The Escape - Part 1

Silence.

Both Sylvia and Octavia remained completely silent as they sat in a pitch-black tunnel.

They had just made it to what they hoped would be their escape, only for the leader of the intruders to enter the bedroom they had just been in.

As they sat there, his footsteps echoed like someone shouting in a cave. It was almost deafening.

He walked into the room very slowly, a good several seconds between each of his steps.

Neither of them knew what to do. They wanted to just run down the tunnel, but who knew how noisy that would be? If they could hear him walking around the room, it was likely he would hear them if they fled down the tunnel.

Sure, he might not know where the entrance was right now, but if they suddenly started moving from where they had just entered it, and he heard. Well, that might give him a very good idea of where the said entrance to the tunnel could be. And having him chase them down a narrow pitch-black tunnel did not sound very appealing.

But this then begged the question. What do they do now?

"Come on Octavia. Come out from wherever you're hiding. All you have to do is come with me and this all ends. No one else has to get hurt."

She heard him loud and clear, the words he spoke hurting her head more than she thought. She couldn't help but wonder if he was telling the truth. They had only come for her. If she handed herself over, would everyone be okay? Would he leave Sylvia alone? Would Lord Desmon and his family be fine?

There were many hypotheticals that came to her mind as he spoke, and she agonized over them all.

She wondered if, had she given herself up at the start, would the all-out attack in the ballroom not have happened. Were those nobles that stared at her with disdain right that this was her thought?

She managed to keep herself quiet as she wracked her brain and tortured herself, but she didn't stop the shaking of her head at all the thoughts passing through her mind.

But in amongst this, she felt a touch on her hand that pulled her out of her own self-destruction. Her eyes opened instantly, and while all she could see was darkness, she knew that Sylvia staring at her as she held her hand.

No words were spoken, but she knew that she had seen her turmoil in the darkness, some form of night vision allowing her to do so. From this gesture alone, she knew she was telling her to stop worrying about it. That it wasn't her fault, and that giving herself up would not solve things.

At least that was what she felt from it all.

But as Octavia thought more on it, she knew that was right. These men came here to take her, but also decided to rob everyone. There was no way this night would have ended without bloodshed. Someone would have fought back rather than being robbed of their possessions, or one of the intruders would have gotten too overzealous with the man handling, leading to the same outcome. Her giving herself up wouldn't have solved that.

Back then and even now, if she gave herself up, there was nothing to say they wouldn't keep killing people. All they had was the word of this leader, a criminal, which is not something you would call trustworthy.

"I know you're in here Octavia. There aren't many places to hide in this room, and it won't take me long to search them."

She was pulled out of her thoughts by the leader again, but his sentence gave her some hope, given that he spoke of hiding spots in the room, which is not where they were. Technically.

It was a shame though that hope only lasted till his next sentence.

"Then, if you're not in one of those, I'm just going to have to check all these walls for anywhere that's hollow."

"Crap", was the first word that came to her mind. Of course, he figured there would be some sort of secret exit. Why wouldn't he?

They could hear him overturning furniture in the room, opening closet doors and the like. It wouldn't be long before he actually started knocking on walls.

They needed to just run. Just try and flee and hope he either doesn't hear them or can't find the door if they move far enough away.

They both looked at each other in the darkness, and Octavia remembered something. Her thermal vision.

Turning it on, she could see Sylvia's face. More or less. The heat it exuded didn't help with details. But that didn't matter, as Octavia looked down the tunnel and back at her, before giving a quick nod while holding up her hand as a way to say wait. Sylvia responded with a nod of her own and got herself ready. This was a bad plan and it was really the only plan they had which was how Sylvia understood.

She sat there listening to the leader moving around the room, waiting for the right moment. Which came as he knocked a piece of furniture to the floor.

It made such a racket that it would cover any sound they made. So with a quick drop of her hand to Sylvia, they dashed down the tunnel, hunched over as they were.

Sylvia had moved in front of her when she had closed the door, being that she had night vision it made sense for her to go in front, which left Octavia trailing behind.

The furniture he knocked down continued to cause a racket after the initial thump as sections of it broke from the force and fell to the floor. As far as she could tell it was some sort of glass. But it didn't last long.

They had moved a short distance down the tunnel when the sound stopped, but they continued moving. They were far enough away that he shouldn't be able to find the door to the tunnel, so right now all they had to do was get away and out of the castle.

It was a shame that they didn't take into account what the leader could do even in the room.

Once the sound from the broken furniture stopped, he could hear footsteps nearby. He quickly identified where they were and dashed over to the wall. He had a job to do and couldn't let Octavia get away. If it meant killing the girl with her, then he would do it. So, with that in mind, he pulled his sword back, followed the sound of the footsteps and plunged it into the wall, piercing the mortar-type substance between the stones of the wall.

Octavia was still moving as far as she could when the blade came through. He had been aiming for Sylvia, but it was hard to do that when you had a moving target you could only locate with sound. So, the blade sliced right through the wall and ended up right in front of her face.

She gasped at how close it had been, freezing on the spot. The blade was thankfully vertical, so if she had continued moving once it was in, she would only have hit her head, rather than get sliced across her face. But, had she been closer to Sylvia, she would have been stabbed right through the head.

She had let go of Sylvia's hand, who turned back to her, freight appearing on her face as she saw the blade, which was now being pulled back.

Both were frozen.

If Sylvia moved now, he would be right there to take either her or Octavia out. They didn't know what to do.

They also couldn't just wait, as he was sure to start stabbing holes in the wall blindly, any of which could kill them outright.

"Think Octavia, Think", Octavia thought as she wracked her brain for an idea.

Then as the tip of the blade slipped back through the wall, it came to her.

…

This would either end up being a brilliant plan or with her receiving an injury.

Or, it wouldn't work and she would probably be captured or killed in the process.

So, with that understanding, she enacted her plan. Lifting up her tail, she quickly moved it through the air and brought the tip down onto the stone ground. Hard.

In rapid succession, she tapped her tail a short distance behind herself several times, moving it away as she did. She hoped this would give the effect that they were fleeing in the other direction. She just had to hope he wouldn't think too deeply about why they were going back the way they came.

It could be they were so scared out of their minds that they forgot the way they were moving.

That was the best she could come up with.

*Slice*

"Humpf"

She quickly had to muffle the scream that was going to rise from her throat by biting her tongue, as she felt cold steel enter the end of her tail.

Injury it was then.

She had hoped he would stab above where her tail was, which would allow her to grab the sword with it. It would have still hurt, but not as much as the force this man used to stab the blade in the wall and evidently her tail.

But, it still achieved the same result.

Lifting her tail upwards, she pulled the sword with it. This in turn made it much more difficult for the leader to pull it out and go for another stab.

While she was doing this, she nodded to Sylvia who dashed away, getting to the corner of the tunnel so she was no longer right next to the room the man was in.

Now all Octavia had to do was get out herself.