his self-imposed exile can never banish me from his dreams, or him from mine.

I am twenty-nine. I am a wife and a warrior. A mother and a queen. Today is a day of mixed blessings. Mentor Day for Hans. I am as proud of my strong son as any mother could be. I have looked forward to this day, but it is marred by terrible discord, and what should be a joyful day is also one of inexpressible loss. My husband is not safe, nor his throne. We have no one to trust. A boy should remain with his family for years during mentoring, but for his safety, this day we send our only son out into the world with his mentor, maybe never to reunite with us again in this life. I only pray that the warrior Erde has chosen will be brave enough, strong enough and clever enough to be not only the teacher, but the father, that Hans will need.

I stand at the mirror, braiding my own hair. The king believes that even a simple chambermaid might be able to do me harm. I secretly smile a little at this. After all these years, Erde still underestimates me at times. I feel the dagger I have secured in my gown, glad that I have continued to hone the battle skills he began to teach me so many years ago. I have defended myself and my child more than once, and I remain more alert and vigilant than anyone ever realizes.

Last night as usual, I dreamed of Himmel. Sometimes I think I have lived a second lifetime through my dreams of him. Battles. Wounds. Rescues and quests. Last night for what seemed like hours I rode with him at breakneck speed through dark and rain. I sensed in him some sort of excitement as we pushed our horses to the edge of their stamina. Anticipation, maybe. Also foreboding and dread. Absently, my finger lightly traces a path from my cheekbone to my chin, mirroring one of Himmel’s scars I imagine in my dreams sometimes. I focus back on my own smooth skin, shake off the thought of it and lace the bodice of my gown. Today everything changes. Again. I place a diadem atop my braided hair, and weave pins through to secure it. Courage, I think to myself.

It feels strange to move through the castle without attendants. Some are dead, even dispatched by my own dagger. Some ran away, whether out of fear or shame I am unsure. Others we freed so that they might keep their own families safe from this conflict. Still, as I climb the steps to the wing which until today has been the nursery wing, I feel almost self-conscious dragging my long skirts behind me and try not to even glance at the contingent of guards that lines the halls.

No servants even here, I mused, as I slipped quietly into the nursery wing. I should have known Hans would be too excited to keep us waiting. He paced in the entryway, occasionally punching the air with a fist, as though having some unseen battle, which he was clearly winning. “Mother!” he said in an exuberant almost-shout. He was dressed for traveling in nondescript clothing and a warm cloak. “Have you seen him? Is he here?” I didn’t even have to ask. Hans was practically jumping out of his skin, he was so thrilled to meet this mentor, who had already achieved hero status in his mind. 

“Not yet,” I replied as calmly as I could, “and you should probably try to pretend to be a little more reluctant to be rid of us!” I said with a teasing smile. I found myself nearly tackled to the ground as he threw his arms around me. He has not reached his full stature, and probably won’t for some years. We are almost the same exact height. “I promise to write all the time!” he grins. I know he won’t. Can’t. But I don’t want him to know that his best day is also my worst, so I ruffle his light hair and smile back. As we head to the battle room, I try not to think about him as a lamb to the slaughter.

Two formidable guards stand watch outside the room. I ask them to announce us, and they inform me that the king wishes me to enter alone first. I glance uneasily at Hans, but he seems completely unperturbed, so I nod at the guards, who part and open the double doors before me, each managing to bow as they do so.

I steel myself to meet this mentor. I love him for what he is doing for us. I hate him. I look up, and my heart stops. One beat, two. And it starts again in a mad rush as our eyes meet. Himmel! My spirits soar. Himmel is here. We don’t need to send Hans away with a mentor. Himmel will help us save the kingdom! And then there is the truth of it. Himmel IS the mentor. I am going to lose my son, and lose Himmel all over again too. I wonder how many times a person’s heart can break in a lifetime.

A single word, almost whispered into my mind. Peace.

He manages the smallest hint of a smile, so I do too. My son is about to come into the room and meet his “mentor.” He can never know it is his uncle. The only thing I can do is take this moment and drink in the sight. I touch my cheek as I see the scar, one of many, that mars Himmel’s face. There is a touch of gold stubble on his shaven head. He is terrible and beautiful. I send a single word, in case he can read my mind. Love.

There they are, my two boys. The priest and the warrior, and they have each become both. Himmel and Erde, my Heaven and Earth. And I am Degen, the sword that cut them apart.

Himmel

New idea. Himmel is German for "heaven." Great name for a crusader, btw. :)

Yesterday my name was Hans. A fine name, I suppose. Thinking it now, in my head, kind of makes me miss it. Hans. I don’t have the option of changing it back now. I agreed to this. It does not matter. 

Escape is all that matters.

As I lay on my back I take in my surroundings for the hundredth time. In the corner a rat gnaws at corner of a pale that holds contents I care not to think about. The door to my room is thick wood that won’t give way, the bruises on my shoulder can attest to that. The pale that sits next to me used to hold water but I finished it off about six hours ago. I had used it to wash down the minuscule piece of bread I had been given for breakfast. Through my one window I can hear the sea crashing on the shore somewhere nearby. I get up and brush the straw, that was my bed, off me. 

The window.

More a torture than a comfort. Especially after this mornings events. It is no bigger than my torso, with five metal bars running vertically through it. The torture of it comes from its position. High on the wall it sits. If I jump hard enough I can grab the bars and pull myself up to see out of it. There is not much to see anyway. It looks out onto a private courtyard. The barracks courtyard. Right now there would not be much to see. Maybe a few soldiers milling around and blood surrounding a stump in the middle of the grounds. 

The stump. 

The last thing many men see. I can not imagine there is much to see anyway, being that close to it. It probably just fills your sight with blurred shades of brown and then you see nothing. At least for a time I hope. I have dedicated my life to believing men will live again. In a place where there are not jails, or stumps, or useless windows. 

I can still remember my mother and father waving to me as I rode away with my mentor. I knew that mother would cry and father would try to comfort her and tell her it was for the best. Mother would listen to him, of course, and he would dry her tears. I know they love each. Well, I knew they did. I haven’t seen them in six years. 

In my kingdom we all believe the same religion. Part of that religion states that when a boy reaches the age of twelve he must experience the world to know the evils he will combat in his life. He is given a mentor. Mentors usually volunteer for the assignment and are given their new apprentice. Normally, mentors are older. Not so old they can’t fight, for that would be counterproductive. However, most of them usually had heads of hear speckled with gray. 

My mentor had been different. He was young. Not more than a couple years younger than my father. Maybe in his early thirties. I would have tried to look for gray in his hair to confirm my suspicions but his head was shaved and it was covered with white and pink scars. In fact, much of his body was covered in scars. In all the years of me asking he had never told me the true story. He would make up tales about possessed chickens that attacked him as a boy with dagger-sharp talons. We would laugh and joke about them but after that passed I would see him deep thought. 

I missed him. He was more like a father to me than my father. Even now as I think about him I cry. What will I do without him? Never before had it occurred to me that I would be without him. His youth and skill with weapons had given him a distinct advantage on the battlefield. I had fought alongside him against bandits before and no man was a match for him. But now Himmel was gone and there was nothing I could do to stop it. 

Himmel.

My name now. As a way for an apprentice to show his love for his mentor and immortalize him, he took on his name. This way the mentors infamy would carry on for generations. I don’t know the story of the original Himmel. It was not one of the more famous names. There were the legends of course, Prinz and Krieger, along with others, but Himmel was not one of them. 

My Himmel never spoke about his mentor. He simply said that he was a man much like himself. He loved god and fought, and died, in his name. I asked how he died and Himmel told me he didn’t know. It seemed strange to me that he didn’t know. I had always wanted to know how Himmel was going to die. 

Himmel died. 

Now I wish I didn’t know. I look back up at the window with disgust. That window was supposed to be my one view to freedom. Instead it acted as reminder that my only other option, than this cell, was death. 

This morning, when two guards brought me breakfast, they also brought me a ladder, so I could see outside. I was hesitant at their encouragement to climb the ladder and peer into the courtyard. I hadn’t been able to see much, outside, when I first pulled myself up to look. A guard had seen me and told me to get down. Now, I heard yelling from outside and dozens of voices. Curiosity got the better of me and climbed up a few rungs and looked out. 

At first I couldn’t see much. I heard a man yelling in a language I didn’t understand and saw people congregating together in a circle. Then the crowd parted enough for me to see to the circles center. What I saw made me want to cry and scream in rage at the same time. But I couldn’t. I was too shocked to move. 

Himmel was on his knees, his hands were bound and his face exposed. I couldn’t see tears in his eyes or anger on his face. All I saw was him looking right at me. He had that same look he always did. It was a fatherly look. The one that has care and discipline all wrapped up in one. It was like I could hear him say, “I will miss you. Be strong. You are Himmel now.”

The executioner pulled his head so he was facing down into the stump and within seconds the axe fell. I should have looked away but I couldn’t. I heard screaming. It was my screaming. My hero, my mentor, my father, was dead. 

I leapt from the ladder and grabbed the guard closest to me. I punched him in the throat and  I heard him gurgle for breath as he fell toward the ground. The second guard yelled for others to come to his aid. He fumbled for the knife on his belt but I caught his hand with my left hand as it grasped the handle. I placed my right hand on his shoulder and used my weight to push him against the wall. He pushed back but he only got about a foot from the wall before I used my strength pushed him into it again. The fingers on my left hand were burning as they strained to hold his hand in place. I couldn’t hold it much longer. He was bigger than me and only my rage was keeping this an even fight. I decided to lean into him with my right shoulder and free up my right hand. I grabbed both sides of his hand and yanked the knife free of it’s scabbard. He tried to reach in with his other hand but I twisted so the right side of my body had it pinned against the wall. I then turned the knife, that was shaking from the strain of being pushed opposite directions. It was poised to go in but his will to live was strong. We were in a stand still. The knife did not make ground one way or the other. I could hear footsteps coming from down the corridor. I decided it was time to take a chance. With the right side of my body pressed against the wall, I realized my left leg was free. I brought my knee up in a swift motion and caught the end of the handle. It was so fast. One second there was a struggle, the next, the knife was hilt deep in the guards abdomen. I held onto him as he slid down the wall, falling with him. The wrath I felt was coursing through my veins. When the man hit the floor there was hardly any life left in him. I fell against the wall next to him and looked at the first guard I had attacked. He laid motionless on the ground. I had killed him too. 

Several guards arrived and stopped just outside the cell. I think they were too afraid to come in. Blood covered my clothes and the floor. I stood, walked over to the open cell door and closed it. I knew I could never get past them then but maybe the closed door would discourage them from trying to come in and get revenge for their friends. It seemed to work. They all staid in the hallway until, what I assume was an officer came. He entered, looked at me, then at the dead men at his feet and nodded at me and left. 

Later, men showed up and took the bodies of the guards away. After they had departed the officer came in. 

“The deaths of these men can not go unpunished. At dawn tomorrow you will be executed,” he had said. I was shocked that he spoke my language. I wondered if he had spent any time in my country. I suppose it was a bad time to think about that when he had just told me I would die in the morning. 

I nodded, showing that I understood, and he departed. 

The shadows in my cell are growing longer and I know I’m facing west and the sun is setting. I am running out of time. 

Escape is all that matters.