Excerpt, War of the Sexes

Chapter 10

I couldn’t stop crying once I started. Even now, as I sat in my cell, tears poured down my face and they kept coming. The life I had come to live was over. I was going to rot in prison, and I had no one to blame but myself.

At least I wasn’t alone – not for long, anyway. I’m not sure how long it was beforehand, but eventually another girl came into my cell. She had blonde hair and tattoos all over her arms.

“What’s up? Name’s Amber,” the girl introduced herself.

“Danielle,” I said back.

“What are you in for?” Amber asked me.

“I wrote about going to the other side in a journal,” I told her.

“Wow. You sure have some guts. They kill girls for shit like that.”

“I don’t give a shit. I still want to go over there and -” Amber shushed me.

“What are you, nuts?” she whispered. “If officers hear that crazy shit, they’ll kill us both.”

“Sorry,” I said, wiping my eyes with my arms. I stood up and went over to the barred window, looking out to the wall. “I still want to go over there. And I still plan to,” I said soft enough to myself that Amber couldn’t hear me.

Apparently, I wasn’t quiet enough because Amber asked how I planned to do that. I continued to look out the window as I gave her an answer.

“I have a plan.”



Chapter 11

One of the prison officers was walking around just before lights out, making sure that all the girls were in their cells before the lights were to go out. Every cell had two girls in it, so if any had one or even no girls in any cell, the entire prison would go on lockdown in case the prisoner or prisoners were still within the prison and had not yet escaped.

All seemed well until the officer got to Cell 147, where she saw that only the blondie covered in tattoos was in her cell. Her cellmate was nowhere to be found.

“We’ve got an escapee!” the guard called into a walkie-talkie. She then pulled the cell door open and approached the sleeping prisoner. She pulled a gun out of her holster and pointed it at her.

“Where’s your cellmate?” the guard asked, the gun still pointed at the girl.

“I have no idea! I was sleeping!” the girl answered, getting up from her bed and putting her hands in the air.

“Liar!” the guard yelled, striking the prisoner with the gun. Amber, who worked out in the prison gym when she was allowed out of her cell, smacked the gun out of the guard’s hand, grabbed it out of the air, and shot the guard in the forehead. She fell to the ground, instantly dead from the gunshot. Amber grabbed the guard’s keys and began to unlock all the cells around her.

“She did it!” she yelled to everyone. “My roommate escaped, and she’s headed to the other side of the land!” The other women began to stampede into the jail yard, pushing officers out of the way as they headed toward the gate, cheering the girl who escaped on.

They didn’t know where she had gone, but they were excited for her. None of them were prouder of her than Amber, who was the only one who spent any time with her before she escaped.

“Good luck, kid,” she said as she stood in between the crowd that ran past her.


Chapter 12


I had never been more scared than I was as I squeezed my tiny figure through the window, down the outer walls of the prison, out through the jail yard and over the gate. I was almost spotted by two security guards and a spotlight that shined through the yard. When I eventually made my escape, I was breathing so heavily, I thought I was going to collapse from lack of oxygen.

I lay low as I caught my breath once I was far enough from the prison. Once I felt I could continue on, I ran as fast as I could from the prison. I eventually took my jumpsuit off and began running home in just my bra and underwear.

I could still hear the alarms from the prison as I got to the front door to my house. I had to be as quiet as I possibly could going back into my house. I didn’t want my mom or Jackie to see me because they would probably call the police to tell them I escaped.

I quietly walked inside and closed the front door by holding the door knob down so the locks wouldn’t make the clicking noise they usually do whenever someone closes it. It was dark as I headed upstairs into my room and put on a fresh shirt and tight jeans. I also put on a sweater because it was getting cold outside. I sighed. It was time for me to leave again. This time, I wasn’t sure if I would be coming back.

I was headed towards the wall, ready to get to the other side and prove everyone wrong. Before I left, however, I had to say goodbye to my mom, for it could have been the last time that I would ever see her. I went into her room, where she was asleep. I went up to her, leaned in and kissed her lightly on the forehead.

“I love you, mom. No matter what happens,” I said quietly. A tear left my eye as I walked over to her open window and jumped out. I landed in a bush and looked to the wall once I got back up and out of the bush.

“Here I come,” I said as I began to run.

Chapter 15


The sun was beginning to rise as I reached the wall. I looked up at it. It was much higher than it looked from afar. At the bottom of the wall, not far from the tall grass I stood in, there were security guards standing almost completely still.

I had to create a distraction in order to get past them long enough to begin climbing the wall. I began to feel around until I found two sticks and frantically began to rub them together. I got a fire started after just a few minutes. I placed one of the burning sticks in the grass and watched as a big blaze began.

Once I saw the guards headed my way to see the fire, I made my way around the fire and towards the wall. There were no guards around as I reached into the backpack I had packed clothes in and pulled out a rope and grappling hook. I swung with all my might as the hook successfully grasped on the top of the wall.

I had no time to waste. I had to begin climbing. I jumped up, placing my feet on the wall, and began my ascent. Halfway through, my feet gave out and I thought I was about to fall to my death. Luckily, my arms reacted instantly after my legs gave out and my grasp on the rope was so strong, it hurt my hands. But I had to keep going.

Once I was atop the wall, I pulled the rope up to not leave any evidence that I gone over. I then took a second to realize what I had just done. I really just climbed the wall that had separated the two genders for over 500 years.

I was about to cross over the other side. I took one more look over the girl’s side of the land, the only thing I had ever known, then looked down at the fire I had just started. I smirked and let out a small hmph. I then turned around and looked over at the boy’s side.
I couldn’t see much, but I did see that the sky was just like the one on the girl’s side. I wasn’t sure if that meant that it was dawn or dusk on the other side. When I looked down from where I stood, I saw a river rapid.

“I can’t use the rope to get down there. It will be harder for me to get the rope down,” I said to myself. That meant that there was only one way down. I was going to have to jump. I looked down once more at the running water. I took a deep breath.

“Here goes everything,” I said. I then closed my eyes and took the leap of faith. In what felt like forever, but was really only a few seconds, I became submerged under water as I fell into the rapids. The impact of the landing caused me feel like my entire body just shut down. I couldn’t swing my arms or kick my legs. I was simply just floating down the river like a fish that couldn’t swim.

The last thing I saw before everything went dark was the sun beginning to shine in the sky. It was dawn when I was atop the wall after all. I did it. I really did it, I thought to myself. I made it to the boy’s side of the land. But now I wasn’t sure if I was going to survive much longer. That was my last thought as my eyes closed and I fell unconscious.