PROLOGUE 1

THE LOCK SEEMED old and rusty but no matter how hard Georg pulled on it, it wouldn’t budge an inch. The night got stuck with hearing the repetitive groaning and panting of a man forcing his way out. He tries one more time after a few intervals, his hand bloodied by blisters.

A hand pulled him away from the gate. “It’s no use,” he looked back to see his wife Beth, bloodied and ragged as she used her few remaining ounces of strength to pull her anxious husband back. They sat back to find nothing different than his struggles. They sweat blood and tears through the night; their only company the iron bars of their abode, their countless thoughts of escape, and in the cradle of the mom, their sweet little child.

They looked at the sweet babe and then at each other. Amid the hundred counts of hopelessness, you'd only need one reason to hope. And hoped they did. Because as soon as the guard made his rounds, Georg was able to snatch him between the spaces and take their freedom. 

Just a few moments later, they were wearing themselves out running for their lives in a dense labyrinthine forest. They kept looking up the night sky to guide them towards wherever because there was nowhere else to look. They kept running notwithstanding the scratches from the thicket, the thorns burying deep into their bare feet and the bullets flying in the air just few meters around them. They just kept running. 

But just when they’re about to come to close contact with escape, a gunshot from a different location than their chasers brought down Georg. His leg stopped working as soon as he felt the pain. Just as Beth tried to save him, a second gunshot brought her down as well.

Too weak to do something trivial such as to speak, they both got stuck in the moment as a man pried their child from them who, even with all the chaos, never dared to cry. Mid the scratches and pain, the innocence prevailed. And as the crowd following them got close, the near-death couple just watched the man disappear with their last ray of innocence.