Captive

Chapter 1

There is nothing but an aching darkness around me when I open my eyes. I feel like I’m blind, but when I blink a few times, my eyes gets adjusted and I am able to make out the curve of my body against the blackness. Why is the world so dark around me?

I take a deep breath once I realize I haven’t lost my sight. The air I breathe in feels wrong, not like the one I’m used to. This air is moister, and it’s colder. I place my hands on the ground underneath me, splaying my fingers, and realize that is made of stone. The ground, too, is cold. Frigid. My breath starts to come more rapidly. Something is wrong. I don’t know what, but something is wrong. I am not lying in my bed, where I know I went to sleep the night before. Where the hell am I?

“Hello?” My voice sounds wrong, too, and it echoes into the darkness around me. It’s raw, and my throat feels papery, as if I haven’t drunk in several hours. “Is there anyone there?” I call out, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling in my throat as I speak. I quickly forget about my throat when no one answers me, and the only sound I can hear is the echoes of my voice bouncing against whatever walls it is that is surrounding me, and my own heavy breathing. Am I alone? I think I’m alone.

I force myself to get to my feet, and start to take cautious steps with my hands held out in front of me. My fingers graze a stone-wall, and when I press my hands against it I realize it feels just like the ground had felt. I take another step, stretching out one arm in front of me, keeping the other one on the wall. And then another one. And another one. Then my hits another wall, and I repeat the same process. I only take six steps before I reach another wall, and when I repeat this process a few times I force myself to realize that I am locked up in a very small room that is made of stone, and that I am alone in the room. If I wasn’t alone, I would’ve walked into the other person, considering how small the room was. There was a metal door by one of the walls, but when I tried to open it, it refused to bulge. It was locked. I was locked in.

Leaning back against one of the cold walls, I let myself slide down and sit. I pull up my knees to my chest, lean my elbows against them and cradle my head in my hands. Do not panic, don’t you dare panic.

But panic manages to assault me anyway, forcing out a sob from my chest and making my eyes sting from the tears that start to gather up. I don’t know where I am, or how I got there. Intuition tells me that something is terribly wrong, but I’ve already figured that out. I figured that out the moment I realized I wasn’t lying in my own bed.

“Hello?” I say, again, but this time my voice trembles with fear. “Is there anyone there?” I don’t know why I’m asking, when I already know I’m alone. Perhaps I am clinging on to the hope that someone will hear me, and that they will free me from my captivity. Maybe I’m hoping someone outside the room is listening to me, and will explain what is going on. I’m not sure. The only thing I’m sure of is that I need to get away from this room, away from the strange air and the walls made of stone. I sit there, plotting my escape for what might’ve been hours, but I had no idea – it’s impossible to keep track of time when there’s no clock to tell you what time it is, and no sun to give you, at the very least, a hint of it.

Then the door opens across the room and a light, so bright that it stings my eyes, washes over me. My hand automatically raises to shield my eyes. The person who opened the door is not visible, the light that blazes behind them makes them look completely black, like a shadow, and the only thing I can make out is their outline. I lower my hand, feeling my eyes widen with fear and anticipation.

“Who are you?” I asked, my voice higher than normal. It sounds frantic.

The shadow stops a few feet away from me and puts its hands on its hips. It’s a man, I thought, judging by the shape of its body. “Get up,” he says, confirming my theory. When I don’t move, he walks up to me and grabs my forearm. “Get. Up,” he hisses, tugging on my arm. His fingers clench and I bite back a cry of pain. I have no other choice but to get up and follow him.

My legs feel like jelly when I rise, the muscles feel sore. I wondered briefly if they were this sore earlier, but shove the thought out of my head. I have more important issues to ponder about. Like who the man is.

I shift my eyes to him as he tightens his grip around my forearm and starts to drag me towards the open door. He is older than me, but not much. Ten or maybe eleven years tops. His hair is short and dark brown, cropped in a military way. He looks grim, his lips are pressed together, he’s furrowing he’s brows into a scowl, and his jaw is clenched. The military suit he’s wearing is black with silver details, and on his chest there is a name tag that reads “Ross”.

“Who are you?” I whisper, not daring to speak louder. I’m afraid my voice will break and unravel the little calm I have left inside of me.

“No questions,” he growls, jerking once on my arm, hard enough to let me know that he isn’t joking, but now hard enough for me to get hurt. He stares straight ahead of him as we walk, and I try to take in as much of my surroundings as possible. All of the walls are white, lit up by fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. Every few feet I see doors similar to the one in my room, and I wonder whether there are more people being contained inside those rooms.

Ross drags me over to one of the doors, opening it with some sort of pass that he holds up in front of a card-reader. The door clicks and slides open, just like in movies, and he shoves me roughly into the room.

At first I feel scared, thinking that this room will be just like the one I woke up in. But then I take a look around, and realize that my fear is faulty. This room isn’t as dark as the other one. In fact, it’s more lit up than the hallway was. And the air isn’t as strange. But most importantly, it isn’t as small and it’s not empty. There’s a whole bunch of kids around my age standing inside the room, looking awkwardly at each other. A lot of them look as scared as I’m feeling, while others look furious. I wonder if all of them woke up in cold, dark rooms made of stone, like me, and hope they didn’t. It’s an awful way to wake up.

The door slides shut behind me and I turn around, staring at it in disbelief. Ross had left us.

“No!” a boy next to me shouts, throwing himself at the metal, barely giving me time to jump out of the way, as if he thinks he can slide through it. When he realizes that won’t happen, he pounds a fist against the door and curses loudly. Around me, people start to talk. I take a deep breath and turn around again, forcing myself to study the teenagers around me, and the room we were in.

The room contained nothing but us, teenagers of all ages and sizes, and a huge mirror wall. I narrowed my eyes at it in suspicion. Why would whoever it was that kept me here place a mirror in this room? Without even realizing it, I made my way through the crowd and up to the mirror. As I stared at it, it disappeared and revealed five adults, including Ross, that were watching us. I squealed and jumped back. Everyone around me grew quiet.

A woman stepped forward. She had red hair and red lipstick, and she was wearing all black clothes. The dress that clung to her narrow body was black, her jewelry was black, and her shoes were black. Even her glasses were black. She offered us a tight smile, but it looked forced. “Hello,” she says with a high, clear voice. It sounds electronic as she speaks, and I discreetly reach out in front of me. The mirror hadn’t disappeared, it just became transparent. The adults were standing behind a wall of glass.

“Who are you?” someone behind me shouts. A girl, I think.

“My name is Athena Markham,” she states and gives us another tight smile. “You must be wondering where you are.”

“Damn straight,” a boy right next to me hisses. “So why don’t you tell us?”

Athena raises her eyebrows at him. “This is a facility that works in the biological and genetic field. It is located in Nevada.”

Nevada? I’m from Florida. That’s straight across the country, so how did they manage to get me here without me waking up? Did they drug me, or something?

“What do you want with us?” I ask, my voice strangely even. I was screaming in panic inside my head, and I figured that would show through my voice.

“You’re going to be part of a very special experiment,” Athena says, and smiles the way I’ve always imagined serial killers do before they slay their victims.