Al looked up at us from where he was sitting, a spoonful of mush still halfway to his mouth. When we'd finished he dropped the spoon back into the bowl and pushed it away. He scratched his cheek, and then seemed to think before saying:

'That all you need me for?'

We said yes. He sighed before coughing into his hand.

'Listen, guys.' He said. 'I'm real sorry for what happened before. I didn't…'

'We don't care, Al.' Hilton cut him off. 'Just help us with this, and all is forgiven.'

'I'm an old man, boys. I don't reckon I'll ever see Earth again. Of course I'll help you. I just hope that God can forgive me for what I've done.' He shook his head, looking up to the ceiling. 'I was right, wasn't I? Killing that burglar? I mean, he was on my property.'

'Sure, Al.' I replied. 'Sure.' We went over the details of the plan with him once more, and told him when we were going to carry it out. After we'd finished I felt sick. Here I was, actually planning an escape. The end was in sight. I just wasn't sure if I wanted to go or not. I tried thinking how old Lizzie would have been by now. I was appalled to discover that I didn't know how long I'd been in there. I didn't know how old my daughter would be. Such is life. The night before we'd scheduled the escape, my ace in the hole hidden under my bed, Hilton came to speak to me about it. When I heard his footsteps I was glad that they weren't Deibels. It's strange how if you spend enough time with them, you can tell who is coming just by the sound of them approach. This time, it was Richard Hilton. He entered my cell without saying hi and sat on the bed next to me.

'So…' he said, twiddling his thumbs.

'We're going to escape…' I said to him.

'If all goes well.'

'Thing is I don't even know if I want to anymore. Remember when Evan died, you said that we were going to escape? That seems so far away now.' There was silence before I added. 'I don't know if I want to leave.' I could feel a lump rising in my throat.

'Listen, Dwight.' Hilton looked me in the eye. 'I know that you don't want to go. I don't either, but we both know that if we stay, Deibel would kill us. It's either death, or life.'

'We could stay, with Lawrence and go out into the forest.' I started grasping at straws.

'We wouldn't be able to leave the compound without being seen, and the rest of our lives? IN there, with Lawrence?' he shook his head. 'We'd all kill each other.'

I gave a small laugh that was also a sigh.

'It's just…I'd miss it, Hilton. I'd miss the forest, and… and Ni'awtu and I just don't know if I can stand going back to Earth.'

'You might feel like that now, but you'll still have the memory. If you die you won't have anything. If you go back to Earth, you can tell people. About what's happening here.' I didn't reply. We both knew that the RDA wouldn't listen. 'Emma wouldn't have wanted you to stay here, in hiding.'

'How do you know what Emma would want?' I shot back, a little angry.

'Because you've told us about her. And you need to go back and mourn, Dwight. We all know you haven't got past her death yet. You need to leave.' I stayed silent, resting my chin on my hands. He was right. Goddamn it, he was right.

So we carried on with the escape plans. I didn't sleep that night. The next morning, it wasn't a mining day. We could carry it out freely, assuming Deibel didn't come and kill me whilst I slept. luckily, he didn't. And so, it was a sunny, perfect day when we called for Al, and marched up to the man guarding the door to the outside.

Once again, he didn't say anything. Just gave us the exopacks. I prayed that these ones weren't faulty. Of course, I hadn't seen Deibel yet. He might think that I was dead. The man passed me three, and I gave them to my friends. Our faces were grave when we walked into decompression and waited for the light to go green, and the hissing to indicate that we could open the door.

Outside, the sun was blazing. Everything that it's rays touched was red hot, including us. A slight breeze ruffled our suits and made me grateful. I breathed in a deep breath, looking at the trees ahead of us, swaying softly, and listening to the animals in the distance. Today was a good day. I couldn't help but think that we should go and see Ni'awtu, and lounge about lazily in the sun. We should just forget about this and live life one day at a time. I shook such thoughts out of my head. They weren't going to help me. The first step was relatively simple. We strode over the hard concrete floor, moving away from the main gate and towards the broken fence.

'You sure this is all I have to do?' Al asked.

'Yes.' Hilton replied bluntly. For the first time in a while, I was moving with a purpose, and not just to see Ni'awtu. It felt surprisingly good, the adrenaline already running through my veins. We reached the fence and climbed over it, Al taking a while longer but waving Hilton away when he offered help. From there, we climbed through the broken window to see Lawrence standing in the adjacent room, waiting for us. We nodded at him as a silent greeting.

'Is everything according to plan?' He asked in his gravely voice. I nodded again. 'Right.' He said. 'Al, I'm going to need your clothes.'

Al stripped out of his jump suit, leaving him with only underwear on. Lawrence did the same, and they swapped clothes. The orange suit was a little small on Lawrence, but we had been lucky that they were of similar size and shape. Hilton looked Lawrence up and down.

'It'll do.' He said. He turned to Al. 'We just need you to stay here until we come to get you.' Al smiled. 'I don't want to escape.' Hilton blinked. 'I'm an old man, boys. You don't have to come back for me. I always did want to see the forest. It's been a pleasure meeting you.' He smiled again, offering us his hand. I shook it, looking him in the eye.

'You're serious.' I muttered. 'I don't care what you say, I'm coming back for you, Al.' I said. I left him at that. It was enjoyable having the last word. All we did then was walk back. With Lawrence in the tight orange jump suit, we walked back after waiting about 5 minutes. When we got to the entrance, there was a horrible moment when I thought that he wouldn't let us in. To give him credit, Lawrence did a pretty good job at making himself inconspicuous.

I'm sure that it was just my imagination. After all, he let us in after what seemed like years. We rushed in, my heart pumping fast. The light couldn't turn green soon enough. Now that we were carrying out our plan, I didn't think of anything. Didn't think if I wanted to or not, just thought about what I was going to do next. Everyone was outside exercising, so there was no one but the guards to watch us walk back to my cell. I thought about what a horrible existence it would be, to be a guard. I could imagine them wanting someone to punch him so he could do something.

I walked to my cell and looked under my bed. It was still there. Temporarily relieved, I picked up the seemingly small bag of cocaine that Al had given to me. The man had connections, to be able to get it all the way out here. Of course, the guards probably brought it over themselves on their rotation. I strode out of my cell, leaving Hilton and Lawrence in my cell. I went to the nearest guard I could see. Trying to look like someone who knew what they were doing, I talked to him.

'Hey you!' I said, feeling foolish. He shook his head.

'You talking to me?' he said in a high voice.

'You know where Deibel's office is?' I said.

'What if I do?'

'Tell him to come to Dwight Dolton's cell, and I might make it worth your while.' I clumsily tried to show him the bag in my palm. He seemed to lick his lips, then he walked up to me and snatched the bag from my palm. I breathed a sigh of relief as he walked off. The plan was going well. Of course, he was probably bored to tears and would do anything to liven up his day. I'd just offered it to him. The next stage of the plan was nervously waiting in my cell, biting our nails. It wasn't pleasant and we didn't say anything. We waited and waited. Until I heard the sound. The click clacking. It was Deibel. And he was coming towards us fast.

We all stood up as we heard the sound. It was hard to mistake it for anything else. I felt a trickle of sweat run down my back. Deibel made himself visible, wearing his pristine- blue suit. I felt a shiver as I saw his face. He was obviously angry at the news of me being alive had reached him. And he didn't exactly expect two other people to be in here with me. The anger just seemed to pour off of him, and in that moment I felt more scared than I had when we were about to be killed by the guards that took people out to the forest. I bit my lip. There was a silver lining at least: he didn't have guards with him.

'Dolton!' He barked. 'What the hell…' his eyes widened as he noticed who was in the cell with me. A small smile of satisfaction passed Lawrence's face.

'You're dead…' he muttered.

'Nice to see you too, Alex.' Lawrence grinned. I could tell he was enjoying this. I could almost see the smoke coming from Deibel's ears. As Deibel was frozen with surprise, Lawrence ran up and punched him right in the face. Not ready for it, he fell onto the ground, his nose bleeding. Lawrence hit him again and screamed:

'RUN!'

Hilton and I dashed out of the cell, rushing down the stairs. We ran towards the corridors, through them and towards the exit. I heard more running behind us, and Deibel's voice screaming:

'What the hell do we pay you for? Shoot them!'

Luckily we were at the exit when the guards had been alarmed. We reached the sleepy guard that never had an expression on his face. We didn't have time to wait for him. Hilton punched him, knocking him clean out in one punch. We quickly picked up the exopacks as I punched in the code to open the door. I had been doing this for the past few weeks. I'd found out that the code never changed, or at least not any time I saw it. The man had been punching it in so slowly it was hard to not see what the code was. I just never had to take advantage of it before. The door opened slowly and we put exopacks on. A few seconds later, Lawrence came sliding around the corner, his face red. I tossed him an exopack and he screamed at us to go through the door. I heard Deibel running with what sounded like more guards. My heart pumped faster and faster, and I was nearly out of breath already. The light turned green as soon as Deibel and his muscle came hurtling around the corner. I smiled. There were two emergency exopacks in the decompression chamber. Although I wouldn't put it past him to gather a hundred exopacks and come after us with a hundred guards. Although as angry as he was, and having just seen a person he thought was dead, I didn't think he'd be up to much thinking. We ran out of the gate, which the guard opened with no complaint.

Our heels kicked up dirt as we thundered through the forest and towards our destination. I heard Deibel and a guard not far behind us. That was good. He had only brought one guy. What we didn't plan for was the gunshots. The bullets drummed into the ground beneath our feet and Lawrence screamed. Hilton grabbed me and forced me to turn a corner, going off the road and into the forest proper. The same sounds rang out through the trees, the familiarity ruined by the fact that we were running for our lives. The bullets came again, the gunshots deafening. Luckily none hit us and we turned another corner. Not much longer now. I ran and ran, reminded of when we'd tried to escape the first time. So much more was at stake now. I took in big breaths of air, my legs becoming tired. Not long now.

We reached our destination without getting shot. I noted the familiarity of the big orange spiral plants, and the smaller yellow ones. I smiled and wooped as I saw that one of them was there. I turned around, and Deibel came rushing through the trees and into the clearing, his guard not far behind. His face twisted in confusion as he wondered why we'd stopped. Then he saw the figure behind me. I shouted

'Keep the one in the blue alive!'

The leaves in the tree rustled above us and I looked up. Leyra was standing on a branch, and she was ready. She leaped down, letting out a roar. Our two followers looked up too late, and the Na'vi had jumped onto the guard before he knew it. I heard a snapping and I flinched. Poor guy. Now it was just Deibel and us. Lawrence was standing behind us, Hilton by my side. Deibel looked to the dead guard. He turned to me, his face twisted in rage as he unclipped the holster at his side and drew out the gun.

'Stop.' Ni'awtu's voice came out from behind me. She was holding her bow in her hands, an arrow knocked and pointed at Deibel. He looked behind him and saw Leyra doing the same.

'Drop the weapon, Deibel.' I said, a smile creeping up on me. The power was delicious.

He didn't make any move to drop his gun. Hilton's voice came out from beside me.

'These arrows could rip a hole in you big enough for all your organs to pour out of. So drop the weapon.' Deibel snarled with anger but dropped the weapon. I went over to pick it up, trying to stay as far away from him as possible. I picked it up and backed off, aiming it at him. He raised his hands, and it pleased me to see that they were shaking. Something in me wanted to lash out and pull the trigger again and again, to teach him a lesson. I told myself to calm down. I'd have my revenge in due time.

It was then that I realised Deibel was smiling.

'What are you smiling about?' I asked.

'You underestimated me, Dolton!' He laughed. He waved a hand above his head and suddenly there was a movement to my left, a stirring in the plants. Before I could act, a man with a gun jumped out, firing wildly in our direction. I dived to the floor, my hands on my head. I heard a whooshing of air, and before I knew it, the man had an arrow stuck through his chest, and he crumpled to the floor, dead.

My ears still ringing, I looked back up, quickly pointing my gun at Deibel. He was still there, Leyra was making sure of that. Good.

'Is anyone hit?' Lawrence shouted.

'No!' I said back.

'Richard?' Lawrence said. I quickly turned around. Hilton was slumped over, his hands on his stomach. He raised one of his hands and saw that it was covered in blood. He looked up at me and smiled. I ran to him and caught his body before he slumped to the ground. It was pretty obvious that he'd been shot twice, because our jump-suits were so thin. He was trembling, and his breath was raggedy, as if he couldn't draw in enough oxygen. I didn't know what to do with my hands, and I let out an:

'Oh God, Hilton, no.' He smiled again and let out a small laugh that looked like it hurt.

'Stop laughing, I'll, I'll take you to the Na'vi, get you help.' I was going to move him but thought better of it.

'We both know that's a lie, Dwight.' He said.

'No, it's not, it's…' I felt tears forming at my eyes. Hilton smiled again.

'I wasn't…keen on going back anyway. It'll be nice…going out in the forest, around such beauty…'

'You're not going out!' he ignored me.

'Looks like I'll get my wish, eh?' he was taking more breaths in-between words now, I could almost feel the energy seeping out of him. I tried to think of something to say.

'You've done well, Dwight.' He said. ' It's been great.' And with that, he closed his eyes and I felt the life go away from him. I was left holding a limp body. I let the tears fall, feeling terrible. Richard Hilton was dead.

Deibel was laughing. I turned around and screamed:

'SHUT THE HELL UP!' at him. He seemed to stop. I stayed over Hilton's body for a time: I couldn't tell you how long. But it seemed all too soon when Lawrence knelt by me and whispered that we should be going. I was insistent on a burial, but he was quick to point out that it was impractical. I argued for a while, Deibel still saying nothing. He started making a noise that sounded like laughing, and I was so overcome with anger that I strode over to him and ripped his exopack off. Lawrence shouted at me to stop, but I felt a feeling as satisfaction as Deibel's eyes seemed to pop out of his skull and he was left gasping for air.

I put the mask on him moments before he passed out, and he was left helpless, gasping for air. I made him look into my eyes when I growled:

'You're going to make the papers for my release, you murderer. You're going to call an unobtanium ship down, and you're going TO ARRANGE A FUNERAL FOR HIM!' I pointed at Hilton's dead body. Ni'awtu and Leyra were wisely leaving us to it. Deibel could do nothing but nod.

'If you do anything so much as breath out of place I'll leave the pack off next time!' I spat the words out like poison. He didn't say anything, his hands on his exopack. I told Lawrence to take him out towards the road and leave me and the Na'vi together. I waited a while, looking at Hilton's body. I tried to push the thoughts from my head. I would have time to mourn him later.

'Dwight.' Ni'awtu said. 'I am sorry.'

'You have nothing to be sorry of, Ni'awtu. Thank you.' I said back, stretching my neck up high to look into her eyes. She knelt down, making it easier.

'I thank you, Dwight Dolton, for being my friend.' She smiled that beautiful smile and my heart broke at the thought of never seeing her again. I was having afterthoughts. I smiled, feeling more tears forming at the edge of my eyes.

'I don't want to go…' I whispered.

'But you must. We understand.' Ni'awtu finished for me. 'If you wanted…we could bury your friend.' Ni'awtu said. I nodded, breathing becoming hard for me

'That would be nice.'

'Goodbye, Leyra, Ni'awtu.' I made the 'I see you' sign and was expecting Ni'awtu to do the same, but she didn't. She knelt down very low and gathered me in a gentle embrace. Surprised, I let the tears flow. Leyra hugged me too. I said I See You to both of them, and watched them walk off, Hilton in their arms, the three of them never to be seen by me again.

I walked back to the road, my mood low. I made threats to Deibel. Threats that I won't repeat here. His face went white, and I pretty much shoved him all the way back to the prison. Lawrence went back to Hell's Gate to get Al, leaving me alone with Deibel.

'Get me out of here and I'll leave you alive.' I muttered. Deibel's face got a bit of colour back at that.

'How can I trust you?' he shot back. I grabbed him by the hair.

'You can't.' I growled. Impatient, I made him march back into the prison, my gun pointing at the back of his head. The guards in the cell blocks I walked past raised their guns. I growled at Deibel to tell them to stand down, and he did so. We did this all the way to Admin head Brydon's office, for his signature.

'What the hell is going on here?' He shouted when I walked in.

'You're signing my release papers, Brydon.' I said. I trained my gun on him and told his guards to stand down. They did so, but kept their guns ready, waiting for the order. Deibel seemed to have the practical power around here, as he screamed at Brydon to make them and do it. I waited whilst Brydon ordered a young guy at a computer to do it. It seemed easy now it got down to it. All we needed was their permission. What would happen on the other end, I didn't know. I'd come to that when it happened.

It took a few hours, but the ship came down. I was leaving. The airfield was a while away from the prison, and we'd be taken up in the ship used to take unobtanium up to the ISV. Lawrence, Al and I got inside, showing papers. I left Deibel alive. There was a moment when I realised: killing him would solve nothing. It would serve to satisfy me for a few hours, then nothing would have changed. Killing scum like Deibel was a job for someone else. All I wanted, when Hilton died, was to get far away from Pandora when I thought about it. The Na'vi would bury him. I wonder now, if he's with Eywa. I hope so. I think he'd have wanted that. As I stared out of the window at the forest as we went up into the clouds, many thoughts rushed through my head, but one was prevalent. I was going home.

I was escaping.

'What will you do when you get back?' Lawrence asked me.

'I don't know.' I replied.

'I don't know.'

This has been the story of a man and his madness. This has been the story of death, of live and of Pandora. A story of friendship and the Na'vi. As I sit here, as I reach the end of this story, I'm thinking of Emma. I ask you one question:

Would she be happy?

THE END. I hope you enjoyed reading Escape From Pandora.