The Perplexing Ways of Hollinson Gray

Chapter 3: Severance

I smell something deep and unique, fire. It smells like the charring of food, meat. I could recognize the smell of yak cooking from a mile away, and this wasn't it, it was something else.

The pounding of my head ached like a heartbeat, meeting at the base of my skull to the meeting of my neck. I opened my eyes with a shooting splintering pain, the light coming through and burning, like staring at the sun for a long period of time. Unfamiliar, it was unfamiliar, that's all I knew.

I sat up quickly, feeling restrained, someone tied me up. My ankles and wrists were tightly strung up, so maybe my captor wouldn't have to chase me. It must be another tribe, the unchanged haven't been around for a hundred years. Something is beaming down on me, pure white light — I look up, surrounded by concrete and bulbs so long and bright that they burn their shape into my retinas. I missed my tribe, my people, this unseemliness that crawled through every artery of my body wasn't something I was used to, my whole life, I've only ever been stuck there.

The panic soon set in, gasping for air, I felt my lungs tightening, squeezing the joy out of my face. "
Where am I? Where's gran?" I didn't know the answer to either of those questions, but I had hoped shouting them out would incite a response. Silence, my voice echoed back at me, from all sides.

"Shut up, why are you yelling?" Someone said from across the room, it was a deeper masculine voice, but it could've been a woman. I couldn't turn to look, all I heard was them kicking off their chair.
"Do you know the rules of this chamber, kid?"

"Kid!? No. How was I supposed to know the rules when you kidnapped me!?"
"Do you wanna find out?" They said from behind me, pushing something against my back, it felt like a baton. If I could just find a way to manipulate their items, but they're not living.
"I'm good, thanks," I say sarcastically, although I hope they don't pick up on it. They walked back to their chair, or atleast it sounded like they did when the horrific sound of metal scraping against the floor quaked around the room.

I'm not afraid for myself, I'm afraid for grandmami. I don't know where she is, or how to get out of this strange place. I hope they're not hurting her, please tell me they're not hurting her, I can't lose someone else. I have to find a way out of here, think Hollinson, think, there must be something you can do. I slowly feel around the edges of my wrists, tightened behind my back, pulling my shoulders back. It's cotton, twine, it must be old — not like this can be manufactured anymore.

I know what to do, or atleast what I can try to do. The twine wrapped around my wrists does come from a plant, and I can do something with that, although it's not alive, it once was. I push myself, feeling the twine slowly turning back into the cotton it used to be. I close my eyes, envisioning it falling off. It slowly coaxed itself off my wrists and ankles, I tried not to move too quickly but my feet got ahead of me.

In my rage, and sorrow — the cotton turned into something else, something snake like that could almost slither across the floor — a vine? Regardless, I sent these newfound vines towards the person. I rapidly turned around and saw a man, but before the vines shot forward, I noticed what he looked like, his head had been shaved and he had thick brown eyebrows, matching his dark piercing eyes, sitting in his chair shocked, unable to speak. The strange looking vines were locking his wrists and ankles to the horrific looking gray metal chair.
"Wanna recite those rules for me?" I snickered in his face.

I walked away, almost emptied of air — he started yelling but without a second thought the vines slithered their way up his chest and kept him quiet. I don't know how, but something inside of me felt different — unbeknownst to the other events of the day, the unfamiliar feeling lingered, but this time it was within myself.
I scanned the large room, unable to distinguish anything, the walls were bare and gray — nothing discernible to tell me where they've taken us, but before I think the room fills up with something smokey, no smell, I reached out to touch it but my hands fell through it, then it was me falling through it. The room slowly went dark, or was that my eyes?