chapter 5

Once the voice had finished it's nap, 96 got to work forming a makeshift rope three times the length of the room using around half of his remaining blanket and more scraps from the trap. Once the rope was completed 96 took out the piece of bread and nibbled on the end of it making sure to not over do it inspite of his rising hunger levels, he had learned from the voice's report that the other children were infact being provided with food but he didn't think it was the best idea for the voice to do anything to stressful like getting food, given his injury. Once he had finished his meal he rapped up the bread once more and put it onto the remaining half blanket that he had neatly folded outside the basket.

96 slowly dragged the basket over to were the flagstone would fall, he positioned the basket in the right angle and then pushed it quickly forward, pulling back right as the stone came hurtling down fitting neatly into the basket. The basket had two handles, one on each side, 96 took the makeshift rope and pulled it threw one of the handles, he grabbed the two pieces and pulled as hard as he could but the stone and rope both held true, 96 smiled and evened out the rope so that it was equil on both sides and then with the help of the voice he tied the two ends together, he then made a small belt and attached it to the point were the ends were tied in order to secure its position. Once the preparations were completed he curled up on the remainder of the blanket with the voice and fell asleep, if his plan was to work he needed to be at his full strength which wasn't much, but it would hopefully be enough to get the job done.

When they both woke 96 stretched in order to relieve stiffness, he than had a bit of bread and some water he had collected in the needle, once he had finished he removed the needle from its tube and used a strip of cloth to tie the needle to his hand. "are you sure you want to go thre with this? I can do it you know." 96 simply smiled, it didn't matter if he died, he would come back, but he had no way of knowing if the same rule applied to the voice since it now had its own form. "You really need to value your life alittle more you know" 96 began securing the belt, it really didn't bother him to die but it's not like he would go out of his way to do so since that would be a waste of time. He paused realizing it might actually be for the best since then the voice would not have to be injured... "don't even think about it" 96 sighed as he finished securing the belt, he picked up the slack of the rope and began crawling to the pool of water. Once he reached the edge he slowly eased himself into the water, he was careful to hold onto the edge since he figured he couldn't keep afloat otherwise, he nodded to the voice, took a deep breath and plunged into the depths of the pool.

The pool was dark and it was hard for him to keep his eyes open but he pushed on until he say a dim light, slowly approaching the light he saw a snake rapped around a glowing stone, the snake seemed to be asleep. 96 decided that the best thing to do would be to retreat for the time being and then return when he had a plan to deal with the snake. Unfortunately the snake woke and darted forward with incredible speed, 96 put his bandaged hand forward and braced himself for impact, the snake hit the needle head on impaling itself, it was over in a matter of seconds the snake became limp and 96 quickly rapped some of the extra rope around its neck to stop it from falling out of his grasp. He then quickly grabbed the glowing stone and began making his way up to the surface by pulling on the rope that was opposite of his own, using this pulley system he did not have to be dragged down by anything he might have found, making the sacrifice of his blanket an overall good investment.

by the time he reached the surface he was gasping for breath, the whole matter had been rather fast but his lung capacity was still that of a child, he was infact rather shocked that he had not died from drowning. "So you were thinking about letting yourself die again" the voice was waiting at the edge of the pool and quickly helped him drag the snake out of the pool and then himself. 96 lay on the stone floor panting, it took him several minutes to regain his breath, once he had he removed the needle from his hand and put it back onto its tube. Once he had finished he turned his attention to the snake corpse and the still glowing stone.