An Escape To Infinity

It was twenty-five minutes past midnight but I could wait no longer. Maisha, my younger sister, was fast asleep beside me. I checked my phone, it was twenty-eight minutes past midnight. That was it. I quickly sent a text to Zarin and slowly got out of bed. I put on my jacket and silently rushed down the stairs. All the lights around my vicinity were switched off except for the dim light in the kitchen, it was dark and seemed void. I took out my cycle keys, put on my boots and silently sneaked out of the house.

"Damn, that was quick, Zarin." I said, as I saw her standing outside, on the driveway. She got here in like five minutes. I bet she was already out when I texted her because I know she was as eager as I was.

"Couldn't wait, let's start now. We have to get back before dawn," she said.

Zarin was my best friend. My only family apart from my actual family. She lived two minutes away from our house. Our lives were pretty much the same. School to home, home to school. We grew up in a concrete box. The more time passed by, the more trapped we felt. We always felt there was so much more out there to be explored and to be known but we were never allowed to get out of the lives we had. School was boring except for some friends and home had always been a prison. Every night was a nightmare with our parents fighting, screaming and what not and the one's that weren't nightmares were like today's.

"Are we going to the stars or the river?" I asked as we cycled away from the city.

"Stars tonight," she replied.

I could see her face in the city lights, she was crying I could tell. There were only a few cars on the road tonight. I always loved the city lights but Zarin hated them. She hated everything about this city. She called it fake.

We were out of the city in around half an hour. The wind blew stronger as we moved away from the city; I could feel it on my face. It was a cooling sensation.  It seemed to be freshening my soul.

We reached "The Maze", as we called it. It was a narrow endless bricked road. Grass, three feet tall grew on both sides of the road. It was Autumn so catkins had started to grow as well. The breeze was strong.

We got down from our cycles and walked through The Maze. We stopped walking at one point and lied down on the grass and looked up at the sky. It was infinite. It was black, dark blue and purple with shining sparkly stars.

"I don't ever want to go back," Zarin said.

"Neither do I," I replied

This was our escape. We escaped as much as we could to get away from the fake world, from the city, from the screams and from the hate.

The stars were our infinity and tonight the sky was filled with them. I looked up at the sky and the stars were shining bright. This was our beyond. I could feel my heart beating out of my chest and that's how i wanted to feel all my life. And above all we had each other and that's what mattered the most.

The writer is a grade 7 student of Sir John Wilson School.