I was grateful for the few hours I had before I had to return to my night shift at that prison. The idea of Prower- free and in love and escaping his certain death with a life of fatherhood ahead of him- leaving it was something that I wanted badly for him. For him and Karia. But it was something I deeply dreaded for me.
There are obstacles involved in escaping somewhere that you have been trapped in. One is to get out of the place you're being confined in, and another is getting past the person who put you there. I knew the prison well, and without technology- technology which even Karia couldn't get, let alone Prower- the thick metal bars wouldn't budge without a key. A key which I had on me at all times, every midnight. I feverishly hoped that Prower would somehow slip out of his cell and escape with his wits with Karia as his only ally, but I knew it was impossible and so did he. There was one way Prower would walk past those bars and, inevitably, I was involved.
I wish that I had simply refused to Prower's plan, if you could call it a plan. The prison was small, and on a night where he was its only inmate, I walked towards the stretch of cell doors to find a petite white figure curled delicately into a corner.
"Karia," I said blankly. She stared at me, her sky-blue eyes fearful and wary, even if I think she might have trusted me. If I had thought about it, her relationship with Prower perplexed me. She was everything he was not; timid and quiet, modest, all too aware of the consequences capture would bring. I talked to Prower more than her, and I had never contacted Karia above the confines of the prison, but I think that she understood me far better than he did. The doubt that your own opinions will bring to you in a life of people who would reject you if they knew you had them. We had never known freedom like Prower did.
The sight of her disheartened me. She was in the later stages of pregnancy now- I wondered how she had been concealing the fact she carried the child of a prisoner below the ground- but the curves of her stomach did little to hide her small bones and the delicate way she carried herself. Softly. Gracefully. Her fur was pure white, clean and untainted, and she gave the impression that she were made of porcelain. Fragile.
I walked past her, and it was once I passed Prower that I learned the reason for her fearful look.
"Miles," he said urgently. "It's time."
"Time?" I echoed stupidly.
"Time for Karia to give birth soon. Time for us to become parents. Which I will do!" he spoke with the same lightness he always did. He didn't need to say any more, even if he did. I almost felt it, a burden of responsibility and a feeling of being torn in two, forming in my chest and rising until it became so heavy it dropped onto my shoulders. "And I need your help to do it."
"My help..." I was so idiotic, so naive that the idea actually excited me slightly. To rebel. To do what I had dreamed of so much in my childhood.
"Miles." he was serious now, something strange and rare to see Prower be. "You know what will happen. And what's at stake. If you could...actually do this..."
He was lost for words.
"I know."
"Hey, maybe if you did-" His character, it seemed, had restored itself into his voice, "We could have you be a godfather."
We both shared a nervous laugh at that. As if there were any chance we could remain in contact. Or there were any chance that I would remain unpunished.
"When?" I asked, too afraid to voice anything more.
"Now."
That shocked me, but before I could allow myself to think too much about it, I shakily pressed the key into its keyhole and twisted. The door swung open.
Prower, after months of confinement, seemed temporarily dazed at leaving this tiny room which he had never left in countless days. He bit his lip, hesitated, and ran. He was nimble; faster than I would have thought. He moved with surprising silence and grace, more like he were swimming rather than running. I watched him leave for a few seconds, and then he was gone, a second sound of footsteps starting to echo his own. Karia.
I suppose that was the moment when it happened. When my tearing in two stopped, and I chose one side between my life and my sense of justice. Those few seconds I had left to run after to them, call for them to stop or attack them or do something that wouldn't have left me in the guilt-haunted life I live now. If they escaped on my shift, it was obvious that I wouldn't be fairly tried. If not for aiding them escape, I would be punished for carelessness. There was little technology in the Tribe and it came only from Outside. Prower's world. But there was some, a rare few pieces of that mysterious tangle of wires and parts that nobody understood. Some of it was in my prison.
The alarm could be deactivated in time for me to leave with the key. The key, the only copy of which hung from my belt. I took it, dropped it and crushed its frail machinery under my shoe. As the rings pulsed out from all around me, rousing the civilians and the tribe's officials from everywhere, I knew that I wouldn't need it. I suppose they would believe I'd forgotten the alarm, and as much as it shamed me, that was probably what I would let them believe.
For a few seconds, I genuinely let myself think they had a chance of escaping pursuit, but then I heard a few familiar voices. Screaming. Snarling. The sound of impact, and then sobbing.
That was the talk of the town for the next few days. The convict who had tried to escape with his secret lover. He had stolen the jailkeeper's key, sneaked past him, but was caught by the alarm. He and the girl were sentenced execution. Good riddance, people replied, shaking their heads; dangerous to have someone like that here. And the girl, Karia I think her name was, she supports criminals. People from the Outside.
Nobody mentioned me.