The Outside


I tapped my fingernails against the scratched, old bar in front of me for the millionth time. I hadn’t been in here long and I was already bored out of my mind, so I did the only thing I could think of to pass the time. Listen to people's conversations.

My cellmate,who looked like one of the few homeless guys we have around here with his scraggly beard and stained t-shirt, was having a stimulating conversation about carrots and cats with the metal bench he had been sitting on. In the cell across from me sat a couple who were most likely picked up for drinking publically, passed out against the grimy wall. All the other cells were empty as most people who were living in my city, Eropia, didn’t dare to disobey our government’s sacred rules, of which there were many. As you could probably tell, I was one of the rebels in this stupid city.
I stayed still, playing with a strand of my long black hair until I heard a piece of interesting conversation coming from the front lobby.

“...president said to keep it a secret. She doesn’t want anyone knowing about what’s really outside,” A deep voice said in a hushed tone.

“It makes sense, if the people knew that The Outside was actually safe then they would want to leave and explore it,” a gravelly voice had spoken up in a disgusted tone.

The Outside is the place beyond the walls that the government had built around our city to ‘keeps us safe’. Apparently it was just a bunch of cities. But the best part was that they were trying to help us. They were sending government officials and everything to try to make contact with us but the president had taken precaution to make sure nobody knew about them, including putting even more armed guards around the fifty story wall that surrounded our city. I couldn’t believe this! All our lives, for generations, this had been kept from everyone.
We were told The Outside was a deserted, inhumane place overrun by man-eating plants and rabid animals. Our government wanted their people to be scared of The Outside and it worked, mostly. There were still a few people, like me and Belle, my best friend, who always wanted to see what it was like beyond the walls.
Just then I was ripped from my thoughts as the barred door swung open to reveal a chubby cop with leftover doughnut crumbs on his shirt, dragging behind him my horrid excuse for a mother. She hated me with a passion and the feeling was mutual. All she ever did was criticize me on everything that I did, but no, she could never do anything wrong. She didn’t like the way that I dressed and acted while I thought that she was a gold-digging witch. She only stayed with us because my father’s family was loaded.
“Hello, Catherine. Lovely day, isn’t it?” I asked my mother sarcastically with a raise of my eyebrow.
She glowered at me for a moment before replying, “Why, yes yes, it is, Aislin.”

I narrowed my eyes and brushed past her quickly, heading for the nearest exit. I pushed open the glass door and made my way to Catherine’s sleek black Porsche. The ride home with Catherine was awkward, to say the least. Once the car pulled into our driveway I hurriedly made my way across the street to Belle’s house to tell her about the conversation I overheard about The Outside. Belle’s blond head popped out and she pulled me inside quickly, dragging me to her room. After I told her about what I had heard while she had played with my jet black hair,admiring the red streaks I had highlighted it with using some herbs I’d found, we sat silently for a few minutes.

Finally, she said what I knew she would. “Aislin, we need to help the government people from The Outside.” And with that we began discussing a plan to get us to The Outside.

“I know, Bells, but we need to think of a way to do it” I replied.
Our plan was simple. We would get arrested and sent to prison, which was in the government building, and from there we would try to find an exit through the walls. Our plan was risky, but we had to do it.
That night, Bells and I set our plan into action. This needed to happen as soon as possible. We were going to go and start trying to chip at one of the walls surrounding the city, one of the biggest offenses. My weapon of choice had been an old axe that I yanked out of a chunk of wood in my backyard, Bells had chosen a hammer she found in her garage.

We had been beating at the wall for about ten minutes and we could just hear the sirens sounding in the distance over the banging on the metal walls. Surprisingly, we were making quite a dent in the wall. By the time the officers arrived, there was a hand-sized hole in the wall. You could even see some trees through it. Several officers yelled for us to stop and when we didn’t, they took hold of us and cuffed our hands behind our backs, shoving us unceremoniously into the back of their cruiser. I held back a smirk as I looked at their smug faces. After a five minute ride to the government facility, we finally arrived at the prison where we were locked up in a cell without questioning.

When I woke up the next morning in my ‘new’ orange jumpsuit, Bells was already up. I looked around the blank, grey walls of our cell before I faced her, my face the picture of confusion. Bells explained to me that we had been knocked out and transported overnight and informed me that we would be having breakfast in the lunchroom in five minutes. The lunch room turned out to be a large room full of 6-8 seater tables. After I grabbed my breakfast, oatmeal and orange juice, I led Bells over to the only table in the room that had two available seats. I sat down next to a black-haired boy with green eyes that looked about the same age as me, sixteen, with Belle on my other side.

We tried to talk quietly about our plan, but it seemed that the green-eyed boy was nosey. We were walking out of the lunch room when I was pulled to the side by the green eyed boy into a small supply closet.

“What were you guys saying about The Outside?” he demanded. After seeing my face though he quickly added, “I’m from out there. You can trust me.” My eyes widened in shock and I was speechless. Someone from The Outside was here? Where there more of them?

I hadn’t realized I’d said that out loud until he answered. “No, not in here. There are others out in the city though, and beyond the walls.”
I nodded and told him the story. All of it, including our plan.
In the end, we decided to work together to get out.Bells and I would come and live with him in his city if we got out in time. His unit was scheduled to leave at the end of the week, even if they had to leave him behind. We only had three days to work everything out and I still had to tell Bells about the boy, whose name I figured out was Drake. Also, his cell was just across from ours and nobody else was around us for a while so we could still work on sorting out the details. After I told Bells what was going on she was shocked, but then became even more determined to succeed, as was I.

We all couldn’t wait to be free of the guards at every sidewalk corner, watching our every move. We would finally be rid of all the stupid rules, like no singing sad songs in public. Most importantly, we would finally be free of this ‘perfect’ society where nobody could be different. Everyone had to dress alike, talk alike, and look alike. Most people even had the same haircut! But soon we would be rid of all of it.
Two days later, our plan was finalized, and we were ready to go. At breakfast we all made excuses to leave at different intervals. After meeting up in a secluded hallway by the least used bathrooms, we had to wait quite a while before we could head in as Drake being a guy raised question if he were to walk into a girls bathroom. Once we were safely inside, I locked the door. Soon we were all climbing up on the toilet lid of the third stall to the air vent above it. We shimmied up air vent and, once we were all in, began army crawling through the maze-like structure. It took us awhile, but we could eventually see the bright sunlight shining up ahead of us. Drake used a device used by the people from The Outside to cut through a small square of the metal air vent before jumping out of the small hole himself after telling us to be careful. I rolled my eyes at him.
I peaked my head out last and saw that we were only about five feet up, I could easily jump down. I leaped out and bent my knees, preparing for impact. I landed without so much as a slip.
A guard rounded the corner in front of us and before he could press the button on his earpiece he was on the ground with Drake hovering over him, shaking his hand slightly and wincing. I pulled Bells behind me as we rounded the corner.

Then we could see the gates.
We made our way slowly towards the gates, using the shadows as cover. Soon we were squeezing ourselves through a gap in the bars and sprinting into the forest on the side of the road.
We were to meet up with Drake’s unit tonight at midnight, and we still had to make it to the meeting spot, which, conveniently, was right where me and Bells made the hole in the wall the other night. It was hot out, and I was sweating under the heavy jumpsuit. We had needed to ditch those things quickly. They were too heavy in this heat, and we were a bit obvious. If people came looking for us, we wouldn’t stand a chance.
We had been walking through one of the more poor neighborhoods when Belle pointed out a clothing line that held a few pairs of pants and shorts and some t-shirts. We walked over, making sure to be quiet, and Belle and I grabbed a pair of jean shorts and a yellow t-shirt each while Drake pulled off some jeans and a black mens t-shirt. We all headed back into the wooded area surrounding the neighborhood to change and then began walking again.
We were almost to the meeting spot when we heard sirens in the distance. Currently, we were walking along a deserted road and there was nowhere that we could run and hide to.

“Run!” I shouted at the others before taking off in the opposite direction of the sirens, hoping to find a safe place to hide before they could find us. Unfortunately, those stupid hovercars the government builds were way faster than I thought they could be. I hadn’t even made it ten feet before their shapes could be made out in the distance.

“Aislin! Over here, quick!” I heard Drake call from behind me. I turned around and saw that Belle was standing at the entrance to a small alley with Drake motioning to me a few feet in front of her. Turning on my heel I sprinted towards the opening.

I was almost there when a sharp pain shooting from my leg made my gasp, but I kept going. Again I felt a sharp pain, only this time it tore through my shoulder and made me double over from the pain. Before I knew it I was on the ground and the edges of my vision were turning fuzzy. A moment later I was lost in a sea of blackness.

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When I woke up I was being jostled in someone’s arms. I could feel a bandage covering both my calf and shoulder and wondered how we had gotten out of there alive and free. I decided that all these questions could wait and my groggy mind gladly let me sink back into unconsciousness.

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When I woke up this time I was in a small, white room. Currently, I was laying down on a small hospital bed and, upon further inspection, discovered that I was hooked up to a heavy-looking IV stand with tubes running up and down my right arm. A light snore alerted me to the fact that there was another person in the room, and I immediately tensed up. A chair on the other side of the room that I hadn’t noticed before held a hunched over form while another small chair was occupied by Drake. His head lifted up and my eyes locked with Drake’s.

He smiled softly, “Welcome to my city Aislin. You and Belle will stay and live with me for a while if you’d like?”

I nodded my head eagerly, “Of course we would!” Bells and I chorused together happily.
We were finally in a place that we could call home, and mean it. I will forever be grateful to Drake and his team for rescuing us when the government police came.