I wish I could say I was surprised. I wish I could believe that it was somehow shocking that they were able to track me down. But honestly the only thing that surprised me was who they sent.

It was a cold quit night in December when they finally found me, I was walking home when, under the dim glow of a street lamp, I saw him. I was overjoyed to see him again, the reality of the situation had not yet sunk in I ran to him calling out excitedly “ John! john! What are you doing here?” I threw my arms around him for a hug, but he didn’t hug back. He seemed distant and cold with his arms down by his side. I pulled back confused, he spoke softly, “I think you already know.” I stared deeply into his eyes trying desperately to understand what he meant, his face was emotionless and his eyes looked cold and dead. He continued “01 you need to come back they’re waiting for you”

it took me a moment to process his words, almost as if my brain hadn’t wanted to process them at all, but once the full gravity of what he had said sunk in I was overwhelmed with emotions, it was as if a bomb had gone off in my brain scrambling any thought I tried to form and leaving my emotions it a messy soup. But in the mess that was my emotions, confusion, sadness, and anger seemed to be the most common.

After some time I was able to gather what was left of thoughts and spit out “John you escaped, you were out. Why…” there was a brief moment of silence between us before he responded confidently “come now, you didn’t really think they would let us get away did you. You knew from the moment we hopped that barbed wire fence that it would end like this.” a panic swept over me and the fear was clear in my voice as I said “John you don’t have to do this we can run away together, now.” He responded with a tinge of sadness “you know my name is 06 and you also know we can’t do that they will just find us again. Come with me peacefully 01 their patience is already wearing thin soon they will send in a full swat team, and things will get bloody, just come with me 01.” A deep sadness filled me, he was right they got me. If it were anyone else standing there I would have killed them and ran, ran into that cold quit night. But it wasn’t anyone it was John, I could never hurt him and I guess they knew that, so instead of sprinting off into the night I calmly said “your right 06 let’s go.” Then we walked, walked into the darkness of the night and the cold of winter.