The Island

Part Two

I woke up in a cage.

My eyes fluttered open, which was surprising enough, considering how much I'd been tossed about in the wild waves before eventually succumbing to it and letting it drag me away. It had seemed incredibly improbable then and it still seemed improbable now that I was... alive. My teeth were gritty from sand and my tangled hair and dress was soaked with seawater, but overall, I was not too worse for wear.

Perhaps I was dreaming, but the thick wooden bars and bottom of the cage felt too real to be part of a dreamscape.

That, and there was a hollow breathing its rancid breath on me.

I did a double take, finally startling to my senses. The questions started to flow then: why was I in a cage? Where was I--a wight prison? But if that were so, why was a hollow, water still dripping off of it, in the steel cage next to me? And surely they would have taken Miss Peregrine away by now, off to use her for their awful experiment, but I spied her, thankfully still breathing, in the same cage as Bronwyn.

Perhaps this was not a wight prison? But if not there, then where?

I eyed the hollow--or where I imagined it to be in the cage--and tried to assess whether it would lunge at me or not, and when a few seconds passed with only low, rumbling breaths, I decided it wouldn't, for the time being. It appeared to still be asleep, so I carefully sat up and pressed myself against the bars of the cage.

It was then that I began to survey my surroundings, first looking for Hugh. Thankfully, he was here, too, and breathing--but not-so-thankfully, he was in a cage, too, the one next to mine. Emma, Jacob, Claire, Olive, Horace, and Enoch were also there, including Browyn and Miss P, and a few were beginning to shift from sleep as well. Millard, I couldn't see, but then again, one never could, so I assumed that the seemingly empty cage--besides the hollow's--was his.

We were all here, but here did not seem like much of a place. Our cages weren't hanging but instead placed on a floor covered with mats, and it was dark, cast in shadowy evening light. If I squinted, I could just barely make out an entrance, such as one to a tent.

No, it did not seem to be a wight prison or bunker or storage room... but neither did it seem to be a place that would exist on the mainland, from what I'd heard of it. This seemed too simple, too calm... but if it wasn't a wight prison, then why were we locked up?

We must have accidentally exhibited some of our peculiar abilities to a town filled with normals, then, I thought, and they most likely believed us to be cursed or something of the like. But how did they manage to capture a hollow without being able to see it?

People feared what they couldn't explain.

And then the tent's flap opened and someone walked in, their face and upper body lit by a bright torch. Their dark brown hair was coiled in an elegant bun, light brown skin accentuated by makeup, and it looked as though they were wearing a high-shouldered navy jacket with some sort of shiny buttons and a long, dark grey skirt.

I shrank against the cage bars.

"Who's that?" Olive whispered.

"Show me your eyes," the person spat.

I flinched at their tone, but then felt something dawn on me. If they wanted to see our eyes, then that meant...

"We're peculiars!" Claire cried.

I nearly facepalmed. That wasn't always the best thing to lead off with. In fact, it rarely was.

By now, everyone had woken up, except for the hollow, who seemed to be sleeping far deeper than the rest of us had been. The person took no note of our confusion and instead stepped right up to me, glowering.