Slipping between the machinery where I’ve escaped once again, undetected by the all-seeing eyes; a light flickers at the top of the stairs, drawing me toward it.

            I stay watchful with every step up until the last where I can see sky at the end of the hall. And now I’m running, before I can stop myself from moving or keep myself from hoping.

            I reach the doorway and stop to stare at the field before me, half happy, half afraid. I slowly reach for the sun’s warmth, my hand touching its cold surface.

            As I feel everything inside me collapse I fall forward and watch the outside flicker under my weight. It’s a screen, just like it always is; it’s always some kind of a lie but I let myself fall for it every time.

            I gasp in a sharp breath as a few tears escape. She had never let me go, I am still running.

            “Congratulations,” her voice echoes down the hall “on completing another round of tests. You’re a natural, as if you were born for this,” she stresses the last line, making it sound like a threat.

            I glare back a threat of own and step back as the screen shuts off and moves, opening to a testing track. This was just bait.

            Glancing back I see that she’s closed the hall off, there’s nowhere to go but forward so yet again I’m running. Off to run her maze in the hopes that this time I’ll make it out, though I know all I’ll find are more lies.

             Not alive but too stubborn to die, I keep on, always running.