Chapter 6: Digging Begins
POV: Michael Scofield
Michael waited until 11:30 PM.
The guard rotation had a gap. Seven minutes between when Officer Stolte finished his round and when Patterson began his. Seven minutes of blind spots, empty corridors, no eyes watching Cell 40. Michael had timed it for three nights running. The pattern held. Everything in Fox River ran on schedule.
Except when it didn't.
Except when Tuesday repeated.
Except when his own face stared back at him from a gurney, fifteen years older and screaming warnings.
Michael shook off the thoughts. Focus. The plan required focus. Lincoln had fifty-eight days until execution—unless that changed too, unless time was as unstable for his brother as it seemed to be for everything else. But he couldn't think about that now. Now, he had seven minutes to access the wall behind the toilet, assess the concrete, and return everything to normal before Patterson's boots echoed down the corridor.
Sucre snored on the bottom bunk. Deep, regular, the sleep of someone who'd worked hard all day in the laundry. Michael had checked—Sucre's sleep pattern was consistent. Between 11:15 and 11:45 PM, he entered REM cycle. Harder to wake. Michael had exactly this window.
He moved silently from his bunk to the floor. The cell was eight feet by ten feet. Every inch mapped in his mind, memorized from blueprints and confirmed by physical measurement. Except the blueprints were wrong. The UV messages had warned him: DON'T TRUST THE BLUEPRINTS. Someone edited them.
Michael knelt beside the toilet. Standard prison fixture, bolted to the floor with four heavy screws. He'd loosened them over the past two days during legitimate bathroom use, quarter-turn at a time, imperceptible progress. Now they were ready.
He pulled the Allen wrench from its hiding spot—taped inside the hollowed-out spine of a legal textbook Sucre had never once opened. The tool felt familiar in his hand. Right. Like he'd held it before.
Like he'd done this before.
The first bolt came free easily. Too easily. Michael paused, frowning. He'd expected more resistance. The second bolt spun out with barely any pressure. The third and fourth followed.
Someone had loosened these recently.
Not him. He'd been careful, methodical, quarter-turns. These bolts had been fully loosened and then repositioned to look secured. Within the last few weeks, maybe months.
Michael's pulse quickened. He checked the time: 11:32 PM. Five minutes left. He carefully lifted the toilet away from the wall, porcelain heavy in his hands, trying not to scrape it against concrete. The sound would carry. Everything carried in prison at night.
Behind the toilet: concrete wall. Standard construction, cinder blocks with mortar. This was where the blueprints showed access to the maintenance corridor. His planned route. The path to the infirmary basement, to the tunnel, to outside.
To freedom.
Or to the next iteration of failure.
Michael aimed his small LED flashlight at the wall. The beam caught something immediately. His breath stopped.
Scratch marks.
All around the edges of one specific cinder block—the exact block he'd planned to target—were tool marks. Old ones, filled with dust and grime, but unmistakable. Someone had tried to pry this block loose. Recently enough that the marks hadn't fully weathered, but long enough ago that they'd accumulated institutional dirt.
Michael traced the scratches with his fingers. Chisel marks. Pry bar indentations. The same tools he'd planned to use. The same technique he'd envisioned. Someone had attempted this exact escape route.
And failed.
His hand trembled slightly as he moved the flashlight lower, checking the gap between floor and wall. And there—wedged into the narrow space, hidden unless you knew to look—was a piece of metal.
Michael pulled it free.
A chisel. Prison-made, sharpened metal rod with a wrapped handle. The handle was old cloth, stained dark with what might have been blood or might have been rust. The blade was worn, the tip broken off, but the craftsmanship was good. Whoever made this knew what they were doing.
Michael turned it over in the flashlight beam.
On the handle, carved crudely into the cloth wrapping, were two letters:
M.S.
Michael Scofield.
His initials.
His tool.
But he hadn't made it. Hadn't hidden it. Had never seen it before in his life.
Except he had, somewhere deep, in the part of his body that remembered even when his mind didn't. His hands knew the weight of it. His fingers knew how to grip it. The muscle memory was there, hiding beneath conscious thought.
11:34 PM. Three minutes.
Michael's mind raced through possibilities:
Option 1: Someone else with initials M.S. tried this before. Possible but statistically unlikely. Fox River's records showed no Michael S-surname inmates in the past five years except him.
Option 2: It was planted as a trap. Possible but illogical. Why plant evidence of a previous escape attempt? It didn't serve any security purpose.
Option 3: He'd done this before. In an iteration he didn't remember. Had failed, been reset, tried again. The chisel was evidence of his own previous attempt.
Option 3 was impossible.
Option 3 was the only thing that made sense.
Michael's hand closed around the old chisel. The metal was cold. Solid. Real. Not a hallucination. Not stress-induced delusion. Physical evidence that Michael Scofield had tried to escape from Cell 40 before.
And had failed.
The UV messages had warned: FAILED ATTEMPT #11.
Eleven previous attempts.
This chisel was from one of them.
Michael forced himself to breathe. To think. If he'd tried before, if he'd left this tool as evidence, what else had he left? He angled the flashlight behind the toilet again, searching more carefully.
There—scratched into the concrete behind where the toilet normally sat, almost invisible unless you knew to look:
Small marks. Tallies. Seventeen of them.
Counting something. Days? Attempts? Deaths?
11:36 PM. One minute.
Michael took the old chisel and his new one—the one he'd acquired from PI yesterday—and hid both in a new location. Not behind the toilet. That spot was compromised, had been found before. He wedged them into a crack where the wall met the floor on the opposite side of the cell, covered by the shadow of his bunk.
Then he repositioned the toilet. Inserted the bolts. Tightened them just enough to look normal but loose enough for quick removal tomorrow. Eleven-thirty-seven.
Boots in the corridor.
Patterson's patrol.
Michael was back on his bunk by the time the flashlight beam swept across the bars of Cell 40. He kept his breathing even, eyes closed, feigning sleep. The guard paused—checking, counting, confirming—then moved on.
Sucre kept snoring.
Michael lay awake, heart pounding, old chisel's weight still present in his hands even though he'd hidden it. Someone had tried this before. He had tried this before. The evidence was undeniable.
Which meant the plan he'd spent a year developing, the escape route he'd considered perfect, had already failed at least once.
Maybe eleven times.
Michael stared at the bottom of Sucre's bunk above him. The metal slats. The sagging mattress. He'd stared at this exact view for three nights now. How many times had he stared at it in previous iterations? How many times had he lain here, planning, convinced this time would work?
Tomorrow, he'd start digging. Following the path someone—some version of him—had already tried.
The question was: would he make it farther than attempt eleven?
Or would he fail again, reset again, wake up in intake with guards saying "welcome back" and no memory of why those words made his skin crawl?
* * *
The next night, Michael began digging.
11:30 PM. Sucre asleep. Guard rotation gap confirmed. Seven minutes of safety.
Michael removed the toilet—faster this time, knowing the bolts were loose. Behind it, the wall waited. Concrete and mortar, barrier between him and freedom. Or between him and the next failure.
He pulled out both chisels. The old one and the new one. Started with the new, saving the old for comparison. The new chisel bit into the mortar around the target block. Concrete dust fell, whisper-soft. Michael worked in silence, each tap of the makeshift hammer carefully controlled. Tap. Pause. Listen. Tap. Pause. Listen.
The pattern was meditative. Rhythmic. His hands knew what to do even though his mind insisted this was the first time. Muscle memory from iterations he couldn't access.
After six minutes, he'd made visible progress. A quarter-inch groove around the top edge of the block. The mortar was old, crumbling easily once disturbed. Good. This part was working.
Michael replaced the toilet, hid the tools, returned to his bunk. Progress: approximately two percent of the removal necessary. At this rate, the block would be loose in two weeks. Acceptable timeline.
Unless he was following the exact same timeline as the previous attempt.
Unless this was the pattern that led to failure.
The next night: 11:30 PM, same routine. Toilet removed, chisel in hand, digging deeper. His palms were developing blisters. Small ones, easy to hide, but present. Evidence of labor. He'd have to visit the infirmary soon. Staged accident. Legitimate injury that explained the damage.
Perfect excuse to see Sara.
After an hour of work—Michael extending beyond the seven-minute window by listening carefully for guard patterns—the mortar around the top and right side of the block was gone. He could wiggle it slightly. Not enough to remove, but progress. Real, tangible progress.
Then, as he worked the bottom edge, his chisel hit something that wasn't mortar.
Michael stopped. Listened. No guards. He carefully cleared more dust away.
Words. Carved into the concrete behind the block. Where they'd be invisible unless someone removed it.
He angled his flashlight.
The message was carved in rough capital letters, done with a chisel or sharp tool, taking significant time and effort:
FAILED ATTEMPT #11 - M.S.
Guard discovered tunnel Day 19
Bellick knows the plan
He always knows
Sara tried to help - they took her
Cell Zero is real
They reset on Day 23
If you're reading this: DON'T TRUST THE BLUEPRINTS
Someone edited them
Real exit is 3 feet left
- Good luck, me
- M.Prime
Michael read it three times. Each word burned into his memory.
Attempt eleven. From someone calling himself M.Prime. Michael Prime. The first version? The original?
No—if this was attempt eleven, there were at least ten before it. Maybe M.Prime was the first who achieved enough awareness to leave messages.
The warnings were specific:
Day 19: Guard discovered tunnel. Bellick specifically. He "always knows." Meaning across multiple iterations, Bellick discovers the plan around day nineteen. Pattern. Predictable.
Sara tried to help—they took her. The UV message had said SARA DIES ITERATION 4. So in iteration eleven, they took her alive instead of killing her. Progress? Or different punishment?
Cell Zero is real. Confirmation. Not metaphor. Not code. A real place where they keep people. Where they kept the older Michael he'd seen on the gurney.
Reset on Day 23. Four days after discovery. They let it play out before reversing. Why? To study the response? To see how far the escape gets before intervention?
And the critical warning: blueprints are edited. Real exit is three feet left.
Michael measured mentally. Three feet left from the current block would target a completely different section of wall. Would lead to... he visualized the maintenance corridor layout, adjusted for the new position... a different access point. Still viable. Maybe better. Lower guard traffic in that section.
M.Prime was trying to help. Was giving him corrected information. Helping him avoid the failures of iteration eleven.
But if the plan kept failing, if eleven attempts had already crashed, what made Michael think attempt twelve would succeed?
His hands were shaking. He realized it suddenly—tremor in his fingers, adrenaline and exhaustion and existential horror combining. He was reading instructions from himself. From a version of himself that had suffered through all of this, had failed, had been caught and reset and was now trapped somewhere below the prison, screaming.
That could be his future. Probably was his future.
Unless he broke the pattern.
Michael took a deep breath. Forced the shaking to stop. Forced himself to think analytically. This was data. Valuable data. M.Prime had given him an advantage: knowledge of what went wrong last time.
He carefully filled in the hole he'd started, mixing concrete dust with water from the toilet tank to create paste, smoothing it over the groove. Then he measured three feet to the left.
New target block. This one showed no previous tool marks. Either M.Prime never got to try the corrected route, or the evidence had been erased somehow.
Michael began working on the new block. Fresh mortar, untouched. Harder work. His hands burned—blisters breaking, blood mixing with concrete dust.
3:30 AM when he finally stopped. He'd made a quarter-inch groove around the new target block. Start of the corrected route. Following M.Prime's instructions.
Trusting a ghost version of himself.
What choice did he have?
Sucre stirred as Michael replaced the toilet.
"Michael?" Groggy, half-asleep. "What time is it?"
"Early. Go back to sleep."
"What're you doing up?"
"Couldn't sleep. Thinking."
Sucre was quiet for a moment. Then: "You okay, man? You've been acting weird since you got here."
"I'm fine."
"You sure? Because you were making noise. Like working on something."
Michael's pulse quickened. "Just doing push-ups. Trying to tire myself out."
Sucre didn't respond immediately. Testing the lie. Then: "Alright, papi. But if something's wrong, you can tell me. We're cellmates. That means something in here."
"I know. Thanks."
Sucre rolled over, back to sleep.
Michael lay on his bunk, hands throbbing, mind racing. Three feet left. Day nineteen was the danger point. Sara would try to help—had to protect her. Bellick would discover it—had to plan for that.
And somewhere below, M.Prime was waiting. Watching? Hoping this version would finally succeed?
Michael touched his angel tattoo through his shirt. The skin was warm. Always warm now, like the ink was alive. Like it remembered things his conscious mind had forgotten.
Tomorrow he'd stage an accident. Get to the infirmary. Warn Sara.
If M.Prime was right, she'd try to help.
And they'd take her for it.
Unless Michael found a way to protect her while still using her help.
The impossible balance. Save Lincoln. Save Sara. Save himself.
Choose which to sacrifice.
Michael closed his eyes. Behind his eyelids, he saw the message carved in concrete. Good luck, me.
Words from a version of himself that had already lost.
He'd need more than luck.
* * *
Michael staged the accident at 10:15 AM the next morning in Prison Industries.
He'd timed it carefully. Abruzzi was across the workshop supervising another project. The guard on duty was Patterson—less observant than Stolte, more likely to accept the story at face value. And the injury needed to be visible enough to justify infirmary visit but minor enough not to raise suspicion.
Michael waited until he was working with sheet metal, cutting pieces for license plate manufacturing. The edges were sharp. Easy to create a believable accident.
He let the metal slip. Drew it across his palm in a quick, controlled motion. Pain flared—real, sharp, exactly as planned. Blood welled immediately. Not deep enough for stitches, but enough to make a mess.
"Damn," he muttered, loud enough for nearby inmates to hear.
C-Note looked over from his station. "You alright?"
"Cut myself. Not bad, but bleeding."
C-Note evaluated with military efficiency. "You need medical. Patterson!" He called to the guard. "Scofield's bleeding. Needs the infirmary."
Patterson came over, saw the blood, nodded. "Wrap it in this." He handed Michael a shop rag. "Report to medical. Get it cleaned and bandaged."
"Yes sir."
Michael pressed the rag to his palm, applying pressure. The cut stung. Worth it. He needed to see Sara. Needed to deliver M.Prime's warning before day nineteen arrived.
Fourteen days from now. Two weeks. Unless time was unstable here, unless days could stretch or compress or repeat. He couldn't trust anything.
The walk to the infirmary took three minutes. Through B-Block, past the cafeteria, down the administrative corridor. Michael mapped every step. Every camera. Every guard station. Building the model in his mind, updating the blueprint that his tattoos insisted was wrong.
Sara was at her desk when he entered. She looked up, saw the bloody rag, stood immediately.
"What happened?"
"Accident in PI. Metal cutting. It's not serious."
"Let me see." She guided him to the examination table, professional efficiency masking whatever else she might be feeling. They were being watched. Cameras in the corners. Guards outside.
Sara unwrapped the rag. The cut was clean, about two inches long across the palm. Bleeding had already slowed. She cleaned it with antiseptic—Michael didn't flinch—and examined it closely.
"It's clean. Won't need stitches. I'll bandage it and you should keep it dry for a few days."
"Thank you."
She began wrapping gauze, movements precise. Then, quietly, barely a whisper: "I found something in your records."
Michael went very still. "What kind of something?"
"Examinations from dates before you were here. In my handwriting."
"That's impossible."
"I know." She tied off the bandage, kept working as cover for conversation. "Helen Graves came to see me. The doctor before me. She warned me about iterations."
Michael's heart rate spiked. "What did she say?"
"That I'd treated you before. Multiple times. That every time, you try to escape, something goes wrong, and reality resets. She said you've done this at least fifteen times."
Fifteen. Higher than eleven. Or was M.Prime's count only the attempts he remembered?
"Did she say what went wrong?"
Sara's hands paused on the bandage. "She said I try to help. Every version of me tries to help you. And every time, they either kill me or take me somewhere."
Sara tried to help - they took her.
M.Prime's warning confirmed.
Michael met her eyes. "Then don't help me."
"I'm already helping you. Right now. Having this conversation."
"Sara—"
"I found my own records too. From five years ago, before I was hired. I'm part of this. Part of Project Daedalus. I have something called 'natural immunity to memory manipulation.' That's why I can remember fragments when others can't."
The UV message: SARA HAS IMMUNITY.
"That makes you valuable," Michael said carefully. "And dangerous to them."
"I know. Helen warned me. She was sent to a facility called Pineview Rehabilitation. They tried to erase her memories. It didn't work completely, but it damaged her."
"Then you know the risk. You should stay out of this."
Sara finished the bandage. Stepped back. Looked at him directly. "I can't unknow what I know. And if I have immunity, that means I might be the key to breaking this pattern."
Michael wanted to argue. Wanted to push her away for her own safety. But she was right. Her immunity made her crucial. M.Prime had noted it. The system had noted it. She was a variable they couldn't fully control.
"If you help," he said quietly, "they'll come for you. Day nineteen or shortly after. They'll know."
"How do you know that?"
"I found a message. From a previous attempt. It warned me about you. About what happens when you help."
Sara was quiet for a moment. Then: "What does the message say?"
"That you tried to help and they took you. That the guard—Bellick specifically—always discovers the plan around day nineteen. That they reset on day twenty-three."
"So we have nineteen days."
"We?"
"I'm already involved, Michael. I've been involved across multiple iterations apparently. Might as well be involved intentionally this time."
She was right. Denying her involvement wouldn't protect her. The pattern showed she got caught anyway, help or no help. At least if they worked together, maybe they could change the outcome.
"Alright. But we're careful. No paper trail. No digital records. They edit the computers."
"I know. I've been keeping a hidden journal. Physical paper only."
Smart. Exactly what M.Prime would have advised.
"There's something else," Michael said. "The blueprints I've been using are wrong. Deliberately edited. The real exit is three feet left of where I thought."
"How do you know?"
"The message. From M.Prime. The version of me that's been through this before."
Sara absorbed this. "Is he still here? In Fox River?"
"Yes. Below the prison. In a place called Cell Zero."
"The sub-level I found in the directory but not on blueprints."
"Probably. I haven't found the access point yet. But I will."
"Michael." Sara's voice was serious. "If there's a version of you already trapped here, suffering, what makes you think this attempt will be different?"
"Because I have information he didn't. Because you're aware this time. Because we know what went wrong before."
"Or because the system wants us to think we have an advantage."
Michael hadn't considered that. What if M.Prime's message was the trap? What if the system allowed him to find it, allowed him to adjust, all to test some new variable?
"I don't know," he admitted. "I don't know if we can trust anything. But I know my brother is innocent and they're going to kill him in fifty-seven days. And I know doing nothing guarantees failure."
Sara nodded slowly. "Then we proceed. Carefully. And we watch for day nineteen."
"And we protect you. Whatever happens, they can't take you this time."
"Agreed."
A guard knocked on the door. "Time's up, Scofield."
Michael stood. Sara met his eyes one more time. Unspoken agreement. Alliance formed. Dangerous, probably doomed, but formed.
As Michael left, Sara called: "Take care of that hand. Keep it clean."
"I will."
Walking back to A-Block, Michael felt the weight of it. He had allies now. Sucre, whether Sucre knew it or not. Sara, with her immunity and intelligence. And somewhere below, M.Prime, leaving messages like breadcrumbs through a maze that kept resetting.
Fifty-seven days to save Lincoln.
Nineteen days before Bellick discovered everything.
And however many iterations it took before the system finally broke.
Or before he did.
* * *
T-Bag was waiting when Michael returned to his cell.
Not inside—that would have been too obvious, too aggressive. But nearby. Leaning against the railing on the second tier, thirty feet from Cell 40, watching with those predatory eyes that missed nothing.
Michael ignored him. Entered his cell, sat on the bunk, examined his bandaged hand. The cut throbbed. Good. Real pain to anchor him to real things.
"Hurt yourself, pretty?"
T-Bag had moved closer. Standing just outside the cell bars now. Close enough to talk quietly. Far enough to maintain plausible deniability.
"Accident in PI."
"Mmm. Accidents. So common in prison. So convenient."
Michael didn't respond. T-Bag would talk regardless. The man loved the sound of his own voice.
"You know what's interesting?" T-Bag continued, theatrical as always. "Your hands show labor. Real labor. Rougher than metalwork would cause. Like you've been gripping tools. Scraping concrete. Digging, perhaps."
Michael's blood went cold. He kept his face neutral. "I work in PI. My hands get rough."
"Oh, I'm sure they do. But T-Bag has friends in interesting places. Friends who notice things. Like how your toilet isn't bolted down properly. Like how there's fresh concrete dust on your floor every morning. Like how you're awake at night, working on something."
Damn. Someone had been watching. Someone had noticed.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
T-Bag smiled. Predatory. Knowing. "Of course you don't. Just like you don't know about the escape plan. The tunnel. The route to the infirmary. The whole elaborate scheme tattooed on your body."
Michael stood. Moved to the bars. Kept his voice low and dangerous. "If you're trying to blackmail me—"
"Blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer 'mutually beneficial arrangement.' You're planning an escape. A good one, apparently, based on how careful you're being. And T-Bag would very much like to be part of that escape."
"No."
"No?" T-Bag's eyebrows rose. "That's unfortunate. Because if T-Bag isn't part of the escape, T-Bag might have to mention certain observations to Correctional Officer Bellick. Who, I'm told, is very interested in preventing escapes. Especially around day nineteen of planning."
Michael's skin prickled. Day nineteen. T-Bag specifically said day nineteen.
"How do you know that?"
"Know what, pretty?"
"Day nineteen."
T-Bag's smile widened. "I dream sometimes. Such vivid dreams. You and me, running through tunnels. Guards chasing. Gunfire. Blood. Death. Always around day nineteen. Been having those dreams for months. Years, maybe. Hard to remember exactly when they started."
Echo memories. T-Bag was experiencing them too. Had been part of previous escape attempts. Had died in them, apparently.
"You remember previous iterations," Michael said quietly.
"Do I? Or am I just crazy? T-Bag has been called crazy before. But crazy doesn't mean wrong." He leaned closer to the bars. "I've been to Cell Zero, Michael. Three times. They tried to erase me. But you can't erase something that's already broken."
Three times in Cell Zero. The torture. The memory manipulation. And T-Bag had retained fragments despite it all. His psychopathy made him resistant, made the encoding unstable. Same reason the system couldn't fully control him.
"What do you want?" Michael asked.
"What we all want. Freedom. Escape. To break this endless loop of suffering." T-Bag's voice dropped, became almost sincere. Almost human. "I'm tired, Michael. Tired of dying. Tired of forgetting. Tired of waking up in intake with guards saying 'welcome back' and not knowing why that makes me want to scream."
Michael understood. Hated that he understood. T-Bag was a monster—pedophile, rapist, murderer. But he was also a prisoner in this system, suffering through iterations just like everyone else.
"If I let you in," Michael said carefully, "you follow my rules. No deviations. No freelancing. No touching anyone on the team inappropriately."
"T-Bag can be a gentleman when motivated."
"And no telling anyone. Not other inmates. Not guards. Not Cell Zero if they take you again."
"Cross my heart." T-Bag made the gesture mockingly.
Michael weighed it. T-Bag was dangerous. Unpredictable. But he was also aware, had been to Cell Zero, knew things Michael didn't. And if the alternative was T-Bag going to Bellick, the whole plan collapsed.
"Fine. You're in. But I'm watching you. And if you step out of line, I'll kill you myself."
T-Bag's smile returned. "Noted. And appreciated. T-Bag does love a man with conviction." He pushed off from the bars. "One more thing. The message you found. Behind the wall. From M.Prime."
"What about it?"
"It's incomplete. There's more. Deeper. In Cell Zero itself. The Archive room has records of every iteration. Every death. Every failure. If we can access it, copy it, get it outside—we can expose the whole program."
"How do you know that?"
"Because T-Bag has seen the Archive. When they had me in Cell Zero, they showed me. Trying to break me by showing me all my previous deaths. Didn't work—I'm already too broken to break further—but I saw it. Rows and rows of servers. Documents. Video recordings. Everything."
The Archive. M.Prime had mentioned it in the message. If you can access it, copy it, get it outside - you can expose the whole program.
Maybe that was the real goal. Not just escaping Fox River. But destroying the system's ability to reset, to hide, to continue.
"Alright," Michael said. "You're in. We'll need your knowledge of Cell Zero."
"Happy to help, pretty. T-Bag is nothing if not a team player." He started to walk away, then paused. "Oh, and Michael? Be careful. They're watching you more than you think. And day nineteen is coming faster than you realize."
T-Bag disappeared down the tier.
Michael sat back on his bunk. Closed his eyes. Felt the weight of it all.
He had a team now. Sara with her immunity. T-Bag with his Cell Zero knowledge. Sucre's loyalty when the time came. And somewhere below, M.Prime, trapped but still trying to help.
Fifty-seven days until Lincoln's execution.
Nineteen days until Bellick discovered everything.
And an unknown number of iterations before the pattern finally broke.
Michael touched his bandaged hand. Pain reminded him he was real. This was real. The suffering was real.
Which meant the possibility of escape—true escape, not just moving to the next facility—had to be real too.
It had to be.
Because if it wasn't, if this was infinite loop with no exit, then everything he'd sacrificed—his freedom, his career, his sanity—was for nothing.
And Michael Scofield could not accept that.
Would not accept that.
From somewhere far below, so faint he might have imagined it, came a sound.
Not a scream this time.
A whisper.
In his own voice.
Saying: "This time. Make it count this time."
Michael opened his eyes.
This time.
He would.
patreon.com/Twilightsky588 - 7 advanced chapters