No Regrets

Chapter 18

     Water emerging from a rock, helping to create a river, flowed down on the rocks and when hitting them, splashed upwards creating a rainbow. Flowing for miles, the river was a hot destination for tourists, but only a small portion of it was visited. The rest flowed behind Langston Facility, where they disposed of trash. Not inorganic trash, but organic matter, able to decompose without polluting the crystal-clear water.

     There, just a few hundred feet from the facility, a man emerged from the water, gasping for air. He crawled out, his body weak from all the stress it went through. With his legs still in the water, he stopped trying to crawl out and instead laid on the mud as he wheezed in oxygen. Coughing up bits of water, he realized that he almost drowned, and his lungs were expelling water.

     Flipping over, he saw his friend, a woman floating away. He didn't try to rescue her, seeing as she was regaining consciousness. Her head lifted and she began to swim out of the river. Once on land she hit her chest hard enough for water to be expelled. She threw it up, a good amount compared to the droplets of water the man coughed up. Gasping for air, she stood up and bandages which covered her chest and lower area began to unravel. She grabbed them and secured them, looking back at the man, "Which direction is the facility?"

     The man, to answer her question, was forced to stand up and look around. The bandages on him only covered his lower area, his whole torso was exposed. Looking at the trees and then at the sun, he pointed upwards and stated, "The sun is starting to go down. The facility is towards the rising of the sun."

     She began to walk but almost tripped, her foot had been skewered by a small metal pole. Pulling it out with screams of pain, she took it out and continued walking forwards, leaving bloody footprints which would soon disappear as her wound began to heal.

      "You have to be a really evil person to torture people. And for what?" Rhea exclaimed as she put her feet on my seat. She had switched seats with Gaia now because of Ajax's annoyance from her new habit of resting her legs on the seat in front.

     I felt the little push she made and turned around, wondering how the push occurred. After realizing it was her legs resting, I turned back around, "That's why we are going there. To put a stop to this and figure it out." I bit my lip, worried about how we would rescue the prisoners of this place when it was heavily guarded and there were only four of us.

     Monotoned, Gaia suspected, "It could be like the Nazis and Japanese in the war. They want to see what the human body can take when subjected to torture."

     I looked at her through the rearview mirror, only able to see her half-done hair. She was doing her hair when we got this job, but just seeing it half done, I could tell her hair would look amazing. On the side, her braids were made to resemble a heart, and on the other side it would too, once it was finished.

     She grabbed the side that was not braided, combed it, and tied it up with a hair tie. "I wonder what the people are going through right now? There are so many ways to torture people, but I wonder what specifically they are doing?" Her expression went from sadness to anger, hyping herself up through anger in order to get this job done. 

     We all stayed silent and thought about it, letting our rage grow. We needed to save these people, and there would be nothing that would stop us from doing so.

     I turned to a dirt road and continued driving until we saw the facility. Fence surrounding it and cameras everywhere to protect it from intruders, we knew this job would be extremely difficult to accomplish. I stopped the car and looked at them, "How do we break in without being noticed?"

     Stumped, we all had to think about it for a moment. And after a few moments of silence, Rhea got an idea, "First, we need to get in. We need to find the entrance and drive in inconspicuously."