The city was dark, ruined, and black. But the thing I remembered the most was the screaming.

Screaming tortured souls who thought they didn’t belong here.

I used to be one of them you know, until I found a way out.

The bell tower on Fifth Boulevard was a part of my route.

The same thing every day. Little did the bell keeper know, I had been sent to the wrong place.

Not the city of the living, the special city for the dead who were extra evil.

I wasn’t necessarily evil, just misunderstood, and yes, I do know karate.

It was simple, really, but I’m telling you this anyway.

While cupping my hands into the water fountain for a drink, I noticed a glint of metal.

Yes, they poisoned our water with metal to torture our insides, but we were already dead.

I reached for the knife, (the idiot who put this in here would for sure be fired.)

I inched closer to my guard, pretending I was ready to be locked up again, and stabbed him through the middle.

The chances of this being a knife with rusty copper was low, and I probably would’ve been punished.

Somehow it wasn’t, and I knew he was guiding me.

My eyes glinted with tears, and I watched as the guard collapsed to the stone floor covered in sharp metal shards to give us tetanus.

Before the alarm sounded I ran. The city gates were near, I could sense it.

I didn’t take any wrong turns, and the gates were open. I said a silent prayer to thank him, and ran.

The green valley shone before me, and below that the city of life.

”I’m coming Charlie.”

And I ran.