Escana Read Free

of this institution that they needed to pay
a visit?
    He
would have passed off the security as a woman's paranoia over the
horror stories she had heard about places like these, but she had
definitely used the toughs to try and get to him.
    Now
he was running, and he didn't know why. He just had to get away from
this place, from these people, from all of this before it swallowed
what was left of him whole.
    A
shout rent the air as a member of security attempted to tackle him,
but the man was out of shape and too slow. Jakob left him in his wake
as he burst through a set of double doors and out into the concourse.
    He
was greeted by a screaming secretary and two security men now.
Instinctively he ducked to the left as the electric prongs shot out
toward him. He had seen the victims of police tasers before and it
wasn't a sight he wanted to emulate personally.
    There
were more shouts now, the sound of an alarm and the locking of many
doors rang in his ears as his heart thudded painfully against his
chest. These precautions would have been enough to deal with a less
lucid patient and the auto-locks were only meant as a last-ditch
safety measure.
    The
windows in the concourse weren't barred, he threw himself at them and
forced his eyes shut.
    The
double glaze gave way under the momentum and body weight, shattering
in a manner quite unlike the sugar glass they used in the movies as
they sliced his arms open.
    He
didn't have time to think, he had to keep moving before the security
managed to pick their way through the wreckage and pin him down.
Rising to his feet, he lurched onward and out into the hills where no
car could follow. The surrounding countryside turned into a blur of
panting and the thuds of his own feet.
    He
felt his lungs burning and his legs had seized up entirely, they had
brought him as far as they were willing. He knew this place, he had
been here once before.
    It
was a large bridge, several miles out from the institute, they had
driven across it when he had first been committed. He had no idea why
his feet had taken him here across the sloping fields.
    Absent-mindedly
picking bits of hedge from his clothes, he spotted a man dangling his
legs off the edge of the bridge and whistling tunelessly to himself.
    He
approached the stranger warily, who didn't turn to look at him. As if
it was the most natural thing in the world, he hopped up onto the
edge beside him and let his feet dangle out over the sheer drop.
    'It's
a long way down, isn't it?' the man said, startling him.
    'Yes,'
he replied cautiously, gripping the rocky surface and not knowing
what else to say.
    The
man nodded at that, patting the stone. 'There's a reason you're sat
here now and not still running from the institute, Jakob.'
    Startled,
he noticed the man's finger pointing at his chest. He was still
wearing his name badge from the ward. So this strange man wasn't
entirely psychic then, that was a relief.
    'I
don't know why I'm sitting here,' he offered in reply, stupidly.
    The
man smirked behind his wild black beard. 'You've got nowhere better
to go, have you? None of you breakouts ever do. Been disowned by
society and now you're on the run from both the institute and the
law.'
    He
certainly couldn't argue with that, there would be a manhunt going on
as he spoke.
    'I
have a proposition for you,' the man said, stretching his arms out
and leaning forward.
    He
eyed the man warily, the word 'proposition' had a nasty ring to it in
his mind, especially coming from a complete stranger. 'What is it you
propose?'
    The
stranger was leaning forward even further now, in fact it looked like
he was on the verge of...
    'Join
me,' the man said with a smile, toppling off the bridge head-first.
    For
the first time in recent memory, he considered suicide. He would
rather his book remain unpublished than in the hands of someone like
Miss Simmons, in order for that to happen the ending must die with
him. In spite of their well-meaning efforts, his family had stayed
clear