The Escape Plan

Three years in this orphanage and nobody still celebrated my birthday. I started hating the day I was born. It led me to this hell hole that I’m living in. At the age of nine, I finally understood our purpose here - to give money to this orphanage. We were only treated as money making machines. That's why no one cared to celebrate our birthdays. We were only treated special once a month… just when there would be an upcoming adoption day.

At this point, I was already thinking about ways on how to escape. I studied every door for entrances and exits, and I observed the routine of our keepers. They fall asleep at eleven o’clock in the evening and they wake up at six in the morning. With that time frame, I just have approximately seven hours to execute my escape plan.

I thought about leaving my room at exactly 12AM and just tiptoe my way out. Or, I could slowly make an opening on my window and escape from there. But, I’d have to jump from a two-storey height or I could tie a blanket around the metal bar on my window so that I could use it to slide out.

The night came when I thought that it was the right time to execute my plan.

As I was about to tiptoe my way out of my room, I heard someone calling my name from the hollow space at the back of my window.

I paused and turned around in that direction but saw no one.

When I continued walking, my door flung shut towards me, almost hitting my face. I was glad that I flinched backwards and I avoided the supposed hard and painful hit on the face.

“Chari....”

That same airy, sweet, little voice called gently. The voice was relaxing my ear. I could hear similar voices like that every time my parents and I would watch horror movies. The only difference was that, this time, it was real.

“Chari…”

The same non-human voice was calling me, like she was convincing me to look for her. But I was not convinced. I went back to my plan and tried opening the door again. But to my surprise, the door was locked.

The air blew harder and my windows swung open.

Great.

That would mean that I’d just continue on with my plan B.

The window.

But…

“Chari,”

Now, that one’s a ghostly whisper.

I felt the hair on my skin stand on their ends as the icy breeze that came from my window swept across the room. I shivered, but that was from the cold and not the fear. I wasn’t scared. I was annoyed, instead.

“Chari…”

This girl was getting on my nerves because she was messing with my plans. I walked towards my window and looked to see if there’s anyone that might see me. Only the swaying trees and the bright and huge full moon greeted me. Seeing nobody, I got confident that I would successfully execute this escape plan.

I tied my blanket on the metal bar of my window. But the wind blew harder and it broke the metal bar.

How pathetic.

I tried finding another metal bar that I could use to tie my blanket on. But before I could find any, the wind started to blow harder, like it was pushing me back to my bed. Dogs outside started howling. With all my might, I walked towards the window to continue on with my plan. But when I looked down, I saw a girl standing under the huge oak tree. She was wearing a dirty white dress with no slippers on to protect her feet. Her hands were both behind her back and she was smiling at me but I couldn’t see her face clearly.

And then she laughed.

That was the evilest laugh I have ever heard in my entire life. That was creepy enough to make my hair stand on their ends again.

Suddenly, she was running towards me. I froze and I just watched her as she jumped up to my window. It was a sixteen feet jump and no normal child could ever do that. That was when I knew that this kid wasn’t human at all. The light from the moon hit her face and I saw that she had glowing red eyes and her teeth were sharp shaped like the blade of a saw. My breath turned into short shallow gasps as I tried to run for my life.

I went straight to my door but it was still locked. With all my strength, I tried to open it. I banged it as hard as I could, hoping that somebody would hear me.

I turned my head to look at her and to my surprise, she jumped on top of me!

I could feel her claws digging deep into my skin as she was trying to reach my heart. This girl’s a monster! It felt like I was facing death in the hands of a demon. She cackled and cackled before she spoke. Her hand made a hole in my chest.

“You belong to me now, Chari” she said with an evil look in her eyes

I couldn’t even look at her smile. The sight of it made me tremble in extreme fear. Everything was so intense that I regret trying to escape.

When she was about to bite through my neck, I screamed.

“HELP ME!!! SOMEBODY!! PLEASE! HELP ME!!”

With my eyes closed, I repeated those words again and again, hoping that someone would hear me. Then I felt somebody holding both of my arms. Suddenly, the weight of the girl above me was gone.

I opened my eyes only to see an orphan keeper trying to wake me up. I checked for the deep wound on my chest but it wasn't there anymore. Maybe I was just having a nightmare.

“Thank you!” I yelled before breaking down in tears.

She held me into her arms and for the first time in three years, I felt the warmth of someone else’s embrace. That made me calm down and realize that all of those were just a dream.

"You're okay now," she assured me.

That was the day I started talking again.