The Story of Emily Evans

XVII: Caged

In and out...that's what it felt like as I came to, my mind foggy with a type of sleepiness I didn't really want to wake from. "E-Emily...!" I heard an echoey, dream-like, voice exclaim as it tried to get my attention. "Emily wake up...! Now isn't the time to sleep."

"One more minuet...." My voice softly, groggily, stated as I let out a yawn...I wanted the voice to leave me be...to let me sleep.

"Emily...!" The voice persisted, it sounded annoying and their accent definitely didn't help at all.

I let out a small groan as I tried to move my arms into a more comfortable position...only they wouldn't really move. One of my eyes popped open only to see that I was currently on the floor in a dimly lit room that looked like a musty old cellar. My mind seemed to instantly wake up as I took in my new surroundings, sitting up as much as I could with my hands tied behind my back with what felt like a type of rope.

"Finally...." I heard a relieved voice state from beside me, I turned my head only to see that it was Sol. She was currently tied up like me.

"Where are we...?" I asked her, hoping that she had the answers.

"No clue." Sol told me. "When I noticed you were taking too long, I decided to check up on you. Only...I caught them when they were hauling you into the van."

"And you got kidnapped as well...." I told her, summarizing up what she was telling me.

"It was the only way I could find you, they hauled you into a van before it sped off and one of them stayed behind to take care of me." Sol informed me.

"They kidnapped you." I told her once again.

"Only cause I let them so they could take me to you." Sol told me, acting like we were only in this mess cause of me.

"What do they want with us...?" I asked her.

"No clue." Sol told me. "I was hoping I might find out before you woke up but you're up now and I still have no clue why they kidnapped us...."

"Have a plan?" I asked her, wanting to know how we'd get out of this.

"Do you...?" Sol asked me, only for a guy all dressed in black and equipped with a black mask to come barging into the cellar not only a second after Sol spoke.

"You're both finally awake...." They stated, their voice sounding a little robotic and menacing. "And here I thought we'd haft to wait a couple days...."

"Why are we here...?" Sol asked the masked man. "What could you possibly want, need, us for...?

"What seems to make the whole wide world, galaxy, go round...?" He seemed to ask us, a bit rhetorically.

"Gravity...?" I tried to answer his question, a bit mockingly.

He came over towards me as he knelt down to my level, a menacing glint within his eyes. "You must think you're funny...real funny...." He cupped his hand around my chin and cheek as he forced me to look him in the eye. "There's a reason why people don't like clowns...."

"Because they're painted with these hideous, monstrous, smiles...?" I asked him, trying to sound smug. "Could they be even more bogus...?"

"It's because...they're annoying!" He exclaimed as he pushed my head sharply, slinging my whole body, towards the floor. A loud bang sounded as my head collided with the floor, my mind seemed to instantly go dark almost as soon as I had hit it.

~~~

A warm, fuzzy, feeling surrounded my head as my consciousness started to come back to me. I instantly opened my eyes and reached a hand towards the top of my head...which I had found strange that it didn't even hurt...didn't even so much as tingle. I instantly sat up before I noticed one small thing...my hands were no longer bound. What happened...?

My eyes then landed on Sol, who seemed to be going through the mask guy's pockets as she searched for something. "Is he alright...?" I asked Sol as I looked at him, I couldn't see any indications that would mean that he'd be dead...so he has to still be alive...right...? His hands are even tied behind his back now...you wouldn't tie a dead man's hands...right...? Well...unless they're a zombie...but zombies can't possibly be real.

"Is he alright...?" Sol asked me, a bit mockingly as her voice got filled with annoyance. "Is he alright...?!" Sol asked once more, her voice seemed to grow louder the more she talked. "He slammed your head against the floor and you ask if he's alright...?! What about you...?"

"What about me...?" I asked her, a bit confused.

"If it wasn't for me, you probably would've died." Sol almost barked at me, an almost deadly anger within her tone. "He slammed you, hard. The wound might be fully healed now but the stray traces of blood still flow down the side of your head."

I placed my hand on the back of my head and sure enough, a dark red painted itself onto my hand. It was still warm yet I couldn't find a wound. How...? I asked myself, not knowing what had happened. "Just how could it be fully healed...? How did you even break the chains...?"

Sol brought her right hand up as she showed me the ring around her finger, the only ring she wore. It was silver and held a transparent white colored gem. "They really should've taken this off me when they took our bags." Sol responded, she seemed to have to elaborate once she saw my face.

The ring was pretty but...what did that haft to do with our escape? Only, she didn't really elaborate as she pointed her hand towards a nearby wall only for a beam of red light to fly out of her ring to burn a mark into the wall.

"It's a disguised laser cutter, I programmed a similar setting into your sonic." Sol told me. "Although...it is a less powerful, none fatal, one."

"How could a laser cutter be none fatal...?" I asked her, curiously.

"It just doesn't work when there's living organic matter in the way of the laser." Sol explained it to me. "It just won't turn on or it'll instantly cut off if it's already on."

"Wait...." I told her, thinking about something. "Living organic matter...? What if I need to cut a tree...?"

"Won't work, trees are alive." Sol told me. "One of my friends was a tree."

"An actual tree...?" I asked her. How could a tree be your friend?

"Not a tree as you know them." Sol told me. "They were humanoid in appearance, even had a mouth and eyes. They could walk and talk just as well as we can, they were just made of wood instead of flesh and bone."

"But...what if I need to cut wood?" I asked her, curiously. Would it not cut it because wood's an organic material? "Like a regular plank of wood." I specified.

"Are houses alive...?" Sol asked me. I didn't answer her as her question felt rhetorical. "No, they're not." She answered her question seeing as how I didn't. "The wood most houses are made out of isn't alive anymore, they're akin to corpses. So...to answer your question...yes you'd be able to cut through a slice of wood so long as it's not rooted into the ground."

~~~

Word Count: 1274