Sam and Colby: The Penitentiary

75 (colby's pov)

*Colby's POV*

"Bro, there's no way," I said.

"Dude, you literally got killed. I'm going last this time," Jake said.

"Okay, fine," I sighed.

We were all sat along the fence outside. We'd be leaving in a few minutes.

My mind drifted back to the last time we'd tried this. I was behind everyone else since I'd had to help Jake after his foot got caught on the razor wire.

We'd made it into the safety of the trees, but hadn't been fast enough. I watched as everyone in front of me dove into the grove of bushes Blaze had showed us.

And then I got shot.

I remember hearing the noise before I realized what had even happened. You'd think getting shot would hurt. It definitely did, don't get me wrong, but nowhere near as bad as I'd thought it would.

The bullet hit my back. I couldn't tell you much more than that. I closed my eyes and thought about how it had all happened.

I heard the gunshot echo through the air. I looked down to find my face inches from the forest floor. A burning sensation spread through my back and I felt my shirt beginning to moisten.

I realized I'd been shot.

I tried to get up, tried to push myself up off the ground and onto my feet again. But it was no use. My motor skills were gone. I'd read somewhere that when you get seriously hurt, your body shuts down whatever you don't need to survive. If only my body knew that I needed to get up to live.

I laid on the ground as the burning sensation began to spread about as quickly as the pool of blood onto my grey shirt.

I needed a distraction from the pain. I needed to think about something, anything else. Especially when I heard the running steps of the guards approaching.

And then I realized I was going to die.

I couldn't get up. The guards were coming. I opened my mouth to yell, but no sound came out. U couldn't make any noises, couldn't move. I was done for.

They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die. But what flashed before my eyes wasn't what had already happened in my life. It was what could have happened.

I could have married Nessa. I could have been alive long enough to see Sam marry Kat, to see all of my friends live out their long and successful lives. But I was dying and I knew I couldn't be saved.

In that moment, all I wanted was Nessa and Sam by my side. I wanted to tell them both how much I loved them and how much they'd helped me. They'd both saved my life in numerous ways. But this time they couldn't save me. I wanted to say thank you to them for always being by my side, for always loving me and listening.

As the guard's steps got closer, my vision started to distort. I was seeing more trees than I knew were there, was hearing a ringing in my ears that I knew wasn't happening.

There was no white light, nothing peaceful like everyone says there will be. No. My vision tunneled until all I could see was black. My muscles relaxed and I went limp. My eyes fluttered shut and I suddenly felt weightless, like my being was no longer stuck inside of a body.

And then I woke up in the cell.

"Now," Ray whispered. I looked up to see Slash yelling on the other side of the yard and I was violently ripped back to reality. I wouldn't die this time. I couldn't.

Corey had the camera and tapes in his uniform, so we'd all had to carry more pipes this time. We ripped them out of our clothes and got to building, doing it faster this time than we ever had before.

Nessa scrambled over the fence first, then Ray, Sam, Corey, me, then Jake. We all made it down to the other side without incident, the tower guard occupied by his paper that we'd left for him. Nessa ran around the eighth guard post before emerging with her bag of food while Corey fumbled with the camera. Once he'd put everything together and fully assembled it, he tossed it over to Sam who quickly pushed some buttons and ensured the tape was properly loaded.

"Go, go!" Ray yelled. Sam pointed the camera at the full jailyard before we all turned and ran.

We had to have been running for at least a mile or two before we heard the six loud chimes from the prison. They knew we were gone now. The alarms began to sound and Sam quickly switched out the tape he was using before we continued our run, plunging further into the dense forest.

We let Ray lead the way, knowing that he'd take us right to where we needed to be. Right to where he'd get caught and we'd hopefully get sent back to our own time.

Before too long, we made it to a spot where Ray said we should set up for the night. It was too dark to keep running. Using flashlights at this time of night would be too easy to see from above. They might send out a helicopter with search lights and flashlights would lead the guards right to us.

We all settled down and got ready to sleep. I pulled Nessa against me and hugged her close as we fell asleep. I wasn't going to lose her. Not again.

"Hey. Colby, wake up," Sam softly whispered. My eyes popped open to see the sky still full of stars and the moon high. "Come with me."

I slowly scooted back away from Nessa so I wouldn't wake her up and then rose to my feet, then followed Sam for a little bit before we ducked into a bush grove.

"What's up, brother?" I asked.

"I thought we could film for a second. Just explain things in a short manner to the camera," Sam said, holding up the big camcorder.

"Yeah, for sure," I replied. Sam balanced it on a rock in front of us and started recording.

"Hey, guys. So as you saw before, we were at the jail. Except we were in the jail. The full jail. As inmates," said Sam.

"It's 1977. We're stuck here," I added.

"We went to sleep in our year and woke up in cells. We were wearing these uniforms and the cell doors were locked. There was a guard named Waco that woke us up," said Sam.

"We fucking time travelled. Back to 1977. We realized we had to escape to try and get back to our own time," I explained.

"Except it didn't go as planned twice," said Sam. "We snuck out with James Earl Ray. The assassin of Martin Luther King Junior. He already had an escape plan and Nessa knew the day he was getting out and that it would work."

"We think that if he gets caught and we manage to live to see it, we'll wake back up in our time," I said. "And when I say live to see it, I mean it. I died. I was killed. Nessa killed Ray because when he dies, it's like a reset button. We wake back up in the jail on the first day and have to re-meet everyone and do it all over again."

"Yeah, like he said. This is our third attempt. And I really hope it will be our last," said Sam.