The Way Out

      Braedyn bolted straight up, glancing around frantically.  Cold sweat beads rolled down his forehead and dripped onto his bare chest.  His eyes darted from one side of the room to the other in the darkness of the early morning as he tried to get a grip on where he was.  As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he started to recognize objects hanging on the wall as his.  He forced himself to relax, and his breathing slowed to a normal pace.  He wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm and layed back down on the bed.  Pulling the covers back up to his chin, he closed his eyes and tried to remember the details of the dream.  In the back of his mind, he knew, somehow he knew, he recognized that woman.  Somebody he had seen on TV? In a magazine? No, he was sure that this woman meant something more to him.  This woman was special. This woman was close to his heart.  The decision he made laying there in his comfortable bed, in the room he had been allowed to arrange as he saw fit, hit him like a lightning bolt.  He had to find a way out of this place. A way away from the only life he had ever known. He had to find a way to find this woman, and a way to save her from the fate that he had seen befall her. First, the way out.

    As he lay there he found focus in the thought of finding this woman.  There were several hours left before his tutor was scheduled to come in and wake him for his morning lessons, so he was left with plenty of time to think.  Over and over he replayed the days events as they had been scheduled for him.  He appreciated the structured life that was created for him.  It was orderly, it made sense, and it was that routine that he would use to his advantage to escape.  When the plan was finally formed, and Braedyn was comfortable with how well it would work, he closed his eyes again and waited for his tutor, Mrs. Thurow to come in to wake him. 

    A light knock on the door aroused Braedyn from the light slumber that he allowed himself to slip back into.  His heart jumped with that knock, and he had to catch himself before he jumped up out of the bed.  He forced himself to calm and act as he did every other morning. "Good morning, Mrs. Thurow!". 

"Good morning Braedyn.  Time to get up, dear. We will start in twenty minutes."

    He listened as the sound of her high heeled shoes faded down the hallway.  Now he did jump out of the bed and hurriedly took a shower.  After getting dressed, he quickly grabbed the few items that he needed to execute his plan.  He paused at the door, knowing that if his plan worked, this would be the last time that he would see this room.  He picked up his bookbag that lay beside the door, and took a deep breath.  The doorknob turned easily in his hand, and he took the first step toward the rest of his life.  Down the hallway, he nodded a greeting to the woman who taught him his lessons on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as she held the locked door open for him so he could pass through to the classroom.
    The hours before noon passed slowly, and although his mind constantly drifted to his plan, and his eyes constantly drifted toward the clock, Braedyn was still able to pick up most of what Mrs. Thurow was teaching.  The math portion was always easiest for him, the answers just seemed to always come to him without really having to study them, or even write them down for the most part.  He had learned long ago not to correct Mrs. Thurow, even though he knew that some of the equations she wrote on the board had errors.  As the clock finally neared 12:00pm, Braedyn started putting his plan into motion. 
    As he finished writing the last answer onto the paper, he took one of the items out of his pocket.  He held it loosely in his hand as he walked up to the desk at the front, and dropped it as he handed Mrs. Thurow his sheet of paper. He walked back to his desk and started gathering up his belongings to head to lunch.  Once everything was packed back up into his pack, he looked to the front of the room to see his tutor furrowing her brow trying to grade his paper.  She glanced up at him briefly and nodded, excusing him to lunch.  Years ago, they had found the understanding between them that negated the need for them to vocalize their conversations.  He only had the hope that she would find the tiny piece of folded up paper that he had left to keep his plan alive. 
    As he exited the room, he took a second item from his pocket, a tiny roll of cloth tape he had been given after cutting his hand on one of his model cars.  Then it had been used to hold a piece of gauze to the wound until it healed.  Now, as he walked back down the hallway toward his room for lunch, he took a piece of that tape from the roll and taped over the latch that normally held the lone doorway in that hallway closed and locked.  The tape hung over the edge of the door on his side a couple of inches, and he folded it against itself, leaving a tab.  He crouched next to the door for several minutes, waiting to see if Mrs. Thurow would appear or if she found the paper he had left.  When he was comfortable that she would be in the classroom for the remainder of the lunch hour, he quietly walked to the room that he had fondly termed the teacher's lounge.  In reality, it wasn't much more than a large storage room, but there was adequate seating in all of the old chairs and furniture that was stored there that the teacher's would commonly spend their lunch hour inside relaxing. 
    Braedyn replaced the roll of tape into his pocket, and pulled out the next item that he would need.  This was the one item that nobody actually knew he had, and he actually felt a little guilt for posessing. It was only a cigarette lighter.  Not even a good one, just one of the small cheap plastic ones that they sell for a buck at convenience stores.  Or at least they did on TV.  He had acquired it from Dr. Wodrich several years before.  Dr. Wodrich hadn't really even spent a moment dwelling on it when he realized it was missing, figuring it had just been misplaced somewhere.  Still, it made Braedyn wince when he took it out of his pocket, the only item that he had ever taken without permission. 
    He hesitated for a moment as he looked at the lighter.  This was the part of his plan that would eliminate the ability to change his mind.  After this, he could not turn back.  He took a deep breath, and with hardened resolve, he put his thumb to the turn dial and snapped it to start the lighter.  There was no flame, just a spark.  He tried again.  And again.  His hand started to sweat with anxiety.  Again and again he tried to get a flame from the lighter.  In a fever, he flicked and flicked, with no light.  In frustration, he sat down on the chair he would have climbed up to hold the flame to the fire alarm.  He put his head into his hands in frustration.  As the skin from his face touched the palms of his hands, he nearly jumped out of his skin as the fire alarms started sounding.
    The alarms?  The alarms!!  He had to move! He quickly grabbed his pack up off the floor and ran for the bathroom opposite from his bedroom door.  Just as he slipped inside, he heard the hallway door slam open as Mrs. Thurow ran through it toward his room.  She knocked on his bedroom door, and when there was no answer she fumbled with her key, unlocked the door, and let herself inside.  Braedyn took this as his cue to move, and ran out of the bathroom and back towards the locked door.  He opened the door swiftly, grabbing a hold of the tab he had left on the tape and ripping the strip off, he let the door close behind him.  He stopped it right before it latched, closing it very slowly and quietly.  He took the last item from his pocket, a wedge of plastic that he had melted from his first model.  He stuck it under the door and kicked it lightly as a stop.  he knew it wouldn't hold long, it wasn't very hard plastic, but he hoped it would give him the few extra seconds he would need to find his way out.
    Braedyn had never been further than the classroom on this side of the door.  He took the first hallway that he could find.  It veered off toward the right, and so did he.  He kept running down that hallway as far as it would go, and the took a left at the end.  He was starting to worry as he ran farther down this hallway.  He still had not seen daylight coming through any of the windows.  How was he going to find the way out if he couldn't see daylight?  Two turns later, though, he found what he was looking for.  A whole hallway of windows that had sunilight pouring through.  He tried to first few doors, only to find them locked.  Abandoning that idea, he ran parallel to the windows as far as he could down the hallway, hoping for a door to the outside.  After what seemed an eternity, he could finally see the end.  There was a hallway to the left, and just beyond that a door.  Through that door, he could see an exterior door.  With elation, he ran full speed at the first door.  With a loud crash, and then a bang, Braedyn hit the deck of the hallway, surprised.
    The door was locked!  How could the door be locked?  He looked up at the mark that his forehead had left on the glass of the window.  He shook the cobwebs from his head.  He had to keep going.  Down the other hallway he ran, hoping to find another route to the outside.  Locked....locked.....locked!  They were all locked!  Again, Braedyn found himself in dispair.  The tight grip on his heart returned, the blood rushed to his face, and the frustration almost stole away his hope.  He turned back and ran back to the one door that he knew led to the outside world with the intent of breaking it.  He didn't know what he would use, but he had to get out.  He walked up to the door and lightly hit it with the backside of his fist.  To his dismay, it didnt make the higher pitched clong of glass, but the lower pitched sound of plexiglass.  Again he hit the door, with more power.  Again the door didn't budge.  He hit the door again, this time with his knuckles in a classic punching motion.  Still nothing.  He hit the door again and again, building himself up into a rage.  He let out everything that he had on the door, hitting it over and over with all of his strength.  Still the door stood between him and freedom.  After several minutes, and after he had lost all power from his hits, he finally gave in to desperation and frustration.  He put his back to the door and leaned against it, knowing that he would need to think fast.  He had to find a different way out.  His back pushed against the bar on the door and Braedyn fell through the doorway. 
    He couldn't believe it!  He looked up to the top of the glass at the mark from his forehead.  This was the same door!  He knew that it had been locked!  Without pausing any further to ponder this quandry, he grabbed his bag and bolted through the next door and out onto the pavement.  He had never been outside before.  The "fresh air" that he got came from the PT training rooms that he used for his Physical Ed class when they would open all of the windows while he worked out.  Somehow, this air seemed fresher, sweeter, and more exciting.  One deep breath later, Braedyn was on his way.  On his way to the biggest adventure this far in his life.  Most importantly, on his way to help a woman that meant everything to him, and that he had never even met.