Thunder and Storm

The Basement

Breathe in. Out. In. Out. That was all I'd been doing since I was brought back into my room. I was counting the minutes until lights out.  There was no clock in my room, no windows to know what time of the day it was. The only thing I knew was I've had dinner and it wouldn't be long now before the buzzer sounded.

Margot and Hakeem had been quiet during dinner, barely looking at me like they had done during lunch. I was going to get out without their help, I had planned to go solo after all. But I would come back for them, all of them. I'd make the authorities look into the matter and get them back to their parents.

The buzzer sounded and I took a deep breath. I counted to five before getting up and moving towards the door. This was the painful part. I closed my eyes and focused on the energy inside of me. I could feel it building up. I could also feel the chokehold of the collar and the room pulling me down. I groaned as it started to hurt. My head felt like it would split in two.

I grunted as I pushed forward with all my might and it finally gave. It was like a breath of fresh air. When I opened my eyes, they were tinged black. I removed my collar and let it fall to the floor.

Another thing I learned here was I could make myself invisible. It was more like cloaking myself but in that state, I could go anywhere, see anything. I could see both guards standing outside my door. It wouldn't take long before they realised one collar was offline. I went through the door and stepped into the hall.

It was fun looking back at them. They couldn't see me but I could see them. All of them. I looked down at Michaelson's crotch and my cheeks reddened, I giggled.

"Quiet down, Jenkins. It's lights out, don't make me come in there,” he threatened.

I wasn't even in the room but he didn't need to know that. I turned and headed for the elevator. I decided to take a detour and went down another hall instead of going straight to the elevator at the end of my hall. I would get Margot and we’d go back to the elevator if there wasn’t one around her room. I stopped in front of her room.  She was lying in bed with her eyes closed. I knew she wasn't asleep, her heart was beating too fast for her to be asleep. She was worried. I was about to walk in but stopped. Her words from earlier rang in my head and I turned back. She was too scared to leave with me and might end up jeopardising my escape if I tried to make her come with me.

Don't worry, Margot. I'll come back for you.

It wouldn't take anything to walk in there and break her out of her collar but she didn't want that. I moved on. I got to the elevator and tried to enter but it locked me out. I tried again and the same thing happened. The doors were made of some kind of strange metal and I couldn’t see through them. I touched the doors and my hands didn’t go through them. The doors were a gunmetal grey colour and were thick. I realized I knew what metal the doors were made of. I had studied it in school. It was tungsten.

The light above the elevator turned red and an alarm started blaring. Very loudly.

"Shit!" Margot was right. They did booby trap the place.

I moved my hand and crushed the speaker, silencing the damn thing. But in so doing I made myself visible. The camera above the elevator whirled as I looked up at it, capturing my face. I clenched my fist and it broke.

I forced the elevator open and got in. My heart was beating faster than a racing horse's, my palms were sweaty. My fingers slipped from the button as I tried to push the button for the upper floor. I could hear the pounding of feet coming my way. The guards were coming.

"Damn it!" I pressed it again and the light above the button turned green.

Suddenly, it turned red and the elevator started to descend instead of ascending. The light above the last button was green. The basement.

I swallowed. I'd never been to the basement. No one had. I tried to stop the elevator from moving, tried to push it upwards but it didn't work. It seemed like it had a mind of its own.

It made it to the bottom with a crash and I fell. I pushed myself up and pulled open the door. My energy levels was starting to deplete, there was a pounding starting at the back of my head. I moved forward on shaky legs and stepped out of the elevator.

This hall was different from the ones upstairs. It had dim lighting and the walls were made of glass. I could see into all the rooms. I moved forward looking at each room. The ones I could see were filled with guns and some vials. Nothing was interesting about them. I knew I should probably get back in the elevator and try to make it go back up but I was curious. There was something down here, something they didn't want us to see.

Maybe this was where all those missing kids were taken to. I pushed forward. My legs were starting to feel wobbly and the ache in my head had increased.

I walked further down the hall passing room after room filled with vials. What was in them? There were so many of them in every room. I stopped at a particular one by my left. This one was wider than the rest of the rooms, dimly lit too but it wasn't occupied by vials and guns, it was filled with people. I counted at least twenty of them and those were only the ones I could see.

They were in a pod and seemed to be asleep. They looked peaceful, serene. Their faces held no emotions, not a wrinkle. They were void. I scanned their faces and gasped when I recognized a particular face. It was Gertrude. She was a Level One and had fainted during training one time. I hadn't seen her since then but here she was, asleep in a pod. These were the missing kids.

The pods were not empty, it was filled with some translucent liquid that made them look like they were floating in water. What were they doing to them? 

I tried to move forward, to open the door but I froze. A splitting pain went through my body and I groaned as I fell to my knees. It was starting again. I blinked as my vision got blurry and tried to push myself back up but I felt paralyzed. Blood trickled out of my nose and dripped on the floor. I took a shuddering breath and I fell, into the darkness.