In the corner of the grey room lit dimly by a single candle, a man in his mid-forties was using a bent link of a rusted chain to scratch an indentation in the wall. His unkempt hair had long since since become a solid mass of grime, and dark bags had formed under his eyes, making him to always appear more haggard than he actually was. All he was clothed in was a giant rag that had turned a murky black from the years it had remained unwashed. Despite all this, the man grinned from ear to ear, expressing his wild elation to the fullest. Three hundred sixty five scratches on the wall behind him. One hundred twenty two scratches on the wall before him. In total, four hundred eighty seven days had passed since he was unrighteously thrown in here. Four hundred eighty seven days that he couldn’t even be sure of, for not a single speck of natural light shined within his room. His most reliable reference was the two meals a day the guards supposedly brought him, and his constantly grumbling stomach affirmed that this reference was, unfortunately, still unreliable.

His gut told him it would be today. It was raining today, or had been. The leak from the ceiling told him as much. As long as Tim was the one to serve the food, he would have enough information to carry out the plan. All other pieces had been set in place. They were already convinced he was insane, and perhaps he really was.

The first time, they had barged into his vocal training. He had been imitating the voice and posture of his mother. Oh how amusing it must have seemed. A man over the age of forty playing the mother in his own invisible play. It was training, but surely they didn’t know. Hesitantly, the guard slipped the tray of food under the bars, and went to report the prisoner’s changes to his commander. In that moment, the man realized that the plan had sprung into action. Each time after, the antics grew wilder. He swung an empty sock around like a warrior would swing a saber. He screeched and shook the handle bars until they beat him to a stop. He peed on the guard that beat him the next time he came to bring him food (he went hungry that night, but a smug satisfaction kept him full). Most recently, they had brought the chief jailer with them and stumbled upon him pacing the edges of the room and screaming numbers excitedly. They dubbed him insane. He dubbed himself genius.

The lock to the door fumbled. He quickly hid the bent chain link and began growling like a rabid dog. Tim walked in dressed as the man expected: a chainmail vest, a short spear that all the guards seemed to carry and a pair of silken pajamas. As the guard, timidly walked in with the tray of food, the man’s growl became a wide grin and a few happy pants.

"Good boy, eat up now,” the guard said, playing along to the man’s antics.

“Woof woof,” the man replied before diving head first into the disgusting excuse of a meal that he had consumed time and time again. He ate the stone-like barley bread, the molding potato skin, the few slivers of rotting meat, and he downed the vomit-inducing yellow pea soup. All the while, the guard watched over the man with an amused smile, unbeknown to the plot formulating within his mind.

When the man had finished, the guard reached his hand into the cage to retrieve the plate and cup, only to quickly retract it when the man licked the guard’s hand. With a disgusted expression, the guard quickly retrieved the dinnerware and walked out of the room.

The man sat up and beamed. Tim was the only guard to wear pajamas at night. Tonight he would finally carry out the plan. Tonight he would be a free man. He shivered with excitement before calming himself. He had yet to escape. He could not and would not afford to be careless. As soon as his heart was settled, he took a sock off his left foot, and filled it with the fragments of limestone that he had spent four hundred eighty seven days scraping from the walls. After walking six paces from the inner left corner of the room, he found the spot in the room that would be the darkest when the door swung open. He huddled down with his limestone-weighted sock, and waited: waited long enough for Tim to return back to his quarters, if not a few half hours more. Then, turning to the ceiling, he howled.

The effect was immediate. A single guard came, for surely they would only send one guard to deal with an obnoxious madman. As soon as the door swung open, the man stuck two fingers into the back of his throat and vomited.

"What in the blazes? Did the madman just hurl?” the guard said gruffly.

The man instantly recognized the voice as one he knew all too well, and his hand instinctively rubbed the bruises and scars running down his arms. Enacting a light revenge before he left was certainly an unexpected, but welcome surprise. He waited for the guard to unlock the cell door and take three steps towards him. On the fourth, the man quickly spun around and slammed the vomit-soaked sock into the guard’s head. A solid “thwack” rang through the air, and without uttering a single sound a trickle of blood leaked from the guard’s temple, and he was down. A surge of adrenaline rushed through the man’s system when he watched the body fall onto the damp cell floor. There was no turning back after this point. It was happening.

“Max? I heard a thud. Is everything alright?” another guard called out.

“Yeah, the damned madman bit me, so I hit him hard across the head,” the man replied in Max’s gruff voice. He had practiced it for months. The enunciation was impeccable, and he even gave the body a rough kick to get into character.

“Huh, ok. I’m heading back to the quarters. You should get the nurse to check it out. It’ll give you an excuse to meet up with her this late at night anyways,” the other guard said with a mischievous chuckle.

“Probably will. I guess I have something to thank this damned mutt for.”

As soon as the man heard the footsteps leaving, he removed a rusted nail from his chains and let himself free. He now had two options: he could steal the Maximillian’s uniform and nonchalantly walk through the gates hoping that no one asked him why he was leaving the gates at such an hour, or he could go upwards in a high risk high reward gamble. He took a moment to decide before realizing that worst case scenario, he would just rot in this jail for the rest of his life as he always had been. He’d roll the dice.

First, the man closed the cell door again. He needed to buy all the time that he could. Then, he worked quickly to strip the guard down and change out of his rags into the guard’s shirt and pants. He left the chainmail. That would weigh him down. After ripping the grime-soaked rags into three pieces, he happily gagged Max’s mouth with his other sock and bound the guard’s hands and legs. With practiced motions, the man tied the bundle of bedsheets to his waist, and crouched down in the corner.

Once again, he waited in silence. He needed the other guards to fall asleep again. Luckily enough, none of them would be suspicious if Max didn’t come back. He listened quietly, to the wind that began howling outside, to the occasional crackle the candle made as it burned its way through an impurity in the wax, but most of all, he listened to his own heartbeat that rang louder than all else. He hadn’t heard any footsteps or voices for awhile now, but could never be too sure of the time. Max was awake now, and he was eyeing the man with eyes of a livestock that feared its own slaughter. The man chuckled cruelly and stood up to kick the guard once.

“I still have uses for you,” he sneered as he pointed the tip of the spear to the guard’s throat. “Just in case all goes wrong.”

He turned his attention to the wooden boards above him. Upwards he would go. To the sky: free like a bird. He grasped the spear tightly with both hands, and stabbed straight into where the ceiling leaked. Wood splintered and cracked. He worked quickly. Soon enough, guards would swarm his cell, drawn by the sound of a spear boring into the ceiling. He needed to get it just large enough for he and the blankets to fit through. One thud. Two thuds. Seven thuds. Twenty nine thuds. He heard footsteps moving. He worked frantically.

“Goddamn it, is it him again? Wait. Is that splintering wood I hear? Call the others.” he heard one guard bellow.

The footsteps sounded closer. They were coming up the stairs. Three fourths of the hole was done. The man frantically slammed the spear into the ceiling in hopes that parts would crumble. His hair was already coated in water, gradually washing away over a year’s worth of dirt. He wielded the spear in a wild frenzy, intoxicated by the first taste of rain and fresh air that he had had in over a year. The footsteps left his mind, and he focused on the opponent before him.

The hole was done. The door swung open, and he was greeted with the sight of six guards staring at him in shock. No one moved, and no one breathed. Each side evaluated the other. Then, one guard reached for his crossbow.

The man reacted instantly, pulling Max up to block the shot, and slamming him into the cell bars. A rattle rang through the room, and the guards backed off a bit. By the time they had gotten over their panic, the man was already halfway through the hole he had bored. An arrow whizzed past his leg, and pinned the bed sheet the man wore to the wall. The man crawled all the way through, and he cursed under his breath. There was no other choice but to allow the sheets to rip. He yanked them hard, and stared over the black tiles at the ground below. Three stories in the air, wind howled around him, and all he had was a makeshift parachute with a gaping hole. Fate smiled upon him though, for he felt an updraft pushing him forward.

He tried not to look. He jumped, letting the gusts carry him over the gate and into the woods. The rain poured, soaking into the cloth and weighing it down. He knew the wind wouldn’t carry him much further, but this was enough. Before he even hit the trees, he was unfastening the bed sheets. The branches broke his fall, and the wet mud beneath his feet greeted him. He ran. Euphoria filled his body as he felt the sensation of the stormy winds blowing him forward and the stick mud slipping between his toes. He didn’t mind the sticks and stones scraping at his heels, nor did he mind the rain blowing into his eyes and mouth. All he felt was the sensation of freedom. He wasn’t sure how much time had past when he stopped, all he remember realizing was that the short spear was no longer in his hand, and that the storm had ended.

Hanging overhead, was a full moon smiling upon him, so he turned to the sky, and howled.