False Escape by Jonathan Fu
He woke with a start. Dawn was drawing near, and the early signs of a midsummer storm were trudging through the dark morning sky. He rolled out of his bunk, avoiding the pale figure underneath him in the process. Although his eyes were still heavy from the restless night of sleep, he chose his footing carefully, taking care to avoid the particularly creaky panels underneath the ladder.
It hadn’t taken much preparation: he had only needed two days to gather the measly amount of possessions that remained in his dorm room. The rest of his possessions were stashed in the attic of his parents’ house in Northern Maine, but those were inaccessible, perhaps for the rest of his life.
The only issue was money. It wasn’t as if he had no funds. There were thousands of dollars stored in his school account, ready to be withdrawn at a moment’s notice. He’d had it all planned out: a quick, subtle withdrawal of several thousand dollars (his parents wouldn’t blink twice to approve the withdrawal of this modicum of cash) and then a similarly furtive escape from campus. However, in their most recent meeting, almost four months ago, he had let it slip that he wasn’t going to stay at the school and follow their formulated life plan. They had immediately locked the account. His software skills weren’t good enough to break into his parents’ accounts and he wasn’t about to contact his parents. That’s why he had to do it.
He flicked off the lights and locked the door before throwing the keys into his own bag. He scampered across the wet grass and towards his target: the white house on the other side of campus. The American flag above the front door waved tirelessly in the fall wind, and yet the house was still, its inhabitants reeling from another chaotic week. He stationed himself beside the old, rotting porch, took out his handy lock-picking tool and began to work. It was an old house, handed down from generation to generation, and so it only took several minutes for the lock to click open. He slipped inside and immediately found the room. It was lined with rows of school memorabilia with an endless supply of athletics trophies and class pictures. The boy crept across the room and stopped in front of one of the side cabinets, where he found the two people, glistening behind the thick protective glass of the ornate picture frame.
They were smiling, wide grins spread across their pale faces in the chilly autumn breeze. The school emblem, a fiery eagle flanked by the revered school motto: Audentes Fortuna Iuvat (Fortune Favors the Bold), was emblazoned across the front of their matching sweaters as they stood side by side in the Class of 1985.
The first trickles of sweat rolled down his quivering palms. He was suddenly aware of the room: its high, arched ceiling with gold accents along its outer edges, the enormous portrait of the current school headmaster hanging at the opposite end of the room, and the wide glass windows, revealing the early signs of dawn.
He threw open the cabinet doors, hastily shoving the picture deep into his bag before reaching over and taking a handful of coins and a football that had been used in the school’s first athletic competition in 1876. Then he ran.
He plowed through the front door and sprinted across the front lawn, jumping over the white fence and diving into the deep forest on the outskirts of the school. He crouched behind a rock and reached deep into his bag, grasping the smooth contours of the picture frame. He held the plaque carefully, with only the slight quivering of his hands betraying the look of pure confidence in his dark eyes. He was about to get up and continue walking when he saw that the lights in the house had suddenly flashed on and the room he had just left was engulfed in a warm glow.
There was movement in the house.
He saw the dark shadows of two figures appear in the room. They moved slowly and meticulously as if they hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. He held his breath, waiting to see if they would notice the missing items, but they only stood still. The sweat, which had abandoned him during his escape, returned to his forehead, despite the frigid November temperature. He began to shake, his breath short. He turned, ready to continue his trek into the woods. However, before he could take one step, a unified laugh rang out. He turned, and he saw them. The two shadowy figures. They were walking slowly, but with each step, he felt a sharp pain in his legs. The matching sweaters, school emblems, and smiles dug into his skin. For years, they were plastered around his bedroom, his kitchen, and even the basement closet where he spent much of his childhood playing games and hiding from his parents. The acceptance letter: that was all they wanted.
He turned to run, but he tripped over an upturned tree root hidden underneath a large pile of leaves. The laughing continued. It encircled him. He curled up into a small ball, clutching his bag, filled with the only possessions that gave him any sense of comfort. It broke into his mind, shattering his hopes of escape. That laughing, the only trace of what he remembered from their last conversation together. He had expected a shouting match, at least some signs of disappointment and anger from his short-tempered parents, but as he had stepped foot out of the door, all he heard was unified laughter.
He remembered the one object that he had sworn to destroy. As he brought it to his eyes, he saw the class picture: the two smiling faces, side by side in the chilly autumn breeze. He shuddered at the image, reminiscent of the years of agony as they had forced him into their former glory. It was their dream, their nostalgia, and their past that they had driven into him in hopes of gaining vicarious pleasure. But, as he clutched the frame, and he traced the slight indents along the sides, he thought back to that last encounter with his parents. It was the laughter, their realization that he had no chance of even coming close to what they had achieved. They hadn’t forced anything into him, they had simply forgotten about him.
He slammed it onto a nearby rock, splintering the protective glass and puncturing the delicate paper. When he again brought the object to his eyes, they were gone.
Jonathan Fu is a high school junior at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA. He is an avid Classicist, studying Latin and Ancient Greek, and he also loves to write creative pieces as well as edit for literary magazines such as Polyphony Lit and Ember.