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Creds to my amazing friend @daethstar for making me this cover.
Before my eyes open, I wake to the to the smell of stale air like an overused rag. It's odd really, because I don't remember any smells before this nose-crinkling smell. The binds around my wrists and ankles restrict me from moving off this hard plank bench. Wrestling my eyes open, I see absolutely nothing. Panic grips at me, why can't I see? One of the binds on my wrist snaps, jerking up to a half sitting up position and undoing the rest of the binds while my fingers fumble with the tight knots. I curse under my breath, rubbing my raw wrists.
Forcing myself to take deep breaths, I find myself calming down. To my right I hear a door opening. Four footsteps padded towards me, picking me up by my shoulders off the makeshift bed so that I was standing.
"Where am I? Where are we going? What are you gonna do to me?" I yell, but the lack of water makes my voice hoarse like a croaky whisper. The two men keep silent, shoving my forward through the door into a long corridor lit by flaming torches. We moving quickly down the corridor the lighting doesn't seem to change, just the glow and flicker of the torches' light. The walls and floor seem to be made by the same clay like material.
We make it to the end of the corridor, I turn my head around looking at my surroundings; we seem to be in a giant dome made of clay lit only by torches. In the middle of the dome the lights fade out to nothing but you can some sort of giant mound of something and the scarce torch lighting the skinny pathway to the top of the mound. I didn't realised I had stopped walking until I got a shove to the shoulder knocking me to the ground, I banged my head against something, knocking me out cold. ... I yank hard on the ropes, others heaving and spluttering. The whip cracks and we all flinch as a strangled cry follows.
"Into the pit!" a voice boomed from above. Poor guy, I kept of pulling on the rope, hissing every time my skin got caught on the barbs of the wire.
"Heave! ... Heave! ... Heave! ... Put your backs into it!" The man with the whip was moving steadily towards me. Frightened I pull really hard on the rusted wire, making the rest of the people on my rope lose their balance and stumble, falling over. I winced as I heard the sound of brittle bones connecting with the stone rubble.
"You," the man growled out, jabbing his finger at me. "What?" I snapped, not thinking about the tone of my voice.
"Follow me," gee couldn't be any nicer about it could you? But followed him anyway, I was due for my minute break anyway. He leads me out of the rope-men area down to the spiral pathway and into tunnel on the right I zone out after about 10 minutes of left and rights each leading to a shorter tunnel until we come to a small space that could may be squeeze two king-singles into it. But what caught my attention was the swirling black mess in the centre.
"What is it?" I'm curious am I going to be a test dummie?
"Your way out" He simply said.
"Why? What's your name?" Never trust strangers right here.
"Brandon, what is yours?" His voice was much softer than before.
"I...I don't know" I whisper, my eyes falling to my dirty feet.
"Then I shall call you Jordan," he said softly smiling lifting my head with the top of his finger.
"Now Jump." By now I've had any last bits of hope have been beaten out of me.
