It All Started With Magic

CHAPTER 2 Who Is At Fault Here Really?

Present day: 20XX

Location: Somewhere underground the huge mansion of SCHQ

The lights kept flickering, like Fiona's chances at leaving the tight security. Amber had been caught and she had been shoved underground. Neither could Fiona see Amber for the last time, nor could she threaten them well-enough to escape the facilities with Amber on toe. And this...this whole mess...was her fault.

She knew that.

She accepted that.

And so, the guilt that was like a stab to every open wound of hers, kept coming back in waves; while the remorse, never left her. So even if these people did nothing to her physically anymore, the inner self had made a full-proof plan to have her dead from within.

Fiona's eyes drifted back to the ceiling with one flickering light and nothing else in the room. No fan, no vent, no window.

She was excellently trapped.

Tired and exhausted, she was already done with screaming and shouting of 'Let me out's so many a times, that no matter what she said, all she could hear was a 'Let me out' or a 'Don't hurt her'.

"Kill me instead," she said, to particularly no one in the room.

'Like that would happen,' her mind sneered at her. 'Why don't you go digging for more information now, huh? Aren't you happy? Amber must be dead. Your plan got her killed. What a deserving end!' her mind seemed to clap at her for the last part.

She groaned.

Teet! Teet! Tint!

Someone seemed to be pressing the buttons to open the entrance of her cell. Her ears picked up. '5...3...2...1...5...3...'

Good thing she had had practice of listening, her teacher was amply strict about this.

'Listen and you shall have done half the task,' she'd told her once.

'Aham,' she had thought then, laughing and giggling with an equally jovial Amber.

They were both 15 then, weren't they?

'Where did this entire time go?' Fiona mused.

The door to her cell opened, and a man with a white transparent case and a stethoscope came waddling in. Pince-nez and aging hair, he had to be a sort of medical examiner, right? Fiona had watched enough of those moving pictures to know what sort of man he was.

'A ...what do they call him?' she mused, 'Ah yes! A doctor. But what is a doctor doing here?' she thought. Curiosity was never something she could subdue and had been reprimanded for by her teachers several times.

"How many times do I have to tell you Miss Morres? Hands off the table and stop peeking!" Mr. Rodney had spoken, but Fiona was elsewhere.

"Miss Morres? Miss Morres?"...

"...are you hurt?" a voice echoed through the room. He snapped his fingers near her eyes and she looked up. She must have looked funny because he repeated himself, albeit, a little crossly, "Where else are you hurt?" he asked.

She realised he had been sent to look at her wounds. 'But why?' she thought.

He seemed to finally realize her dilemma.

He picked up a gauze and dabbed it into some solution before pressing it to the bottom end of her lips.

"They are not that evil, though the definition differs when they feel threatened," he spoke, his voice trying to smoothen the creases on her forehead.

"They are not evil?" she asked and met his gaze this time. She willed that he would say yes so she could question him on what her face and body had to say, but she only received a sigh.

"You are a threat. You went somewhere you shouldn't have gone. What were you expecting? Them to be nice and kind to you? Welcome you with a garland? What did you hope they'd say..." he replied, like easing a small child's complaints with calm and care, "come, come and invade us or harm us or take what we have?" he asked, his gaze finally meeting hers.

He picked up another gauze as he kept looking at her, and dabbed some ointment on and pressed it to her wounds ever so lightly. She winced when it came in contact to her wounds.

"Sorry..." he whispered, "but that was to be expected."

'Like answering his own words,' she sighed.

The man got up and Fiona could finally see his full height. Six foot and half an inch. Hair may have been aging but he had muscles. Suspender was probably a dress-code out of fancy for him. Briefcase in hand, he walked away from her towards the door. But before he stepped out, he turned back to meet the gaze of Fiona's.

"They'll let you out soon. Your friend said everything they needed to know."

And with that he walked out so quick that Fiona could only ask her question to the closed door.

"Is she alive?"