A Different Life

6. Suspicions

Slowly I began to come to. I looked around, so confused as to where I was or what I was doing here. My mind felt foggy and it took me a few moments until my memories flooded back.

"Ahh-!" I mumbled, biting my hand just before I screamed. The pain in my shoulder shot forward to all my senses at once, and it was almost overwhelming. Slowly I removed my hand that I had covered my mouth with, which was the one that was opposite the shoulder that had gotten shot, and replaced it on the soft blanket I was laying on.

Seeing as the sudden shock wave of pain was ebbing away now, I made a point to scan the room while I waited for the pain to numb itself. It was dark, but I could tell I was on the floor, the blanket I had been placed on was soft and warm compared to the cold, rocky ground I could tell was beneath.

It was a small room with a distinct draft, though not a cold one... in spite of the weather outside, the air flowing through the room was warm, but not quite like the one that would be produced by a heater.

As my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I was able to make out a wooden stool a few feet from where I was laying. Something was stuck under one of the legs, and as I narrowed my eyes I figured it must be a piece of paper, or perhaps a card of some sort. What would it be doing there, though? At the time, I had brushed it off as a scrap of paper to stop the stool from wobbling.

On top of the stool was my heavy winter jacket, scarf, and gloves. The jacket was folded roughly as if someone was in a hurry, or simply didn't care, and the scarf looked about to fall onto the floor.

There was nothing else remarkable about the room aside from a series of shelves along the opposite wall. They held books of many different sizes, some placed neatly and others leaning over, as well as glasses of various shapes and sizes. The glasses caught my interest for a moment longer, as some of them were shaped like pitchers and potion vials.

At last, it felt like the pain was bearable now. I still wasn't sure where I was, so I sat up, moving slowly as to not put pressure on my shoulder again. For some reason, my eye caught the stool again, and the paper stuck under the leg. I groaned slightly as I stretched over to grab it.

It took a bit of fiddling, as I was laying on my stomach now and reaching over with only one hand, but I got it. Something about the paper... maybe it was the stationary, but it seemed familiar. As I looked it over, I realized it was folded a few times, and looked as if it had been crumbled in someone's pocket.

Carefully, suddenly feeling apprehensive, I opened it to find words scribbled on it. So... it was a note? What would it be doing here? Wait- I still don't know where here is.

The sudden pang of fear that I was in an unfamiliar location finally clicked in my mind, and I looked up from the note before I read it. I folded it back up quickly when I heard footsteps, and shoved it in the pocket of my jeans.

I watched as someone walked int the room. It was obviously male by its figure, but it was still dark, and I couldn't tell who it was. Maybe it's that little girl's father? I wondered.

As he walked over to the corner of the room, some kind of light flickered on and I winced.

Or... my own. I thought as I realized the light was a torch that Alocer had lit with a small fireball. He looked at me, though he didn't say anything. We simply... stared.

I had no idea what to say. So, had he or Alexander actually been the one to pick me up out of the snow and patch up my gunshot wound? As I looked around, stalling to find something to break the silence, I realized the walls were actually rock. I was in a cavern of some sort, probably one of the same places where he had me train.

"You were shot," he finally stated.

"Yeah," I muttered, a bit annoyed by it now. How had I been so stupid? Why didn't I just use telekinesis on the bullet, or even the gun before he had a chance to shoot? I mentally sighed, telling myself I had just thought quickly. My first instinct was never to use my powers - at least not when normal people could see. I looked up at my father, "So uhm, how did you get me here?"

"Alexander had been watching over you. I had given him orders to contact you and bring you in for more training, but he had been waiting until you were alone," he explained, his heavy boots echoing on the floor as he paced a bit in front of the shelves.

"Ah. Well... thanks for helping. I probably would've bled to death," I muttered with a slight chuckle, and Alocer nodded. He made a few more comments after that, about training mostly. Then Alexander entered and said he was to teleport me home.

After I was alone again, outside around the area where I had been shot, I reached into my pocket to pull out that note. It was all the more alluring to read now that I realized it was from... wherever my father and Alexander had taken me.

"She's coming with me to the Underworld. It's time."

If I wasn't already cold enough because of the weather, my blood turned to ice when I read those words. The worst part is, I recognized the handwriting as Alexander's... and it took me a moment more to realize that the stationary really was familiar, because it was the same paper he had on his desk at school.

The first day he had taken me to meet my father, this... this was the note he had given Evan.

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(Oh shit! What's the meaning of this, now? Hm. Well, the video to the side is a song that's somewhat fitting to our main character's feelings now. She feels betrayed, like Alocer, Alexander, and maybe even Evan were never really "on her side," as they all played a part in bringing her to the Underworld... because the note was about her, wasn't it?)