Escape from Metal

Location: Slave camp.

“Remember to look out for the weak panels, you’ll fall right through and then we’ll never find you.” Had been the hulk of a man’s parting words as he sent Gwen into the duct of the giant piece of metal hanging several hundred meters above the ground.

Apparently from the little he spoke and what she could make out among all the cutting and grinding around them. This had been a piece of old machinery the machines were going to dump in the pit.

Since they weren’t exactly as active in most areas anymore their benevolent leader decided to use it for whatever they were building. She was a twig compared to the man that had dragged her here and she could barely squeeze through the air vents.

These vents were old and creaking. Dust laced the air and all the surfaces of the air vents not to mention the grime that was still on them. Gwen had attempted to scrub it off with her hands or pluck pieces off but after each motion forwards it would just be restuck or she would have more dust on her than before.

She now understood why the man had given her a piece of cloth, it was so that she could breathe in the cramped dusty vents.

Dragging herself through the vents as her knees and elbows scratched along the creaky interior of the hulk. She started becoming aware of the claustrophobia. She thought it strange. She only became aware of the claustrophobia and didn’t feel any closing in or slight anxiety as most would have at this point.

She would have liked to have the companion of anxiety instead her only companion was the poorly filtered air and the creaking of the guts of the hanging hulk. She mulled over the thought of feeling and how it might well feel.

Her thoughts were interrupted when she realized the man had never told her where she was supposed to connect these wires. He would surely not have dragged her all that way without telling her.

She was probably close anyway and she didn’t exactly know how to turn around in the tight space. So she decided to wonder through the vents for a couple of minutes. Trying to imagine no, emulate the anxiety she was supposed to feel but just as she thought that she had almost achieved emotion she felt flat again.

For now, she let the thoughts of emotions and the attempt at forcefully wrangling them go. She had to focus the light that had shone through the cracks was starting to fade and the air was getting thicker. In a few minutes, even it might not be enough to filter out the dust. Not that it was putting her at ease at the moment.

“Did you find it?” She heard the man’s voice echo through the vent.

“Find what? You never told me where I was supposed to take these wires.” She said.

“Look for a giant oval like room. There should be some ports at the bottom where you can plug in the wires. Don’t get lost though we can’t find you that deep in the vents.”

“Thanks.” She said sarcastically continuing with the scrapping crawl.

He wasn’t wrong though she had heard stories of people going deep inside the hulks and getting lost or stuck never to be found again.

At least till whatever they were building was finished. She heard some of the other slaves telling stories of how they could hear the frantic panicking of whoever was unfortunate enough to get stuck.

The hours of banging on the walls of the vents. The manic cries for help and they had said if you listened closely enough you could sometimes hear the sound of crying over all the construction. Some said that you could still her the screams of terror inside the wrecks if you listened close enough.

Gwen was determined to not be one of those people she wouldn’t get stuck, she couldn’t. She still planned on escaping. She hadn’t thought beyond that what she would do. Without Aisha that is. She wouldn’t allow them to pull her dried corpse out of the hulk once it was constructed.

The creaking of the vents was getting louder and more frequent, if she could be nervous, she was sure that she would’ve reached its apex by now. She wondered if she wouldn’t eventually fall out the other side of the hulk, it felt like she had been crawling for hours.

The groaning had become louder than Gwen thought it would, she thought it would’ve faded by now. The next second the vent under her gave way as she tumbled down into the darkness. The wires followed close behind her. Whirring as it tumbled downward.

Gwen was submerged and her leg was tangled in the wires now slowly descending deeper into the dark liquid. She slowly floated down with it for a second or two. Thinking. Why she wasn’t panicking. Why didn’t she have any fear, why couldn’t she have any? She was about to drown, wasn’t she?

She refocused her attention on the wires. They had wound themselves around her leg and its metallic casing was making it sink deeper. She had to act quick, or she would drown. She tugged and pulled at the wires. Nothing they were too tightly wrapped around her leg.

She tried swimming upwards, but the wire’s insulation was too heavy and kept dragging her down. She tried swimming harder. Still sinking. Still drowning.

She went back to work trying to pull the wires from her leg. They were still stuck to her, but she had managed to loosen them a bit. Enough for her to stick one of her hands in between the wire and her leg. With all the strength she had she pulled upwards in an uppercut like motion.

The cables only budged slightly, and she was running out of air and soon. With every attempt every action she was using more of her precious oxygen. She had to get free, or she would end up like the wailing and screaming in the vents. Destined only to be found years, centuries later. Dried up and forgotten.

This time she managed to slip in her other arm, and she heaved.

Freedom.

The cable released her. She instinctually grabbed onto the sinking cables and used them to hoist herself upwards where there was hopefully some air. She gasped as she surfaced like a deep-sea creature taking its first breath in years.

The air was not pleasant, she had fallen into some kind of oil reservoir. The air burned her lungs as she heaved but she had no choice she had to breathe, or she would suffocate. She might suffocate either way. If she breathed too much of the noxious fumes, she might lose consciousness and drown anyway.

Her piece of cloth although now soaked in oil and reeked of its fumes offered some degree of filtration but she would not last long in here and she couldn’t hold onto the cables for more than a second. As they slipped through her hands.

She thought of calling for help but even if they could hear her, they couldn’t get here. Even if they could get here, they wouldn’t be able to do it fast enough. She decided to save what fresh air she had left in her body for finding a way out of the reservoir. She couldn’t see anything though and the oily blackness of the reservoir seemed to create a darkness within the darkness. As if she were swimming in an island of darkness.

She had to think of something, a way she could get out. She tried to hold onto the wires while she tried to think of a plan, but her grasp kept on slipping. She imagined she would have looked quite silly were she not in a life-threatening situation. With each passing second, her arms grew wearier and wearier.

She ran through all the ideas she could think of. Of course, the useless ones came to mind first, like climbing out which wasn’t possible with the slippery oil, calling for help like she hadn’t thought of that yet.

She was still above whatever the black liquid was but soon wouldn’t be able to grab the wires for long. She tried wrapping the wires around her arm but that didn’t work either.

She decided that her best option would be to swim around the edge of the room she was in and see if there was a hatch or anything of the like she could open. If her lungs didn’t burn up before that.

She swam to what she thought was the closest side although somewhat slowly as the thick inky blackness felt like it was holding her in place. It didn’t help her that her arms felt like they wanted to fall off, but she had to push through the weariness. It was that or drown. No choice at all really.

She eventually reached the side of the room. Now would be the part where most people would be frantically searching for a way out of this death trap but she was as calm as she always was. She started methodically looking in a clockwise manner making sure to check half a meter above and below the surface of the inky blackness.

Nothing on what she decided to call the western side of the room. Her lungs were starting to burn more than before. Nothing on the northern side except for some small protrusions not enough to even hold onto.

Nothing on the eastern side either. She was starting to think the probability of her escaping from the room was getting lower by the minute. She checked the final side of the room and was surprised to find some kind of metallic circle. She hoped it was a hatch door.

She closed her eyes for a second after she resurfaced. Took a deep breath and dived below. She planted both her feet on opposite sides of the circle and grab it on each side with her hands. She twisted as hard as she could.

It didn’t budge. She tried again this time. Becoming increasingly aware of her growing need for oxygen. The circle moved but only slightly. From how it felt it was rusted. She didn’t know if she had the strength to open it.

She twisted again. It still didn’t move no matter how much she twisted or how much strength she tried to summon it didn’t move. She thought it was probably rusted shut by decades of sitting around.

She had run out of air and taking a deep breath was not an option. She really wished she could panic because now would be the ideal time for it. Instead, she hovered underwater until her vision faded to bad, she didn’t really have any other options. No one to call. No one to save her. She would become like the other lost in the ship.

Just as she gently floated to the bottom. Her vision suddenly returned. She had no idea why, but she felt like she had just taken a deep breath of fresh air. She quickly swam to the surface and took small breaths to test if her lungs would still burn.

She took a breath out of the corner of her mouth. Nothing, maybe she didn’t take in enough air to affect her. She took a risk and took a normal breath. Still nothing. She was confounded how she could spontaneously breathe the air. Had she died and her last thoughts was this, of escape?

It’s then that she noticed a small red light in the corner of her eye. No matter where she looked the red light would be there.

“Guess I have a new case of spontaneous red eye.” She muttered to herself.

It’s then when she nearly became blinded. She could see and really see not just the vague outline of shapes. Now she really and truly didn’t know what was going on.

“Looks like I have another condition, spontaneous night vision.”

She assumed it had something to do with the red light in her eye but right now she didn’t really have time to question why it happened, but she could use this to her advantage and actually get out of this deathtrap.

After a few seconds of looking around, she saws something at the bottom of the tank that looked like a power port of something. Not wasting a moment of her renewed strength, she swam up to the drifting cables.

“I hope this works.” She thought to herself.

She snatched the cables and dragged them down with her as she dove towards the ports.

She had to hurry she had no idea how long she would be able to see in the dark.

Finally reaching the port. She saw that it was divided into smaller parts each made for individual wire ports. She carefully connected them one by one.

She wondered what she might actually be connecting them to but that didn’t matter now. Either this was going to kill her, she would drown, or this was going to miraculously save her. She was assuming it was going to be the first.

She finally connected all 16 individual ports. For the first few seconds, nothing happened. Then the entire tank shook violently. Lights inside flashed as it came back to life but just as soon as she thought she could breathe a sigh of relief a hatch opened below her.

It quickly made a vortex sucking the oil out of the tank. Gwen tried to paddle away from the vortex desperately trying to escape its hold. It was futile as she got sucked down into the hatch. The next moment she got spat out of the giant hanging hunk of junk.

She was happy that she escaped well she guessed she would be if she could. Now she had a new problem. The hunks were hung quite high above the ground so that the other slaves could work on more at once.

Unfortunately for her, that meant she was falling rapidly towards the floor.