Great Escape Story - Dhyani N. - 08/08/17

Contest: Winners

Great Escape Story

Submitted by: Dhyani N., age 11, Lakewood, OH

The Tunnel    
    

The sound of blaring sirens and ringing alarms muffled the scraping of the spoon against the rock. Footsteps thumped above, and the cheering of prisoners was deafening.
    
Corbin’s black-and-white-striped jumpsuit was torn and stained with blood. Cuts from the jagged rocks that jabbed at him from all directions crisscrossed his arms. But he didn’t care. Freedom was so close after those horrid seven years.
    
He suddenly heard loud barking above the chamber he had dug. The bloodhounds had been given his scent. Having heard the sounds of paws poking at the entrance of the tunnel, he ripped off a piece of his shirt and began digging upward. Because he was merely a few feet down, it did not take long for him to make a small, unnoticeable hole leading to the surface, through which he stuffed the rag of his shirtsleeve. Relieved, he heard tiny paws running toward the scrap of cloth.
    
He kept pressing farther and farther until he decided he might be just beyond the prison watchtowers, but he wasn’t taking any chances. If he did not emerge far enough outside, the consequences would be disastrous.
    
Beep . . . beep . . . beep. He knew that sound. It was a radio-frequency tool he had seen the guards use before to find the tunnels of escaped prisoners. But he knew how to trick it. He began scooping tunnels to the right, to the left, and in other directions. Next he dug a tunnel as far down as possible and started digging again at a slight upward angle. Radio waves could only go down so far.
    
Once he got far enough up, he realized he could no longer hear alarms, whistles, or prisoners chanting. He kept digging and then, just as the point of his spoon broke the surface of the soil, he stopped. He had felt a drop of rain.


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