"Come on, Sam, we're going to be late." Said Haley to a young teenage boy, crouched down in front of the lock on the door to the school's pantry, who's hands we're working vigorously.
         "I've almost got it, just another minute." He said, wiping a bead of sweat from his eyebrow.
         "We can come back later, just co-" she started

Click. "Got it, come on." As they push into the pantry, their eyes widen, every shelf is filled to the brim with canned goods and other non-perishables; they've never seen so much food in their life. "We'd better hurry, we need to take enough to last us till we can get to The Barren," said Sam. Removing their backpacks, they begin stuffing cans into them. "Uhm, I think they are going to notice this food missing." She says point to a paper taped beside the door which reads "pantry inventory, below it has names followed by dates for every single day. "I know, that's why we are leaving tonight." "wait, what? We're not supposed to leave for another week, I don't know if I'm ready for a two-week journey across the Dread Plains." "Look, Haley, things change, we have to go. We will lose our window if we stay another week." "But what about mom and dad? If we leave tonight, we won't even get to see them again before we go." Said Haley "Does that even matter? They starve us half to death, they beat us for next to no reason, they will probably rejoice when we don't come back." He says, raising his voice. "It's not all b-" "Shh." He says, holding a finger to his mouth, eyes darting to the door. Haley's senses suddenly on high alert, her ears focusing in for even the slightest hint of a sound. Neither one dared to move, both too scared to draw breath. The sound of distant footfalls rang through the room from the corridor. Sam's eyes swept over the room frantically as if another door was just going to magically appear, of course, one didn't, no, that was the only way out, they were trapped. For a second, Sam wanted to give up, when Haley grabbed him by the shirt sleeve and pulled him to the corner of the room, where stacks of boxes were stacked almost to the ceiling. Without a moment's hesitation, she climbed to the very top, popped one of the tiles from the ceiling, and was shimmying her way through. For a second Sam was awestruck, but the sound of footfalls getting louder was plenty of motivation to send him scurrying up the boxes after her, he stumbled close to the top, damn near toppling backward, and taking a row of boxes with him, but he made it, just in the nick of time. They popped the ceiling panel back into place, they had made it. As the door creaked open, both of their hearts stopped, despite their relative safety in the ceiling. "What the hell?" The sound of Mr. Widener's muffled voice reached them in the ceiling. Sam met Haley's terrified eyes, with his own. Both had come to the same realization; they had forgotten the backpacks.