Thin Ice (MPHfPC Fanfic)

Chapter Seventeen:

The next few days, the only thing I "remembered" were more moments between Jake and his grandpa.

The memories were tender, soft, and sweet, and they added a nice counterweight to the heavy, stressful memories I had gotten from Miss Peregrine. The memories from Jake settled down into a timeline nicely as well, causing barely any disorientation for me.

The condition of the cells we were in were terrible. We were fed a little food twice a day, but we had to sleep on the hard floor and there were a ton of spiders and rats.

We all looked tired, we all were tired. We were worried, too. Who knows if we would see anyone else ever again. We only had a rough idea of where Miss Peregrine was, and we had no idea where Hugh, Fiona, Olive, and all the others were. Or if they were even alive.

There was a swell of hopelessness in the room, which the wights seemed to feed off of.

Whenever we could talk to each other sort-of freely, I tried to keep the mood up, but the pessimistic attitudes of the others were hard to beat with the few optimistic comments I could find.

. . .

A peculiar half-cheetah half-woman stood before me. I waved my hand in front of her face, but she couldn't seem to see me.

A door across the room banged open and in-stroad a wight. He was smiling. The peculiar gulped.

"Aren't you excited?" The wight said with glee. "Today's your day!"

The peculiar didn't say anything. The wight frowned.

"I said: Aren't you excited?"

The peculiar finally spoke. "Y-yes."

"Well, then, come with me," The wight said, back to his happy self.

The peculiar reluctantly followed the wight out of the room. I looked around for a split second before following them.

We walked down the hallway, turning into a wide room. Peculiars were lined up in beds, each covered with a sheet that cut off at their feet. Tubes ran from the heels of their feet. I recognized the room from my book now, this was where the peculiars souls were removed.

Since no one seemed to notice me, I tried to slide out a needle from one of the peculiar feet. I had never tried to mess with the memories I got from others, but I wasn't sure this even was a memory. But when I tried to remove the needle, my hand just passed through. It was like my mind had wandered away from my body.

The peculiar with the cheetah characteristics laid down in an empty bed.

"Cheer up!" The wight said. "All we're gonna do is suck your second soul up! Then you'll be sent back." He didn't say where she would be sent back too. Then he snickered. It sent waves of disgust down my stomach.

I turned away as he inserted the needles into her feet. It felt like witnessing a private moment.

Then I set down the hall, walking right through the closed door. I looked in each room, some of them empty, some with forlorn peculiars sitting in them.

One actually looked up at me. His mouth moved as if to speak, but all that I could hear was a weak growl. Then he looked down again. I didn't know what his peculiarity was, but he could see me. I left then, not knowing what else to do.

I got to a fork, the hallway splitting off into three. I randomly picked the one to the right, walking down. There were empty rooms, up until the hallway split again. This time, there was a buzz to the left. I followed it, and it came to the row of cells that we were in. It was odd, to see myself, floating with blue and orange, as well as purple tendrils of words flowing around me. The guard was passed out on the floor. The bars to my cell seemed to have never existed.