Salvation lies within.

[Richard Stone]

What is a Diary? The words were at the top centre of the whiteboard in his classroom. Richard Stone took up his pen again and continued writing: - How does a diary differ from other pieces of writing? He then put the pen down and sat down at his desk to wait for the students to arrive so that he could begin the class.

Once the tardi-bell had sounded, Richard stood up and addressed the class "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, as the board says, I will be getting you to write a diary entry. However, it will not be from your own point of view." He wiggled his eyebrows as he rolled a television with a DVD player out and after, after turning it on, pushed play and the courtroom scene and that of Andy being walked into the prison and ending with him walking into his cell and the bars slamming shut, from Shawshank Redemption played before the teacher turned the television off again. "What I would like you to do, is write a diary entry from the perspective of Andy Dufresne on his first night in prison." He glanced across his students. Some things to consider while planning your entry: How did you feel when the judge sentenced you two life sentences? What are your first impressions of the prison? What was the long walk past the other inmates like? What were your first impressions of the Warden? What were your impressions of your cell? And, how did it feel when the cell bars were slammed?"

---

Students
Present:
Athena Achilles
@maidenmisery
Tyler Reynolds

Absent:
Becca Walsh
Gretchen Holmes
@rhythm
@lukamason
Rose Hoff

[Athena Achilles]

Athena slipped into her English class, avoiding the eyes of the teacher as she hurried to her table at the far side of the classroom, in the middle under a tall window. The window was up too high for her to be able to stare out of, but she liked sitting under it. She pulled the folder she wanted out of her bag and opened it up. Her work was stored neatly in tabbed files in the back of the folder, but at the front it was just lined paper, ready for her to fill with her writing.

Keeping her head down, she decorated the edges of the paper while she was waiting for class to start, as she had read the board when she was getting the things out of her bag. Under the curly boarder she had drawn, she copied down what was on the board, but left the questions unanswered.

She looked up through her eyelashes as the teacher greeted them and groaned inwardly as he wheeled the television out. She hated doing work on movies, it left no room for personal creativity, though the teacher's words did swirl around in her head. However, she remained silent as she watched the start of Shawshank Redemption and was a little surprised when Mr Stone turned it off once the officer had called for lights out.

She sat up a little as the man began to speak again. The idea of putting herself into someone else's shoes sounded like an interesting thing to do. She pulled the next page out of her folder and quickly wrote down the suggestions that the man was putting forth. She then pressed her lips together in thought as she closed he eyes and imagined that it was her standing in that court room. The way the movie had played, it was actually hard to know whether Andy was innocent or not, though she decided that she would write it though she was innocent, as he had claimed his innocence - repeatedly.

Well, today has been a day from hell, though there's a chance that's where I've just arrived. I felt that in the court room, I may as well have been speaking an alien language because they didn't hear anything I said. Well, I guess they did, as everything I said was turned around and used against me. I should have just got in my car that night and driven away, gone across the border. I knew she was cheating on me, I just couldn't believe that someone would...
The drive from the courthouse to the prison was as uneventful as one could expect, then we arrived at the stone fortress that is now my home for my next two lives. As we got off the bus, the inmates were lined up, watching us the way a broker would watch a prized thoroughbred being led out before a race, right before he places his final bet.
We were then stripped, showered and blasted with something that smelt as bad as bad as it felt and then lined up like sardines in a can, holding the only uniform I will wear for the rest of my life and marched to our hotel suites.
The room was no more than a hole in the wall; bed, sink, toilet, stool. And then the door slammed shut. Only now do I realise that it's all real, now I know there is no way out. I'm innocent, and no one will ever know.

She placed her pen down and she read through what she had written, a small smie appearing on her lips as she was happy with what she had put down.

[Deleted]

Elizabeth entered the classroom sporting her Sherlock trench coat and of course the insane blue scarf as she took a seat in the back of the classroom. She settled herself in before glancing up at the board and towards the teacher as she had arrived a bit early to class since their was only one other person within the room. She pulled out some paper and a pen as she awaited for the bell to ring all the while muttering under her breath claiming 'she was bored'. 

As the bell rung she perked up and watched the short video before listening to the teacher ramble on. Of course she thought the assignment was 'boring' and wanted to complain about it just like a certain Sherlock would do, but instead kept her mouth quite. She then decide to start on the assignment instead and began to write down how it felt.

I never knew that these few months would turn out to be the worst of my life. My life seemed to be back on track, but it was suddenly taken away from me. That judge had given me two life sentences within this locked box. There is no key within sight and I'm just a mouse trapped within it, but does anyone care? No. Every word that I screamed as I was dragged away had fallen upon deaf ears... As I was dragged I could have swore that Judge wore a smirk that could have been ten feet long! It didn't matter because no matter what I said it always went out one ear. Even so as I was taken in I felt like it was 1939 when those Germans invaded Poland. I know what it must have felt like being Jewish when the invasion took place because this place feels just like it! Like they made a time machine just to take this prison back in time and cussing me of crimes I didn't do.

The inmates I passed would either look away like I was a dog going into the backroom or just give a toothy grin like they were better then me. Like they owned the place and was going to make me eat dirt. Tossing me into my grey box like I was a piece of meat and nothing more. The screech that cell door made as they slammed it shut was torture to my very own ears! This place I was to live in would only get one name and it would be Hell.

Finished with her writing she gave a small smile wishing she had written more, but though it would be a bit too much.

[Tyler Reynolds]

Yes he liked school but he would much rather be out on the cross country course with Roman but yet here he was, walking down the hallway to his next class. Cambridge English, he really wondered why he tried so hard, but to be honest he really didn’t. He walked into the class to see that he was the third student there and the only guy. He shrugged it off and took a seat.

He almost sighed loudly when he saw that they would have to write a diary entry. He wasn’t a petty thirteen year old girl who loved to write all the gossip she had retained during the day of her middle school or high school years. If he wasn’t such a good student he would have refused to do the activity, but he just waited for the teacher to explain it more in depth.

Once the bell rang Tyler listened to Mr. Stone speak about the entry that they would be needing to write. He gave a half smile and was sort of relieved when the class was informed that they wouldn’t be writing it from their own point of view but a newly convicted prisoner. As soon as Mr. Stone was done talking Tyler opened his notebook and began writing.

Everything was a blur of words and movement; I said what needed to be said but no one believed me, not even my own damn lawyer. All the signs of that godforsaken woman’s death pointed to me. When the judge made his sentence my heart dropped into my stomach and I felt like I was going to be sick. I can’t believe it! I can’t believe I got blamed for all of this, my life was going great and then she had to be murdered. I knew she was cheating but I would never do this, never.
The drive was silent and I had time to prepare myself for my new life. When I was shoved down the aisle of cells, the other inmates looked as if they were animals in the zoo, banging against their cell bars, screaming out words of anger. I tried not to make any eye contact with them; I could feel their menacing eyes burning a hole in the side of my head.
They shoved me into the dark hole that I would call my home for the rest of my life. The cold metal bars slammed shut behind me, never to open again. The Warden welcomed me to the prison with a sarcastic tone and told me that he hoped my sentence would be nothing more than living in Hell, especially for what I’ve done. I wanted to scream the question, What have I done?! But I didn’t I just sat there quietly listening. When he left I sat there in the darkness of the cell and starred at the colorless wall.

It wasn’t his best work but it would have to do for now, it covered everything that Mr. Stone wanted them to, so he felt as if he did well.