Unknown.

28- Not alone.

After following the limping, weak Akoh, he finally stops at a cement door and then shoves it open without hesitation. I follow, of course, but stop dead in my tracks when I step into the room and lay my eyes on the scene.

   The room seems bigger than the castle itself, so large that it holds thousands upon thousands of cages of no-goods. Black, thick cages make up the walls of the extensive room, and some even dangle from the ceiling. Floors upon floors of walkways stand next to the lines of cages, and hundreds of guards charge the place, guns ready in their calm hands.

   With my mouth ajar, I stop looking up and peer over to the center of the room. Standing tall, and radiating so much strength and power, a gigantic portal lies in front of me. At first, I think about how large it is, and how it must reach up to three floors. But then, my eyes sting as they look into the center of the portal and see the majestic, flowing black and red colors of the waves of particles guarded by a black rim around the edges. Glancing away from the amazing, yet horrifying portal, I realize that I am in so much trouble right now.

    Akoh stands in between the portal and me, but he stands alongside at least twenty gunmen with smug, humored expressions on their sweaty faces. All of them have their guns by their side, awaiting the orders of their ruler to just shoot me down in cold blood, like Akoh did to Marcus.

   "You can't defeat all of us." Akoh laughs evilly, his deep voice searing into my brain. "You couldn't even stop me from killing your friend, Marcus."

    Only thinking of the hatred and boiling anger inside my soul, I sprint straight for Akoh. Of course, two men step in the way and point their guns straight at my face, but I elbow one in the face a couple times while I kick the other's groin. Both fall to their knees, while Akoh retreats and backs up towards the glowing portal.

    I take a step towards him but ten men surround me, all of them with their weapons raised and their bodies joining in to create a circle around me. There is no way to escape this circle by running, so a different plan sprouts in my head and I am left to follow it.

   I grab the man that I kicked in the groin, and he groans at me. Although I feel bad for him, I hold him up in front of me with all of my might, and nobody decides to shoot me.

   Unfortunately, the men begin closing in on me, taking cautious steps forward until I lose my nerve and chuck the man at the closest gunman. He topples over, but as he is falling I run up his large body and find myself jumping in mid-air to land on the shoulders of the next gunman in the circle. He cries out, but I wrap my legs around his chest and then fling myself backwards until we are flying through the air.

   When his body slams against the cement floor, I release my legs and catch myself in a backbend. Then, I push off the floor with my hands and let my stomach muscles bring me all the way up to a standing position.

    I whirl around just in time to duck as the next gunman comes at me with his fists tightened into balls. He's not alone, though, because in under seconds I am surrounded by the seven remaining men.

    They circle me, all with steady, inspecting eyes, but I just close my own eyes and wish for some way to get out of this alive.

    In the darkness of my eyelids, I am able to pick out the sound of footsteps running toward me from behind, so I open my eyes wide and drop to a squat. I watch as a gunman topples over me and lands on his back on the other side of me. Quickly, I kick him on the chest, hard, and then watch as he goes completely limp in front of me.

    I look away just in time to watch as two of the remaining six men rush towards me with knives in their hands and their guns slung over their shoulders. I duck as the one to my right swings at my throat, and the second one swings at my chest. Both miss, but the right one recovers quicker than the left one and plummets the knife in a downward motion towards my head, kneeling over me.