Making a Break...

TK could never have said how long she fought like that, one prolonged, body-wracking thrust after another. Nor, for the longest time, would she have been able to say that she seemed to be making any progress at all. Except for the occasional squeak or creak...the odd crackling whisper, the thick oak seemed to be holding just fine in its steel moorings. But there was a vague and growing looseness around her ankles and shins...a lessening of the pressure against her socks and legwarmers - for which she was grateful, not wanting to contemplate what the pain of an effort like this would have been like, without that padding to protect her legs - and she knew that it was just a matter of time. The next time would be the one... Or the next...or the one after that... Always the next...

And so, the spirited and stubborn tiger-girl convinced her wracked and weary flesh to keep pressing onward, long past the point where under other circumstances even she would have succumbed to the need for rest. How many hours had she been fighting this battle? TK didn't know...and it didn't matter. At that moment, the only thing that did was escaping this trap. Before her "host" returned...

Then, suddenly...after one straining push no different from the others that had come before - her blood pounding in her temples and her lower back shrieking in pain from the long strain - the wooden fetters finally broke noisily, the upper bracket snapping free from its end caps almost neatly, in one unit... Flipping up into the air to tumble and clatter noisily across the floor as the plank gave way...

TK's feet kicked up into the air with the sudden and unexpected release of the pressure, and she slumped and slid across the wall at her back, toppling over to her side with a muffled, startled, victorious - and so very tired - growl. For a few longs seconds, it was all she could do to lay there, the side of her face pressed against the rough concrete floor, heaving for breath and thanking her lucky stars that all that terrible effort hadn't been in vain. But sharp reality jabbed her in the back of the mind, reminding her that she was far from out of the woods yet. She had the return of her legs, and so her mobility...but her arms were still trapped, her mouth was still muzzled...and she was still locked in the basement of her deranged captor. Even more pressing still: That captor surely had to have heard the racket of the board clattering across the floor... She didn't know what time it was, the heavy black window-curtain blocking out all outside light or view, and so had no inkling as to whether he might be asleep or awake...or if matters of night and day even concerned him and his "schedule".

No, it didn't matter what time it was, any more than the passage of time had really mattered during her long struggle to break free. The only matter of concern still remained the same: Escape, and the use of whatever advantage she had. And thus, with a stifled groan, TK rocked up to her knees and then forced herself upright, green eyes alight with the fires of rage and determination, and fixed on one goal. The stairs...and the freedom that lay beyond...


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On to No Easy Way Out...