[#173] Getting Out (Torchwood)

[badly_knitted]

Theme Prompt: #173 – Escape
Title: Getting Out
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG
Bonus: Yes.
Word Count: 1000
Summary: He doesn’t know how long he’s been a prisoner, but now this stranger is offering to help him escape…



“Come with me if you want to live.”

He stared at the offered hand but didn’t accept it.

If?

Of course he wanted to live! He wanted to escape, to leave this place behind and go home to his family, but how could he trust this man? He’d never seen him before; he could be working for the creatures who’d snatched him from his homeworld, along with so many others. The creatures who kept him locked away in this stinking hole where it was always cold and damp, and there was barely enough light to see by. The creatures who dragged him into that other room and hurt him over and over, for no reason he could understand.

He didn’t know how long he’d been here. There was no way to count the passing of days; the dim light was always exactly the same, and the slop that passed for food was delivered at random intervals. It was always cold and disgusting, but he ate it anyway. Because it was mostly liquid, it went some way towards quenching his thirst, and anyway he knew he’d need his strength if he wanted to escape.

At first all his thoughts had been of someone coming to rescue him, but how would his family even know where he’d been taken? He didn’t even know if they were still alive or if everyone who hadn’t been taken had been killed. For all he knew, his family might be here too, each of them in a separate hole, as cold, miserable, and afraid as he was, so then he’d started to think about trying to escape, only he had no idea how.

Now here was this man, a human like himself, offering to help him escape, but what if it was a trap? Maybe the man wanted to do something worse to him than the creatures were doing. Only, he couldn’t imagine anything worse than this. The cold, and the hunger, and the hopelessness were bad enough, but when the creatures took him to the pain room, hurt him, or made him watch while they hurt other people… Surely anything had to be better than that.

Maybe the man was a slave trader…

No, even being a slave had to be better than being a prisoner, and once he was out of here perhaps he’d find a way to escape. He hesitated, for a few seconds more, curious that the man was making no attempt to grab him or to hurry him in any way. He just waited patiently, holding his hand out, his face in the dim light both calm and kind.

What did he have to lose? His life, maybe, but as much as he wanted to live, he didn’t want to spend however long he might have left trapped in this horrible place, eating slop and waiting for the next time the creatures decided to hurt him. He knew that time would always come, and maybe next time, or the time after that, he wouldn’t be alive anymore when the creatures were done with him. This way, at least he might have a chance.

He took the offered hand, let the man pull him out of the hole the creatures kept him in, but he still had to ask.

“Why are you helping me?”

“Because I was asked to.”

It wasn’t much of an answer.

“What about the others?”

“I can’t save them all, some of them are already beyond help, but I’ll do what I can as soon as you’re somewhere safe. Through here.”

He let himself be led towards a rusty metal doorway that looked just like the door to the pain room, except that it was in the wrong place. There should be a tunnel there…

The door opened as they approached, but although the light on the other side was dim, it was enough to show that the room the doorway led into was like nowhere he’d ever seen before. The floors were polished wood, there were chairs and tables everywhere, and strange machinery.

“Wait here; you’ll be safe, nobody will find you.”

“Where are you going?” He didn’t even know the man’s name, but already he felt safer with him than he had since he’d been taken away from the only home he’d ever known.

“To help as many of the other prisoners as I can. I’ll be back soon, I promise, and then we’ll all get out of here.” The man smiled at him, ruffled his hair, and then he was alone, watching the door close again. He sat on the nearest chair to wait. He was tired, but didn’t dare to let himself fall asleep so he sat on the very edge, not wanting to get comfortable.

He wasn’t good at telling time. There was some kind of timepiece on the wall, but he didn’t know how to read it. He watched as the longer of its two pointers moved from one point on the screen, or whatever it was, all the way around until it was pointing in the opposite direction. It went another quarter of the way around before the door opened again, and he tensed, hearing alarms blaring somewhere nearby. But the creatures weren’t there, just a crowd of people who came stumbling into the room. Like him, they were dirty and dressed in rags, and they were all ages, from children like him to people who looked older than his parents.

The last to enter was the man, who closed the door behind him.

“Right, let’s get out of here, shall we?”

“How?” one of the grownups asked, looking at the corridors leading from the room they were in.

“In my spaceship.” The man grinned as he pressed buttons and pulled levers. There was a strange sound and the room lurched. It was moving!

“Are you taking us home?” he asked.

“No, that would alter the timeline. I’m taking you to your brother. He’ll be very happy to see you, Grey.”


The End