Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

A/N: Just wanted to say thanks to all the readers, both the reviewers, and the follower. You guys are all awesome! Thanks so much and I hop you continue to enjoy the story!


Chapter Three

The trek down into the basement is relatively uneventful. I passed a couple other 'Pupils', but nothing worth writing home about.

I figure that I should check out the basement first. The Warden has this one corner down here, where she keeps all the stuff she confiscates from the 'Pupils'.


The corner is dark and messy. Items spill from cabinets and boxes. All kinds of things: clothes, toys, books...hey! Books. I peer inside the book box. Carefully moving all sorts of comics and stories aside. I reach the bottom of the box with no luck. Before I return upstairs to check out the storage room, I can't help but slip a silver dolphin shaped pendant into my pocket.


When I arrive in the storage room, I trip over a stray bucket and land flat on my face. I open my eyes and can't believe my luck! Right in front of me, under a huge sack of flour is Universe! Now...how the hell am I going to move a 200kilo bag of flour?

I look around for something, anything to use, when it hits me. (I mean it literally hits me...) Make a pulley! A rope falls off of a shelf and hits me. It's not the best, but beggars can't be choosers. I tie one end to the top of the flour bag and fling the other around a beam in the ceiling. I wrap the free end around my hand and pull as hard as I can. Slowly, the bag rises above the ground. Keeping my grip on the rope, I kick Universe away and drop the flour. It crashes to the ground, despite being only a few centimeters above in the first place.

I grab Universe and run back to my room. Shoshana is sitting on her bed, clutching the stuffed cat I stole for her a while ago. We're not allowed to have any items, other than those given to us by the Orphanage, so I kept Shoshana's cat in the safe.

"So I guess you're coming too, right?" I ask, putting Universe into the potato sack.

"Yep. I don't wanna stay here. Too scary." She hugs the ratty old cat tighter.

"Okay," I start, holding out my hand for the cat. "Give me Kitty and then go get your clothes. We're going now."

"Kay!" She places the cat in my hand and dashes off to her own wardrobe.

I continue to dig around in the safe until I find a decently sized piece of string. I thread the dolphin pendant through it and tie the two ends closed. It would make a perfect necklace for Shoshana.

After packing all of our things into the bag, I begin to rip the sheets off of our beds.

"What doing?" Shoshana asks, as I start to tie the ends of the sheets together.

"I don't want to waste a perfectly good rope." I declare, "Oh, grab a blanket out of the wardrobe and pack it too. It might get cold."

Shoshana does as I instruct and I finish my makeshift rope.

"Ready?" I ask, tying one end around the curtain rod.

"Yep."


I take one last look around our grey boxlike room. I'm not going to miss it, but I just want one last look.

I tie the sack to the free end of the rope and chuck it out the window. A few seconds later, I hear a satisfying thump. I seriously hope I wrapped the breakables properly...

"Use the knots to help you climb," I instruct Shoshana "I'll go first, so in case you fall, I can catch you."

We begin our decent to freedom.