Escape And Escapabilty

   Once upon a time Number 99 tried to bluff the Number 2 into thinking he had managed to escape The Village. Over a period of days Number 99 managed to go into the woods, and with tools he had made himself, he managed to dig out a deep den in a mound within the woods. The entrance he camouflaged with tree branches and foliage. Then he spent time carefully collecting provisions, tins of food and bottles, which he smuggled to his den in the woods.
    Then when all was ready, one night just before curfew Number 99 jammed cardboard between the lock of his cottage door and the door frame. And when curfew time arrived, announced five minutes earlier by the calming female voice telling him to sleep, and wake to a beautiful tomorrow, the electronic lock of the cottage door did not engage. And he was able to leave the confines of his cottage and disappear into the night, keeping to the dark shadows, dashing from cover to cover away from the prying eyes of the Observers. And reaching the edge of The Village, disappeared into the woods.
   Thus Number 99 had effectively escaped The Village. And when morning came, the Observers could not find Number 99. He was not in his bed, he was not in his cottage, he was nowhere to be seen in The Village at all! The search lasted for days, and no evidence of Number 99 could they find. The Observers were the first ones to be blamed, followed by the Supervisor, and ultimately Number 2. And all that time Number 99 was tucked up as snug as a bug in a rug, well in his den actually.
   Eventually the search for Number 99 was called off, and security operations returned to normal. Number 99 had effectively put the Village to sleep, his intention being to slip quietly away once they had stopped looking for him.
    Certainly Number 99 was never seen again, and yet there he remains, in the woods. The den which he dug into a sandy mound, well the sand was soft, and there no time to shore up his excavation with wooden panels, and even if there had been, where should he get the slats of wood required? And so unfortunately the collapse of the den would have been inevitable, and simply a matter of time before…………

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