Short Story – Lights Out

"Lights out!" 

The voice rang out over the gritty speakers, and the flickering electric lights powered off, plunging the entire place into nearly pure darkness. A few dim lights remained, to allow the guards to walk around safely, but they were few. 

I waited a few minutes, listening to the shuffling of people getting into bed and trying to get comfortable, before slowly pushing back my blanket and standing up. Resting my forehead against the bars of my cell, I looked side to side. My watch face showed it was at least ten minutes past the hour. He would be here soon. 

As if on cue, the soft echo of footfall on the metal walkways reached my ears, and I stepped away from the bars. 

"Evening, Pip." The guard stopped outside my cell, speaking in a low tone as he pulled a set of keys from his pocket. "I was starting to enjoy the job this time. One day, I’ll get a proper security job, and stop following you around." He slotted the key into the lock of my cell door and pulled it open. 

"Oh, quit your complaining, Jim." I stepped out, and he locked the door behind me. "You get more money working with me than you ever would being honest with your security work."

"True, but sometimes I want some normality. Not all this excitement."

I followed him along the walkway, and we ducked into a room at the end, the usually locked door swung wide open. Jim threw a pair of dark trousers, some shoes, and a security coat at me, turning to let me change. I can’t say I was too upset about replacing the itchy and worn light trousers they had put me in when I had arrived a few weeks ago. They seemed to have cycled through several hundred prisoners already. 

"Who is today’s lucky guy, again?" Jim asked as I shrugged on the coat, momentarily savouring the warmth I had lacked since arriving. This particular prison was in one of the areas more affected by the electrical surges, from what I knew of the area, it was practically flattened. This building had been constructed quickly and poorly, caring little what the prisoners experienced in terms of staying alive. There was a reason only the worst offenders were sent here. 

"Tilly Stevens. Who knows what she did to end up here, but she certainly has money to her name." I waited for Jim to re-lock the door we had entered through and followed him through the room to a door on the other side. 

"Makes you wonder why they do these things if they’re that well off." 

"It’s a good thing our job is to do, not to wonder, then." I said and he threw a tired look over his shoulder at me. 

"You’re a punk kid, you know that?"

"I’m twenty-three." I deadpanned, and he shrugged. 

"You’re still annoying.” We followed the hall through several cell blocks, two of them with four people to each cell. The place was obviously running out of room. It was why I had coordinated a massive brawl on my second day in. Everyone who appeared to have had a role in starting it was moved to solitary cells. The whole system was messed up. The troublemakers got the better accommodation – although there had been a constant drip of water in the corner of my room, and a crack in the ceiling that let in freezing air. 

“This is her room,” Jim announced, unlocking a door that opened to a large room, the walls lined with cells, reaching over three stories, stairs in the centre of the room connecting them. 

“Lovely, it’s nice and open. Lots of witnesses. Just what I wanted.” Jim shrugged at my sarcasm, stepping aside to let me walk in. This was where he always stepped back. He was my ticket in, around, and out, but the work itself was my part. “Which cell?”

“247.” He held out a key to me, and I pocketed it. 

“Okay. See you in a minute.” My new shoes on the walkway made the same noise Jim’s had, and several people made comments about me being too loud, to shut up and go away. Whether they complained to the guards every night was a mystery. It was such a waste of breath. 

I stoped outside Tilly’s cell, looking in. She was in bed, facing away from me. She didn’t look over until I turned the key in the lock and slipped inside. 

“Tilly?” I held my hand out in front of me as she leapt out of bed, a jagged piece of metal grasped in her hand. “I’m Pip.”

She immediately lowered the weapon and held out a hand to me. “Great to meet you. We’re going now, then?”

“Yes. Be quiet, and follow me.” I slipped back through the door, waiting for her to copy before I locked the door again. Her bare feet were quieter than mine on the walkway, completely masked by the sound of my shoes. Why the prison's budget didn’t stretch to clothing their prisoners properly, I don’t know. They might as well of left us in the clothes we arrived in, they were better. Tilly wore a threadbare shirt and the same itchy trousers I had been wearing, which were too long for her and had been rolled up at the ankle. Her blonde hair was dirty and tangled, but she didn’t seem to care. 

When we reached the door, Jim nodded to me, already congratulating a job on the way to completion. Tilly reeled back at the sight of him, an actual guard from the prison. 

“Tilly, this is Jim, my accomplice.” I introduced him, and she hesitantly stepped through the door, letting him lock it behind us. 

“Accomplice? I do all the work!” Jim grumbled, and Tilly glanced between us. I grinned at her, and she rolled her eyes. 

“Can we just get out of here? That’s what I’m paying you for, isn’t it?”

“Of course, my fair lady, your escape awaits.” I gave a little flourish and a bow, which was certainly what brought on the murderous look in her eye. 

With Jim in the lead and me bringing up the rear, we led Tilly through the hallways. Or rather, Jim led us through the hallways. I kept looking around, confused at the layout of the place. It was different to the blueprints I had studied. Maybe they had been outdated, that the plans had been scrapped in favour for this new layout, and I hadn’t got the right blueprints. 

“Last door, then we’re outside,” Jim turned to us to announce it. Tilly breathed what seemed to be a sigh of relief, and although I had only been here a few weeks, I also felt it. None of the prisoners were allowed outside. We had a communal mealtime, but other than that, we were in our cells 24/7. 

Jim inserted the key into the door, and pulled it open, stepping aside. The first thing I registered was a man on the other side, staring at us. The second thing was the strong gust of cold air that blew over me. The third was the gun the man was pointing at me. 

“Hands in the air!”

I ran forwards on instinct, ducking my head and ramming my shoulder into the man, pushing him back, his shot flying off course. We had been caught? I was never caught. But it had been strangely quiet when Jim and I made our way to Tilly’s cell, and then to here. We hadn't run into anyone. Come to think of it, I hadn't seen a guard since before the lights went out. 

I looked around what I quickly realised was the top of a very tall building, with guards scattered all over it, at least fifty guns pointed at me. Tilly was already in handcuffs. I backed up to the edge of the building, a semi-circle of guards closing in on me. My back hit the wall, and I glanced over the edge. Water. Waves lapping at supports holding the building above the surface. We weren’t in the prison I was prepared for, the one I was told to expect. We were in the middle of the ocean. 

I could see the land, a couple of miles away, and looked back to the guards again. I could make it. One jump, and then it was just swimming. 

People were yelling at me, but I took no note of it until Jim walked through the guards to face me. Was he under arrest too? Why… why was he holding a gun? And why was it pointed at my head?

“Time to give it up, Pip. Just raise your hands, and nothing will happen to you.” His voice shook as much as the gun in his hand. 

“What happened, Jim?” I asked, my voice quiet, my heart beating almost out of my chest. 

“I was caught. It was this, or a bullet in both our heads. I managed to convince them to let me help them catch you instead. It was the best outcome for both of us.” Jim shrugged, and I shook my head. 

“It’s not an outcome. It’s a deal. You made a deal to turn me in to save your own skin.” I scoffed, and turned to the wall, using my arms to push myself up, and stood on the edge, turning back to face Jim. All of the guards moved forward like a wave, closing in on me. 

“You’ll die if you fall.” Jim said, his voice scarily calm all of a sudden, as if he had already accepted my decision before I had told him of it.

“So? I’ll die if I don't."

I watched a tear fall down Jim’s cheek as a cacophony of explosions filled the air. I didn’t fall backwards of my own accord, but of the force that caused scorching pain to spread across my torso, my arms, my legs. The wind stole my scream as I fell, air whipping at my body, grabbing at it. 

I hit the water hard, the strength leaking from my body leaving me with nothing with which to swim. A red stain spread across the water as I slowly sank, inky blackness engulfing me until my air ran out, when it overtook my insides as well.

And done!

This is based on a dream I once had, as most of my stories are. I had the following written in my notes app;

Water prison. Cell hopper. Surrounded by water. Tries to swim away. Shouting. Shooting, blood in water. Slowly sinks.

Kind of morbid, but I'm amazed I actually understood my nonsense note. Also, I wrote this entire thing on my phone, in my notes app, because my computer currently does not work. My notes app is slowly becoming my best friend. Anyway.

That's all for now...

Bye!