Beyond

(Chapter 7) Stranger

I was awoken to seeing three guys staring at me as I sat in an empty room. I was alone this time and didn't see either one of my fellow travelers. They weren't saying anything to me only observing. They had nothing more than their eyes looking at me as they all sat on chairs backwards wondering what I was going to do. I looked down to see my hands and feet tied by zip ties and began to scan the room. It was a massive room but just empty. It felt as if we were at an old barn of some sort or a hanger to say the least. There was a small door in the distance with two grand doors that were almost the height of the building. One of the three starting whispering to the other two and two of them walked away as one continued to stare at me watching and waiting for me to move. I didn't have it any me to provoke him or try and break free. I only observed him back and saw he was fairly dirty. He had a ball cap on backwards and dirty jean shorts and hoodie on as well. He wore big combat boots and didn't move an inch to the slightest noise. If I had to take a wild guess he was either ex-military or something else. The others appeared again but this time had Brooke and Mikal with them and dropped them next to me. Mikal looked severely beaten and Brooke had a look on her face as if she saw the devil. They rejoined the man who continued to stare my way and finally walked away and the last noise I heard was a lock on the door.

Throughout the night the three of us remained silent. Brooke continued to whimper while she tried to sleep and Mikal had a very heavy breathing going on as he tried to recover from the pain they must have put him through. I can only hope that they didn't beat him as much as they did me in the first few moments we met them. Brooke would randomly whimper and ask "why?" hoping Mikal or I to have an answer for her. Instead we remained quieted through the night and eventually they both fell asleep. Me on the other hand I couldn't fall asleep I sat there quietly and tried to fully understand the situation that was at hand. Why were we captured and what made these men follow the orders of the woman with the black hair? What did she have on them that made sure they followed her every order? I couldn't imagine what made them set up a trap to capture people only to beat them for answers that we don't even know. I could only imagine what our people have become after the tragedy that has happened to leave only few to remain on this earth. I eventually got myself to my feet and sort of hopped around to find there was nothing that remained but the three chairs in the middle of this room. I wasn't going to escape at least not tonight. I hopped back to them to find myself having difficulty getting back down to the ground and finally decided to wait until I saw that door open.

It remained quiet more than I thought it would be. Mikal and Brooke even though we were alone for the first time in what feels like 3 days now still had nothing they wanted to say to each other or to me. I couldn't make a statement myself to them to break the silence. We were going through a long process of not even knowing what time of day it was. I could only feel the thirst of not having a drink for a while and the sound of my stomach growling as well as the other because we haven't ate in some time now. I had a strange event happen to me while waiting to hear from the others. I started to see people starring at us through the only 3 windows that were in the room we were in. I could only see so much of them because of where we were compared to the windows. It was odd because each individual were the same size. No change in weight or height. Each person had the same figure. I couldn't make out their faces only silhouettes of what was standing there. I closed my eyes for a long period of time and they still remained there no moving only starring as if they were waiting for something.

I heard the door open behind me and footsteps approaching us but my eyes couldn't stop starring at the figures in the window. They began to irritate me to a point where I could feel my heart beating out of my chest. I wanted to run over to them and make them go away but I could make my mind tell my body what to do. I wanted to yell but I just couldn't. The footsteps got closer and someone then picked me up as well as the others and began to take us out of the room. We stood before the exit seeing the sun pierce the doorway. It was weird after not seeing daylight for a while I felt scared by it. Once again I saw these men place bags over our heads. First Mikal, then Brooke and then me. We were walked outside not too far from where we were and then moved in one direction for what must have been a thousand footsteps. Every so often I would feel the change of temperature on my skin because we would pass a building or a cloud would be covering the sun. Even though we have been captured not one of us tried to struggle out of the hands of these men. We accepted our fate and only felt as if we deserved whatever was coming to us.