Agent Atlantis

Chapter 7-Information

A/N-This chapter took me so long to write . . . *insert dying noises here*. It's about the length of SIX of my usual chapters, so if you star one chapter in this book, please let it be this one. Thanks for your support!

~~~

Outskirts of Tusca, West Artena

Western Artenian Intelligence Agency Headquarters

2200 Hours

Kill him. 

The two words jounced through Luke's brain as if one was battering his skull with a hammer. They jounced through all other thoughts and reasoning. 

Words straight through the Agency's preparedness manual—a simple guide that gave agents short directives on every situation. Luke'd memorized the entirety of the two-hundred-page book—he knew exactly what to do in this situation.

As he stared at the shadow of Captain Collins, however, he couldn't move. "Are you okay?" Luke asked hesitatingly.

"I'm still alive," was the coarse reply before the captain burst into a round of coughing.

The anchors on his feet disappeared. Luke rushed forward, helping the captain sit up. In horror, he realized that he wasn't holding the muscular man he'd seen in Central Artena, but a skeleton—nothing but skin stretching over his bones. He wondered how the Captain was still alive. 

It's all my fault.

"You need water!" Luke ran toward the door and slammed his hands against the steel, hoping someone would hear.

"There's no use. The guards won't respond. They don't care about us down here."

Luke kept pounding against the door, however, and his hands began to throb in pain. But he didn't stop. "They have to. I'm not moving until they do—"

"Luke." The captain's voice was calm but steely. "Listen to me. Making noise will do nothing but hurt you. Use your brain. We are powerless in here."

Despite his crazed mental state, Luke realized the captain was right. He slid down the door until he collided into a heap onto the floor. Tiny pinpricks of something cold slid down his face, and it took him a minute to realize what it was. Tears. 

He was crying—a foreign emotion. The last time he'd done this was . . . well . . . when that happened. But it was in the past.

"It's all my fault," Luke sobbed. His voice was in a whisper, but in the hollow, cramped room, he knew that Collins could hear it. "Now we're both going to die in this hellhole because of an idiot like me."

His heart was in pieces, a strange fog clogging his mind. He felt lost. A shadow slowly wrapped around his body, and Luke wished that he had never been born. He was the bad guy—the person in movies, books, and comics who was there just to be killed.

"It's not your fault."

"Everything's my fault. I've turned into the bad guy. You can't possibly understand."

The captain's laugh was weak but mocking. "C'mere." When Luke didn't move, he motioned him forward.

Collins grasped onto Luke's hand. "The world doesn't revolve around you, boy."

Luke recoiled. He hadn't been expecting that. In retrospect, he didn't know what he was thinking. He had wanted a piece of advice, or even yelling. 

But a critique . . . was stretching it.

Collins motioned for him to listen. "Y'know, I was quite like you when I was young . . ."