The escape.
I woke up on a summer day, birds chirping, children playing, but all the joy and the innocence of this was behind me. I couldn't just get up and play, or sing, because I was chained to a wall. This is what happens in this country when you commit something really bad. The war finished a few years ago but the situation here wasn’t as beautiful as some people tried to show it. My friends and I were caught by police while we were having my 23rd birthday party. They just came in and took us somewhere.
I was lying in my own filth, tied up for several days, without being able to go to the toilet; it's not a pretty sight. My body was slowly wasting away, no food, and only drops of water, I felt like I was slowly passing away even though I still didn’t know where I was or what I had done. I could see my team-mates, my friends, slowly going insane. They were talking in their sleep, screaming for freedom, but what was the point. The guards treated us like animals. Finally, after the next two days the guard unchained me and said, ‘’C’mon you murderer, get up, you are able to go for a 30-minute walk.’’ And after that I realised what had happened. We were caught by police by mistake... I was trying to talk to the guards there but no... They didn’t want to listen, they were just laughing at me. However, there was one old guard that was different to all the other ones there. He talked to me and told me what had happened and what I had done. He said that FBI and police were looking for a serial killer and that I was matching his description so they caught me and brought me here. I did ask a few other questions but he didn’t want to answer. The last question that he answered was a question about what this place was. He answered promptly and walked away, while I, instead of walking around in a circle(this was all I had to walk, a small circle with about 3metre tall fence around it) stood there shocked. The guard said ‘’Alcatraz’’...
I knew this was the end, there was no way of escaping from this prison. No one has ever done that before, however, I was in a different situation I had two of my friends here and I knew that we could not give up because otherwise we would never see the life outside the fence again. The prisoners in here were saying things like ‘’Once you walk in, you never walk out.’’ It was the highest security prison in the world. My friends got back to normal again after they were able to go outside for a bit.
We had to escape, we were the only sane ones in there, my mind wasn’t completely at ease but I was doing whatever I could to think about the plan on how to successfully escape. You see, everyone else was going crazy wondering about their loved ones, but I had no one. My mom died when I was born and my dad died because of cancer when I was 6. My foster parents didn't love me, they used me as a tool, just saw me as an extra pair of hands to use around the house. I ran away at the age of sixteen, I met a guy called Finn (he’s here with me), he was about 20 years older than me. He offered me a place to live if I worked at his pub. I agreed.
My fist plan was to escape during the night, climb the fence and cross the border under the cover of dark. That seemed fine, until I realized I was tied up during the night and most part of the day. No, a better plan would be to steal one of the guard’s trucks. However, the biggest problem that I had was the chains...
I had seen few prisoners being pulled to a dark hut outside of the main prison building to be tortured. That was it! That was my chance to try to escape! I had to get the guard to pull me into that room. How am I supposed to get the guard pull me there? What about my friends? Should I trip up the guard? Spit in his face or abuse him? I’m going to do all of them just to make sure he will pull me there. I’m going to tell my friends to do the same thing so we will all go into that room together. If we die, we die. If we escape, then we escape. This is the only chance that we have!
When I woke up, I realized that Matt (my second friend) wasn’t there, I asked Finn ‘’Where is Matt?’’, he said ‘’Tom! They pulled him... into that hut...’’ still crying. I was speechless. Then he just added, ‘’You know what... they said to him? They said that if he doesn’t tell them who hired us... to kill these people then they will...’’, ‘’They will what!’’- I yelled. ‘’...kill him’’- Finn added and turned around as if he was going to give up.
Then I remembered what that old guard said to me. ‘’They will torture you three to get the information out of you...’’ For the next few hours we were listening to Matt screaming ‘’I don’t know anything, it was a mistake!!!’’ Until, we heard a shot. Everything went quiet. We knew that Matt is not with us anymore but that doesn’t mean that we should stay in this prison for the rest of our life. For the next four days were thinking about how to escape but we couldn’t think of anything. Until the fifth day, when, the last important person in my life died... Finn died because of a heart attack.
After that, I really didn’t know what to do. I wanted to kill myself because I had no reason to live for. But then, after few days of deep depression, an old prisoner came up to me and said. ‘’Boy, I heard you talking to your friends about prison break. I’m really sorry about what happened but I’ve seen you depressed. I know that you might think that you lost everything but you are wrong. You are young unlike me and if I was you, the only thing that I would think about was escaping from this... place.’’- he walked of as soon as he finished speaking.
Then I realized that I should really try to get out of this forsaken by God place. And I realized that the only way to escape is actually through the hut outside...
During lunch, one of guards came up to me. He seemed like a Porte Rican by the looks of it. He had a scar down his right cheek, this guy was bad news. He said that if I’m not going to give him my lunch he will kill me (the guards in Alcatraz were treated not much better then the prisoners). I charged at him, the rat bone gripped in my hand, and I imbedded the bone through the side of his neck. I was running on adrenaline, my entire body felt like a limp noodle. But I drove and twisted that bone deep into the neck of this poor man. Blood sprayed out, like a fountain, splashing onto my face. I held his mouth closed to drown the screams. His cry was like a yelp of a dog, but it had to be done. As he collapsed to the ground, I grabbed his gun, his knife, and some keys. I had to change my plan. A bit of luck helped me, I guess. With these keys I was able to get around the prison as well I was able to walk out of the prison! I waited till the night...
When the moon was fully up, I knew it was the right moment. I either do it now or never I thought to myself. I looked through the keyhole, I couldn't well stick my head round the corner in case I was greeted with a machine gun. It seemed like everything was clear so I quickly sneaked out of the door, and locked it again. I didn't want our Porte Rican friend to be found any time soon. I had to get to the trucks as quickly as possible only then would I have a chance to escape. I was over fifty miles from any civilization. I had to get out now, or die, these were my only options. There was at lest twelve guards between me and the truck, I knew because I saw them on the way here. It would be quite hard to kill them all with a knife without any of them realizing anything. And obviously I couldn’t use a gun because they would easily hear me, catch me and kill me. I had to think of a plan, but wait, maybe I could jump on the back of a passing truck, they do go past, but at about twenty miles an hour. I wasn’t able to just jump on the back of a truck because it would be going too fast. I had to jump on the top, from the hut roof. I just had to hope that I would not miss it or hope they don't see me. I don’t even wanna know what they would do if they caught me while I was trying to escape. This was going to be hard, but it was the only way. I climbed onto the top and as I looked down I realized how what a stupid idea this was, but what have I got to lose? I just saw a truck coming, I just have to hope that it works...
I jump and... the wind flying through my hair and I did actually manage to land on the top. I was rolling over, I nearly fell off, but somehow managed to hold on. Now, I just have to hope that no one sees me or I’m dead. This place was like hell, I hope I can successfully escape so I can tell the Government about what happened. The last thing that I was worried about was that I didn’t know how I was supposed to get off the truck.
My chance came when the driver stopped and got out for a break. Two guards got out of the truck and started to talk very fast in a language that I couldn't understand (maybe they were from Peurto Rico like the other guard?). It was now or never. I climbed down the side of the truck and opened the passenger door. I slid inside. The keys were still in and the engine was on so I quickly put my foot on the accelerator. I was able to see the guards running after me and shooting their guns, I was so lucky that they didn’t hit one of the tyres. I forgot about the gun that I gained from the guard in Alcatraz. I took it out and I started to shoot back, fortunately, I got one of the guards in the leg so they stopped running after me. So then I looked in front of me and I saw another truck coming, unfortunately, they realized that I was not a guard and they started to shoot at me. They broke the front window, however, somehow I managed to get their truck in one of their tyres so they had to stop. And once again I pressed my foot on the accelerator because I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Finally, after about an hour of driving, I realized that I had escaped. I was free!
The end.