Defying Equilibrium: Book II

Chapter 6: Alive, at least for now

*Sorry this was so slow to update, I've just been really busy! Should be quicker updates from here on, hopefully.*

If this was a dream, then it was a truly horrid one, the worst nightmare of her life. And if it was not...well, that was even worse.

Liana knew she had to be dreaming, and she commanded to herself, wake up, wake up! But it did nothing to advance her situation – she was still standing, barely, and they were all on the ground. Were they dead? She couldn't tell. Maybe just unconscious. Yes, that's it, they were just unconscious. Please let them just be unconscious.

She pinched herself to wake up. It had always worked before, but this time it didn't. Nothing changed when she opened her eyes. So she did it again, and again, even when she could feel a bruise forming on her arm. Wake up. Wake up.

“You are awake, you know.” Came a voice from the doorway. The voice had a hint of laughter. Someone was finding this amusing.

Liana raised her eyes to the direction of the voice, and there he was again. Her captor. The one who had come in only hours before, who had carved those words into the wall. The words which caused that girl to scream. Did the words have something to do with everything suddenly collapsing? If they did, then why was she still standing?

“Because the trap is set for intruders only,” the man at the door answered, as if he could hear her thoughts. He pointed to the doorway. “The only ones affected would be those who crossed this threshold.” He smiled at her. “Thank you for playing your part so beautifully, girl.”

Liana was too scared to respond. My part? She thought. What did that mean?

“Your part was luring them straight to us,” he explained, again as if he could hear her thoughts. “Like moths to a burning lamp. You were bait, girl.”

She had lured them here, hadn't she? A wave of guilt overtook her. They had come here for her, to save her life. And now it might have cost them theirs. Her eyes fell on their fallen forms, and she felt as if she might be sick.

The man laughed a little, “Awww, how sweet. You feel guilty, don't you? Your kind amuses me to no end, that they do. Feeling guilty over something that is in no way your fault. It was your friend's stupidity that led all of you into this situation, and yet you burden yourself with that pain of guilt. And why? No one knows. That is why you amuse me so much.”

Liana tried to respond, but the world was beginning to feel as if it was underwater. Her vision began to blur and fade, and the room began to spin around her. She felt herself falling, but didn't feel herself hit the floor. A pair of arms caught her, and stopped her fall. The last thing she saw was the man's dark red hair and his storm grey eyes. The last thing she heard was his voice.

“Don't fight it,” he said, almost gently. “Just sleep.”

She did.

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Oscar didn't wake to a blinding light, in fact he couldn't see anything at all when he woke. It wasn't really waking, either, it was like trying to break through a glass door. You could see what was on the other side, but that didn't make it any easier to get there. Oscar woke to darkness, because he found he couldn't open his eyes. That was when the panic set in.

He could feel his hands tied behind his back, weighed down by the burden of cold, biting steel. Shackles. He could breathe, but only barely, just enough to stay alive. He could feel the cold, hard floor beneath him, stone. But he still could not move. His mind began to spin in panicked circles, the memory of what had happened fading into non-importance as he could think beyond the simple desire to move and to breathe and he wondered whether the others we still alive and even whether he was still alive and what if he wasn't and if only he could just open his eyes and....