Taken

Chapter Fourteen

The elevator ride was silent. Tension bubbled in Anna's chest. She could feel her anxiety eating away at her as she stared at the door in front of her. Each parent standing on either side of her as she quietly anticipated what awaited them beyond the doors of the elevator. The closer they got to the surface, the more uneasy she felt. Something was wrong. She stole glances at her parents from the corner of her eye. Both parents were contrasting each other. Her mother was calm and silently smiling to herself, but her father's composure reflected one of rigidity.

The ding of the elevator reaching its destination drew her from her observation. She had expected hundreds of guards to be posted at the entrance, all pointing their weapons towards them but what faced her, confused her. Their entire path was empty. There was no one in sight. She stepped forward, cautiously.

"This could be a trap", she thought.

"Maybe it isn't", someone replied, making her turn back to her mother.

"Will you stop doing that!" she pressed, glaring at the woman in front of her. "I have enough things to deal with right now. I don't need to add your little mindreading telepathy to that list!".

She saw her mother visibly grimace and she sighed. "I'm sorry. Just... please don't invade my mind unless we're in trouble. Agreed?"

"Agreed", her mother replied, sporting a lopsided smile as if she were a child.

"Why are you both staring at each other like that?" her father finally spoke up.

"It's nothing", Anna replied instantly, urging them to move slowly and carefully forward.

It was as if every soldier had evaded the entire mansion. Anna peered through a nearby window, assessing the situation at hand.

There were hundreds of her false father's soldiers attacking some other threat and by the looks of it, the soldiers were losing. Before she could question what was going on, they heard an explosion. Startled and a bit shaken, they ran towards the explosion in the house. They had finally made it to the stairs when the strange invaders sauntered in, guns in hand.

"We need to kill them", her mother whispered to them.

"No. We don't even know if they are threats to us. Just the people of this underground business. We are prisoners here. Not residents", her father spoke rationally.

"That might be true, but we are not exactly normal, Father. What if they turn out to be worse than our captors? We can't take that chance", Anna replied. "The safest way to ensure our safety is to escape unnoticed. The faster we are safe, the faster you can explain what happened". She urged them to follow her once more. This time they had no room for objection. They moved synchronously and carefully deeper into the mansion.

She led them through hallways and down staircases to a door. She switched on the lights, exposing the wooden door and two unlit torches on either side of the door. Anna grabbed one and her father grabbed the other.

"We need to find a way to light these. We won't be able to move forward without them", Anna remarked, searching the room for a lighter.

"Not a problem" her mother grinned. She snapped her fingers and instantly caught the torches aflame. Anna rolled her eyes and sighed, wondering when her mother had become so giddy and childlike. The woman she had known would have warned them before doing something so reckless as lighting a flame. Anna reached for the necklace that her fake father had given to her. He had ensured that she would always wear it in case of emergencies. She pulled a key from the necklace and used it to unlock the door.

Anna led the way with her mother in the middle and her father locking the door behind them.

"Anna?" her father broke the silence shortly after.

"Hmm?" she asked.

"Why do we need torches if we can see in the dark? Surely from that fight in the basement, you'd know this..."

"The torches aren't for the darkness, Father. They are for what's in the darkness".

Low wails erupted throughout the narrow passageway. Anna growled at the unwanted sounds of the beast. Her breath hitched at the drumming of heavy footsteps approaching them.

"Whatever you do, don't listen to it's wails of agony and never let it touch you" she warned as she charged forward into the darkness. Her parents took off immediately after she was almost out of sight. Soon enough, all three were face to face with the grayish blue skinned creature. It was seven feet tall, had purplish red eyes and skin as smooth as a serpent. Its wide body covered the exit and the way it stared at them could make any normal human shiver.

"What is that thing?" her father asked, fighting the urge to pull them all back in the other direction.

"Let's just say that the fake you liked experimentation..." she stated, moving towards it. She raised her torch toward it, burning away a piece of its body. It wailed lowly causing a silent tension to fill the air.

"Don't. Listen. To. Its. Wail", Anna barely uttered before collapsing. Her father raised his torch, fighting away the slug-like limbs that advanced them. He urged his wife to move closer to their daughter as soon as the limbs were out of their way. She fought off every advancement of its appendage as he successfully burned through the creature and threw Anna over his shoulder. They sped through the rest of the passageway, suffering no more advancements of any creature.

As soon as they saw the light of their escape, they bolted for the exit, never stopping until they were outside. After a few minutes as if she were under a mental spell, Anna regained consciousness. She rubbed her head and rapidly blinked to focus her eyes. They were at the back of the Mansion in what seemed to be its garden. There were bushes shaped perfectly into hearts and a beautiful path, cut low in the high grass leading their escape route. Once Anna was satisfied that her eyes were focused and her head was not too sore from the impact of hitting the floor, they proceeded.

"There they are!!!" the loud voice of a trespasser met Anna's ears. Her first instinct got the best of her and she ran in the other direction of the voice, followed by her parents close behind her. The heavy footsteps of dozens pursuing them echoed as she pushed herself to go faster. They made a sharp turn, flying headfirst into the battle between the soldiers and the invaders. Time seemed to stop at that moment. There was nowhere left to run. They were cornered.

She stared at the hundreds of her fake father's men on the ground and bile threatened to rise. They were surrounded which meant that they had no choice but to fight for their lives.