The Fight for Freedom (Book One in the EDSOR Military Academy Trilogy)

Chapter 18- Kidnapped

My bones were aching all over my body. I felt so numb as I limped my way back to my dorm to rest for an hour. I am really glad Ms Militante took pity on us and marveled at the new weapons that she nearly forgot weapons training in the afternoon. It was already dusk when she realized that most of her students had taken a two hour break and then she took a deep breath and rolled her sleeves as if she was trying to punch someone. My heart was pounding vigorously on my ribcage. Lub dub lub dub…each beat hurt like hell. I was dying slowly.

The hallway to Room 457 was so long that it looked like an abyss of darkness. The lights weren’t switched on as always. Darkness seems to keep me company.

I heard someone else’s footsteps behind me and before I could look at the owner of those heavy and loud shoes, I was blindfolded and I felt my system going down. A red hankerchief of acid seeped through my nose to my brain as I fainted.

I woke up, finding myself tied to the pillar of the abandoned basement below the DTASC building. The metal chains were sticking to the skin of my hands and feet. They have bound my soul and life force to that brown worn out pillar. My blindfold was taken out although I could still feel the side effects of that weird smelling acid.

“Bring me C-5 immediately. This girl ought to experience what Mike should’ve experienced”, an eerie voice echoed. Suddenly, the lights were blinding to my eyes when they were opened and I saw a mad scientist’s clean white laboratory and computer operated seals in each opening.

A burly man saluted to the girl in the white lab apron stained with blood. She was holding a scalpel. I blinked again to get a closer look of her. She was dark-skinned and brown haired.  She was very lanky and she smelled of that acid that made me faint.

“Well well well. This is whom Mike thought would succeed in his mission. I’d say that she’s completely harmless now”, she said in a calm voice. That voice made me shiver up to my spine. The hair on my skin was standing up.

“Who the hell are you?”, I lashed, glaring at this rude maniac.

She came closer to me and lifted the crisp white sleeve of her right arm to my face. I yelped. It was the Militician flag, with green dragons spitting fire from their tongues as they stood on top of a fiery world.

“You…traitor!”, I gasped as I tried to find the right words. I was too scared to say anything else.

She flicked a stand of her brown hair and smirked. “Jesse, you’ll never win this war”, her voice was soothing but I knew better than that. People used to do that to me to take advantage of my weak heart. I won’t let her win this time.

“Who do you think you are? You don’t have any idea what this war means to all of us!”

She bent forward so we could see each other eye level. “No one speaks of my name. I am from the Povedan camp. Assassin of former president Mike because he did not listen to me. He followed his heart and not advice from his wise friend. He did not deserve to be appointed to such position. I helped him get there!”

Now I know this impostor! That burly guy resembled Mike’s stature when I asked permission to leave the school grounds! “You are a disgrace to the army. Killing me won’t set things right”, I firmly say, even if I had brought up the idea of homicide. I am not afraid of death anymore.

She laughed as she brushed the sharp silver scalpel across my face, rupturing some blood vessels and make it bleed. “Stop it!”, I call out. The walls around the lab were soundproof.

“I’ve come here to negotiate the peaceful entry of the Militicians in our academy. Commander-in-chief Kazim will welcome you and treat you like his brothers and sisters”