The Last Night

If I don't make it out of this hellhole alive, then perhaps these words will and people can know my fate...

My pen scratched noisily on the piece of paper I had sneaked from the younger of the two woman-things posing as my jailers.

My captivity in the dark Northern woods of Scotland continued with no respite. It is a strange place.

The animals oddly coloured and eerily knowing.

Last night, I had almost escaped. My jailers had let their guard down and I was alone outside the shack whilst they splashed in the nearby River.

I looked at the path that ran alongside our shack. I waited. There were regular patrols of strange little robotic sentinels.

I waited till one passed by.

This was it.

I had made barely ten feet from the shack when a burly man stepped out of the bushes nearby.

Evenin.

He said with the knowing smile of the fox to the rabbit.

Evenin.

I said, tentatively eyeing the long wooden rod on his shoulder. No doubt it was a fiendish type of whip for the like of escapees like me.

Lovely evening for a walk eh? I'm just back from a fishing,

He looked me straight in the eye as he emphasized the word fishing.

I looked at his hands. He had no fish.

Where are your fish?

The burly man laughed and rubbed his hands together.

Right slippery customers they were. Roasted them over an open fire.

He gave me a steely grin.

I knew then the game was up. I could read between the lines as well as anyone.

I caught a couple of prisoners trying to escape so I cut them open and burned them alive over an open fire.

Is what he was telling me.

Deflated, I turned back to the camp. On a nearby hill, I saw oddly carved wooden sheep watch me with barely concealed delight.

So this was it.

The taller stringy looking woman had said that this was to be my last night here.

It didn't take a genius to know what she meant.

Tonight, I was being put to the fire.

I will slip this note in a bottle now. Perhaps I can throw it in the river and someone will read of my fate.

Perhaps...