Hey Daddy!

Just checking up on you to see if you were doing okay! I've got lots of colouring books to show you when you get back – I finished them all, and I made a special one just for you! It's with this letter, but hopefully it doesn't fall off the boat before you can see it.

Mommy's been helping with my writing, and I'm getting pretty good at this stuff! I even wrote a little story for my teacher, Ms. Moore, and she said that I might be able to become like Shakespeare someday! I don't know who that is, but he sounds pretty cool.

I miss you lots! I get sad when you're not around :( Sometimes I have to lie about you at school and just tell kids that you're really far away some place… but Mommy won't tell me where. Why can't you come home?! Are you sick or something? I hope that I didn't give you the flu!

Okay… well, Mommy says that I have to go now, so that's all I've got to say.

Please come home soon, Daddy. I want you to be happy and lucky too!

Love you lots,

Clementine

"God fucking damn it…" I mutter, tears burning my eyes as the letter gets scrunched up in my hands. I choke out a sob as the droplets fall off of my face and onto the stone floor; marking their territory with splashes as I sit on the bed with my head in my hands. I've looked over this letter at least fifty times today, and I still can't control myself. Carley must have helped her write this, as I know for a fact that Clem wouldn't have been able to do it so neatly by herself. After all, she's just eight years old.

Or at least, she was when she wrote this thing. Ten years is a long time to be stuck in prison.

You heard right – ten years. Ten. Motherfucking. Years. This is the only thing left of my family that I actually have left. The guards ordered us a long time ago to hand over any personal possessions to them for incineration, but I for damn sure wasn't going to give in. Out of pure spite, I handed them a used napkin that I blew my nose with; saying how my daughter gave it to me for Christmas one year. I told the guard to fuck off and he went on his way.

It's 1963 right now, if I recall correctly. I overheard Larry, the warden, mention it to one of his higher officials one night when he assumed we were all sleeping. They never tell us what day or time it is so that we can forget how long it's been since we were shipped off to this horrible place… but I haven't forgotten. I'll never forget, not until the day I die. This hunk of rock hasn't broken me yet, but I've been one of the fortunate ones.

Alcatraz Island – some say it's impenetrable and escape-proof; that nobody who goes inside ever comes back out. Those that do are traumatized after all the crazy shit that they go through, whether it be through torture, mental anguish, or just the absolute feeling of hopelessness as they lay awake at night; listening to the waves crashing on the shore and realizing that they're on a fucking island out in the San Francisco Bay.

And for the most part, those people would be correct.

For me, though, the most mind-numbing thing about being out here is not the beatings that the guards might give you if they're feeling in the mood. No, those I've gotten accustomed to, and I've learned how to avoid them for the most part by playing it safe.

The thing that really grinds my gears is hearing the same fucking songs on loop every damn day. He's So Fine, Surfin' Motherfucking USA, Sugar Shack and The End of the World… that's more torture than any beating or electric shock could ever give to me at this point. I'm pretty sure my ears have bled multiple times just listening to that play on the loudspeakers all the time, and I'm almost certain that Larry's doing it on purpose. That fucking asshole…

"Everett, are you bitching again?"

"Can it, Carver," I spit, unable to see him through the walls but still able to hear his gravelly voice through the small hole at the top. "If you had a daughter of your own, then you'd understand…"

"Fucking Christ… If I had a kid, then I wouldn't have been so stupid as to get winding myself all up in here!" he chastises, no doubt only bugging me because he's got nothing better to do. "It's been ten years mate, just let 'em go already. Save yourself the trouble."

"Clementine hasn't given up on me," I bite back, glaring at the wall as if I can blast right through it, "and I sure as hell won't give up on her."

Hearing Bill chuckle bitterly, I growl in my seat and stand up on top of the shitty little sink that I've got in here to look over into his cell. It's still tough to see, but I can at least see that Carver's laying down on his bed staring up at the ceiling; tossing a piece of paper-mache up into the air before catching it once again.

"Just because you've given up hope doesn't mean that I have to," I chide, glaring at the man as he closes his eyes. "Unlike you, I've got something to work towards."

"We've both been here ten years, Lee. Ten years of our lives just flushed down the fucking toilet," he remarks, shaking his head as he places the paper-mache on his chest. "Give it up – your family's gone, and so is mine. There's nobody still waiting for you out there! People change, lives change! Instead of expecting Clem to constantly look for you to come home, maybe you should get your head out of your ass and realize she's got her own life to worry about!"

Shaking my head, I huff and step back down onto the floor of my cell; wallowing in my own miseries. Perhaps I have been living in a delusion the whole time, and that Clem could very well be better off without me in her life. I mean, who would want a murderer as their foster parent, and a convicted felon at that? Carley certainly didn't seem to think so, and that's probably why I haven't heard from either of them in so long.

I've sent back one letter per year, just hoping for the miniscule chance that Clem would write back to me… but my hopes have been dashed every time. It's heartbreaking to realize just how much I had to leave behind – I had a beautiful wife, the most amazing foster child I could've asked for, a decent house, and a pretty great job working at the steel mill. Life after the war was pretty bumping – that's why they were called the Golden Years, after all. America was on top of the world with our economy, military, jobs, everything. Life was peaceful at home, and I was loving every second of it.

Then Carley had to go sleep with some fucker named Nick.

I'll admit it – alcohol and anger do not mix well together, but what would you have done in my shoes? If you saw your wife and some twenty year old fucker getting it on in some dinky motel room, leaving your kid behind at home while you had to sneak off to find the bastard, wouldn't you be pissed off too?

I sure as hell was, and that's why I snapped his neck and tossed his body off the railing of the motor-inn. I didn't regret a damn thing… until the sentence came through. Then I realized what I had just thrown away, and I felt absolutely sick to my stomach.

The rest, as they say, is history. I got driven out to San Francisco on the longest bus ride of my life, and then sent off on the first ship to Alcatraz. I swear, that boat trip felt like I was literally going to the gates of hell – nothing but dark grey buildings with a dock, some foliage and water as far as the eye could see. When Larry came out on the docks to take a look at the new inmates (one of which was William Carver), he spit in our faces and escorted us into the prison.

Been here ever since.

"HEY! WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET SOME GRUB AROUND HERE, HUH?!" shouts one of the most obnoxious (but still relatively friendly when he wants to be) men I've ever met – Kenny. I don't think he's physically capable of closing his mouth with the way that he talks, and Carver's actually tried to hurt him on multiple occasions because of it. Luckily nothing ever really comes of it, save for the guards sending the both of them off to isolation for a day. Trust me when I tell you that that does the trick – nobody wants to get stuck in a confined room with nobody else around all day.

I can't help but chuckle when I hear Carver groan again, leaning my head back on the stone walls behind me.

"Would you just shut the fuck up already?" he yells, obviously getting fed up with the constant talking. "Or would you like one of the guards to come spoon-feed you? What are you, two years old?"

"I'm doing you lot a favour, asswipe! If you'd clean your ears out, old man, then maybe you'd realize that!"

"You're just fucking lucky that Everett's between the two of us, Kenneth!" he mocks, cracking his knuckles as I hear him toss and turn on the bed. "Otherwise you'd be getting a shiv to the neck!"

"Ha! I'd take that over having to listen to you two bitch all day," I comment, interrupting them as I hear them both get louder. "Would you two just shut the fuck up?! Kenny, nobody's coming, so cool your jets, man! And Bill, what good is yelling back gonna do?! You're sucking up my air with the way you're going at it!"

That seems to do the trick thankfully, even though I can still hear them grumbling to themselves miserably while I go up to look out of my iron bars. There are two floors in blocks B and C from what I can tell, with most of the cells being filled with the exception of a few. There used to be patrons in there, but nobody's seen or heard from either of those prisoners for a few months now. Their whereabouts have been passed around like a ghost story, with some believing that they were taken for capital punishment, while others think that they were simply released a little bit early – though that's still up for debate.

Still, there are those who (namely Kenny) believe that the prisoners managed to get off of this piece of shit island and swim back to safety. Personally, I think he's crazy.

"You looking at it, too?" Kenny suddenly asks, and I can see his hands wrapped around the bars in the same fashion as mine are. "I'm telling you man, there's no way they just sent them back. They were here for, what, a few months at the most? They wouldn't send you here for that short of a sentence. They definitely tried to get out of here, Lee."

"They'd be stupid to try that, Kenny," I point out, tired of having the same conversation every single time. It never goes anywhere. "Look, we've been over this before – nobody escapes Alcatraz. Nobody. The last one who tried got hung from the rafters."

"I thought this place didn't deal out that kind of shit?"

"It didn't," I remark bitterly, reminded of the fact that at one point people didn't actually get executed out here. "That all changed when Larry took over – the old blowhard's changed the rule as soon as he stepped into power. That's when the escape attempts really started to change."

"Is he complainin' again, Lee?"

"Was I talkin' to you, farm boy?!" Kenny snaps, smacking his hand on the iron bars as he yells at Luke some more. "Go back to your fantasy-land where you and Jane are fooling around together; rolling on the ground like a couple of fucking teenagers!"

"You know, you've got a lot of nerve, Kenny!" Luke retorts, getting pissed off himself. To the right of me, I hear Carver chuckling at their pointless argument as I shake my head in embarrassment. These two clowns haven't seen the horrors that Bill and I have witnessed, not yet anyways. "You've been here for, what, a fucking year?! Oh boo-hoo! Cry me a river, you damn redneck! You keep bitching the way you are, and you'll find yourself in the electric chair faster than you think!"

The one thing that I hadn't realized about Luke until a while ago… well, guess who his best friend used to be at one point? That's right, Nick. He's come to me countless times saying how much he misses his old buddy, and that I should've met him because he was such a great guy.

Oh, I knew the guy alright, Luke. Trust me when I tell you that he was anything but great!

Thankfully (for both our sakes), Luke doesn't seem to know that I'm the one who murdered him, and I've managed to keep this secret under wraps for the five years that Luke's been here with us. He got caught dealing out drugs to numerous sources, as well as having a hand dug deep into the underground black market, so naturally they booked his ass over to Alcatraz to serve his time – probably hoping to break him the same way they've tried to with us.

"They're giving me a headache, Lee…" Carver complains, his voice muffled by the wall as I nod my head. I can't really argue with him on that one – the constant in-fighting is getting ridiculous.

What's even more ridiculous is hearing what Kenny's about to say next.

"All I'm saying is that we don't have to be cooped up like a pack of fucking dogs for the rest of our lives! I ain't willing to rot here until I'm old and grey!" he says, anger laced into his words as he comes up to the iron gate again. "If we plan this shit out, we could be out of here in fucking no time! There wouldn't be anything stopping us from here and freedom!"

"Yeah, except for the damn ocean," Luke sarcastically replies, with everyone keeping quiet as our cells are unlocked for dinner. It'll mostly consist of a stale piece of bread, some water and whatever rotten meat they could get their hands on, but I tend to savour every last bite.

They could very well be your last around here.

"ALRIGHT, LISTEN UP!" we hear Larry bellow from the upper floor, looking more pissed off than usual. As bad as it might sound, I hope that the fucker just keels over one day and dies from a fucking heart attack or something… Bastard would deserve it after all the harsh punishments he's dealt out over the years. "ONE OF YOUR OWN WAS CAUGHT TRYING TO STEAL AND MURDER AN ON-DUTY OFFICER THE OTHER NIGHT! OMID AND CARLOS – THE VAGRANTS WERE CAUGHT AND DEALT WITH SEVERELY!"

A few seconds later, we all stare in shock and horror when two body bags are dumped over the railing; landing with a sick crack on the floor below. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who's inside of those things…

"For now, you'll get to see your friends with both of their smiling faces staring down at you! Maybe you'll think twice before doing anything stupid!" he roars, turning away as Luke hurls onto the floor.

It's not from the bodies, though…

…it's because Omid and Carlos' heads are being held up by ropes hanging from the ceiling; their eyes glazed over as they stare soullessly at anyone looking towards them. Larry literally had their heads removed to torture the rest of us for something we didn't do…

"Guess we know where they ended up," Carver comments, almost unfazed at this kind of thing by now. Unfortunately, I think that I'm pretty close to being the same way.

Looking over at Kenny, he gives me a look that says the four of us need to talk, but he shivers as he passes the bodies before going into the cafeteria.

I used to think that when the executions started happening, that I wouldn't be able to last a day in here. I thought for sure that there was no way a guy like me would come out of this thing alive, yet here I am – still standing (though with a lot less confidence than I used to have) and still breathing.

Please be lucky, I hear Clem's sweet, eight-year old voice tell me in my head.

Fuck this place – after ten years of pure hell, I've had more than enough.

But nobody escapes from Alcatraz.

AN: Hey y'all, I just wanted to see if this is something you guys would be interested in. I wasn't entirely sure of it myself, but I was searching around and thought that this would be a pretty cool remake of how the prisoners may have escaped from this place back then. I've obviously had to change some things around, but hopefully I've set the tone for this kind of thing.

Also, don't worry – this is just a fun, little side project that I'm doing. You're the Salvation will always come first, but I just had to get this out to see if you guys would be interested in this continuing. Please review and I'll try to get the next chapter done soon!