Jim’s back hugged the tree tightly as he desperately scanned the treeline in front of him.  Sam was nowhere to be found.  Could Sam have actually abandoned him? It seemed out of character for Sam, but he’d only known him for a couple of days.  It was hardly enough time to become close friends, but Jim thought that trust, at very least, had been established.  Yet here Jim stood, leaning against a tree, standing a short distance from a fortress run by a murderous dictator.  Everything in him screamed to run back to Sam’s cabin and better prepare.  But his crew was down there.  He couldn’t abandon them.

Jim, aware that night was fast approaching, peeked over the tree again.  He still had the scope that Sam had given him.  Jim carefully brought the scope to his eye and eyed each of the towers.  There were two guards per tower instead of one.  Jim didn’t know what to make of this.  He then noticed one of the guards waving to the other in one of the towers before beginning to walk away, Jim quickly looked at the other three towers and the same thing was happening.  It was a shift change.  Jim looked over to the ridge that Sam pointed out earlier and knew this was his opportunity to make a run for it. He needed that better vantage point.  He glanced over to the nearest tower again and verified the new guard wasn’t looking in his direction.  He wasn’t.  Jim tucked the scope in his tunic and left the safety of the fallen tree.

Jim didn’t know the terrain very well, and the sun was setting rapidly, he would have to be careful.  Jim knew that one false step and he might go tumbling downhill for every alert guard to see.  He stepped carefully.  The foliage was still fairly thick where he was, the ground was near impossible to see.  He had to test every step before committing to it.  Jim continued to weave his way through the bushes and tall grass making sure to follow the tree line to ensure he was a safe enough distance from the start of the hill.  The tree line curved around.

Jim had made it about halfway there when he heard something, a noise coming from the direction of the fortress.  He froze where he stood.  Had one of the guards seen him? Couldn’t be, if they had, there would most certainly be some kind of alarm, or yelling or something.  Jim went into the prone position and slowly crawled his way to the top of the hill, weaving through the tall grass.

Jim reached a decent vantage point with the fortress in view.  He had to know he was safe to continue.  Jim lay in the prone position, watching the fortress carefully. Jim pulled the scope from his tunic to get a better view.  Jim started from one side of the visible fortress and began scanning from left to right.  He couldn’t be sure if the sound came from the catwalk area above, or from the ground.  None of the guards seemed to be looking in his direction.  The sound happened again.  Jim scanned the perimeter of the fortress more quickly.  The sound was real and he had to know what it was.  The second sound had attracted the attention of one of the guards.  He didn’t seem alarmed, just reactive.  The guard was curiously scanning the ground outside the fortress. 

Jim continued scanning in the direction the guard was looking.  Then he saw it.  There was movement on the ground.  Was it an animal of some kind, Jim couldn’t tell.  He focused intently on it.  Jim looked back up at the guard who, as far as Jim could tell, hadn’t noticed what Jim had.  The guard returned to his post.  Jim looked back down at the movement, It was moving again, it almost appeared to be slowly getting closer.  There seemed to be some kind of rhythmic movement to it.  As Jim was watching, the sound of a twig snapping could be heard.  Whatever it was, made the sound.  The thing stopped moving immediately.  Jim looked back up at the guard.  The guard was more attentive this time.  The guard produced a lantern and lit it.  The guard was hovering the lantern out from the wall in the direction of the thing on the ground.  Amazingly, the guard didn’t see anything there.  Shrugging, the guard went back to his post.  

Jim moved his scope back to the thing on the ground.  Suddenly Jim knew what it was when a head lifted up.  It was a person! Was someone trying to escape? Had to be. The person lowered their head again and started crawling faster.  Jim felt the sudden urge to try and signal the individual to guide them to safety, but Jim couldn’t think of any way to do so without bringing attention to himself and the guards.  Jim watched helplessly as this person continued crawling.  They were making progress, but not much, at least, not quickly.  Jim found himself quietly rooting for the escapee to succeed.  Suddenly another noise happened.  It was a squishing sound.  The prisoner had crawled their way into mud, and they weren’t as quiet about it as they could have been.

The difference in noise prompted the guard to glance out over the post again.  Knowing he wasn’t crazy, the guard pulled a pair of binoculars out this time.  The prisoner had stopped moving again altogether, laying face down in the mud.  The guard once again scanned the ground.  The light from the lantern even hovered over the prisoner briefly.  The guard saw nothing.  How did the guard see nothing? This prisoner wasn’t invisible.  Jim could see him, yet the guard couldn’t.  The guard stood there for a moment.  He knew something was out there.

Jim looked back at the prisoner.  His eyes were now visible.  They were looking right at Jim.  Jim. startled by this revelation, lowered his scope for a moment before lifting it back to the prisoner. The prisoner had pulled their hand forward and waved at Jim very discreetly.  It was then that Jim realized the scope was reflecting in the moonlight.  Jim moved his scope up and down to acknowledge the prisoner’s wave.  There was a sweeping moment for the prisoner where Jim could actually see a mix of emotion on the prisoner’s face.  Shock, relief, a look of having been rescued.  A single tear and a look of desperation flooded the face of the man.  The man started moving again, but the guard hadn’t returned to his post.  Noticing this through his scope, Jim looked back at the prisoner who was crawling at a much more rapid pace.  Jim used his scope to shake left and right for ‘no’.  The prisoner didn’t seem to understand or maybe see what Jim was signaling.  Jim continued shaking his scope no, but the prisoner either didn’t understand, or care.  He was coming at Jim in a full on crawl.  Jim looked back up at the guard who was starting to notice something.

Jim suddenly felt the urge to go down and help this man, but he knew that doing so would expose him as well.  His body gave an involuntary lurch forward, but something grabbed his leg and pulled him back.  Jim spun around in pure terror and there was Sam, staring at him coldly, silently.  Sam was shaking his head no.  Then pointed toward the prisoner.

Jim spun back around and watched helplessly as the prisoner, no longer caring, had gotten to his feet and was running as swiftly as he could, as close to the ground as he could.  Jim turned his scope back to the guard tower where that same guard was waving for someone to come quickly.  Another guard arrived within seconds and the first guard pointed at the moving object.  Another guard arrived, totaling three.  They all had lanterns and now very clearly saw an object moving in the darkness.

“STOP!” shouted a guard

“STOP WHERE YOU ARE, RIGHT NOW!” shouted another guard.

Jim lowered his scope back to the prisoner, but the scope was no longer necessary, the prisoner had made it half way up the hill.  All Jim could do was hope and pray the prisoner would listen to the guards and stop.  Live to run another day.  CRACK! A loud gunshot filled the quiet night, echoing in all directions.  The prisoner hit the deck and was back to a prone crawl.  Much slower of a pace than before, but maybe it would make him a harder target to hit.  CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! Three more gunshots rang out, the first one missed and hit the ground next to the prisoner.  The second shot missed and hit the other side of the prisoner.  The third shot landed square on the prisoner’s back.  

The prisoner reacted to the shot and tumbled back down the hill a couple of feet.  Another three shots rang out and all of them hit their target.  Jim used his scope to check on the prisoner.  The Prisoner was still looking in the direction of Jim.  The prisoner was no longer moving.  Blood was then seen rolling down the hill behind him.  Jim turned the scope back to the prisoner’s face.  The prisoner’s eyes softened.  The prisoner’s gaze was no longer looking at Jim, more through Jim.  In fact, the prisoner’s gaze was no longer looking at anything.  The prisoner was dead.  Jim had just witnessed death for the first time as far as he knew.  He felt numb.

“We need to go; Now.” Sam said, behind him.

Sam tugged Jim away and back into the tree line.  Sam led the way over to the other ridge he had pointed out earlier. Both men kept low as they traveled.  Jim glanced backward occasionally watching as the guards descended from their tower and walked over to retrieve the escaped, now dead prisoner.  Jim watched as they picked up the deceased man.  He had a hand crafted camo ghillie suit on his back, matching the terrain outside the fortress walls.  That’s why the guards didn’t see him when they shone their lanterns on him.  The guards carried his body back to the fortress and disappeared inside its walls. 

Jim followed Sam to the other ridge and Sam brought him to a particular spot. There was no fallen tree, but there was a divot in the ground that almost looked like a man-made trench behind some bushes.

“Like I said, not the greatest, but it’ll conceal the two of us just fine.” Sam said, climbing into the trench.

Jim followed him in.  The trench couldn’t have been more than a few feet deep, but it was good enough for them to sit down out of sight.

“What happened to you earlier?” Jim asked Sam

“I decided to restock on fresh water.  The sun was going down in an hour and we needed to have hydration ability. You were ‘sleeping beauty’ again.  I figured if you woke up, you’d either wait for me to get back, or move on to this part of the ridge.  I’m glad I got to you when I did though.  It was noble of you to want to help him escape, but the guy never stood a chance.  His ghillie suit was all well and good, but the rain the past few nights has that outer perimeter lookin’ like a marsh.  He was never making it through without makin’ a sound.  Poor fella.  If we hadn’t moved, they would have found us for sure.  They saw him reacting to something, they’re definitely over there now checking things out.” Sam explained, taking a swig.

Jim peeked up out of the trench and carefully looked over to the previous spot.  Sure enough, there were two guards standing there moving their lanterns around.

“Don’t worry, I already covered your tracks.” Sam said.

Jim hadn’t even thought about having left tracks.  After only a couple of minutes, the guards began walking back down the hill toward the fortress.  Jim turned back around to see Sam handing him his own water container.  Jim took it, nodded in thanks and sat back.  Jim lost himself in his own thoughts of what had just happened.

“Was that your first dead body?” Sam asked, recognizing the blank, thousand yard expression on Jim’s face.

“I think so.  I’m mean, I’ve seen people like that before, but I can’t say that I’ve ever seen it in person.” Jim responded.

Sam nodded his head.  Jim looked up at him.

“I wanted nothing more than to help him escape.  I didn’t even know what it was at first that was moving out there.  As soon as I saw his face, there was a look of desperation, and I realized what was happening.” Jim said, staring directly at Sam.  Jim lowered his head again.  “It’s different seeing it in real life.  Witnessing the blood, watching as the light leaves their eyes.  I suppose the only real silver lining here is that, even though it took death, that man is no longer trapped in captivity, or in pain.”

Sam watched Jim for a moment before speaking.

“It sounds to me like you’ve learned yourself a valuable lesson and don’t even realize it.” Sam said, glancing toward the fortress now and again. “Sometimes, death is a gift.  Sometimes, death is necessary.  Death can be a mercy killing.  Is death really such a bad thing to the person with no quality of life, or hope of one? I know, I know, it’s a morbid thought.  There was a great man, many, many hundreds of years ago that once said, ‘Give me liberty or give me death!’  I once heard the elders mention it when I was very young.  I can’t imagine that young man that died tonight felt any differently, and he paid the ultimate price for it.  He paid the debt that all men eventually pay.  God rest his soul.”

There were no words that Jim could say.  He was speechless as he took in Sam’s words.  Jim had been feeling guilty over the feeling that he played a part in the man’s untimely death.  He also couldn’t help but think that the man who had escaped knew what he was risking.  That man had to have known what he was risking his own life for the sake of freedom.  Was he simply running from, or was he running to. Did that man have family somewhere on the outside?  Was there a family somewhere that had lost a father, brother, husband, a son? That potential family may never know what happened to him, not realizing that their kin was now lost forever.

The whole event really put things into a different perspective for Jim.  He now fully understood that one misstep for him, and he or his crew would befall the same fate.  Shot down like vermin, like he or they were nothing.  Just another piece of stolen property that needed to be replaced.  Jim’s stomach was in a twist.

The two men sat there in the darkness, knowing that even a single light, no matter how small, could be their undoing, or their capture, or God forbid, their untimely death, joining the death ranks prematurely.  Eventually, perhaps due to exhaustion or sheer boredom, both men propped themselves against the trench wall and fell asleep.  Thankfully, it did not rain that night.

The morning had come,  Jim and Sam were both still sleeping as the sun came over the ridge.  About twenty minutes later, both men were very rudely ripped from their slumber to the piercing sound of a bloodcurdling scream ripping through the air, it was coming from the fortress.  Jim and Sam looked at each other in horror as they both carefully peered from their trench to figure out what happened.