The Unknowns (Book 1)

The Unknowns Chapter 5

The Unknowns

Chapter 5

I wake up on the floor, every bone in my body throbbing. I groan out loud toward the throbbing pain of my right arm. I try my best to move, but it’s no use; the pain inside of me is far too great for me to cope with.

My throat is dry, and my lips are chapped. I stare straight up ahead, seeing nothing but darkness. It must be nighttime or we’re so deep inside the ground that we can’t even see a hint of light. This is all an illusion though. We can’t possibly be hundreds of feet inside of Earth’s ground.

I hear somebody cough, and then a soft whimper. I try to move my head toward the noise, but my neck feels like it’s being burst into flames. All the pain inside of me nearly knocks me into unconsciousness, but I force myself to stay awake, I have to.

I hear Anna whimper again, and then I hear movement to my left. I manage to turn my body ever so slightly, and see her staring at me. There’s dry blood matted into her hair, and a long gash running down her face. Her leg is twisted, easily sprained, maybe even broken.

“Austin,” she croaks, wincing as she speaks. I want to go over and comfort her, but moving an inch seems impossible. She blinks slowly, trying not to cry. “It hurts.”

I feel something forming inside of me, anger. I feel myself start crawling toward her, ignoring all the pain threatening to make me pass out or even vomit. I keep crawling until I’m by her side. Her brown eyes widen, shocked.  She moves her hand toward my right arm tentatively, afraid to hurt me. She tries to sit up, and gasps loudly in pain. She fights through it, and slowly, she’s sitting up.

She looks up, squinting. She glances over at me. “They made it lighter in here. I can see better. Of course, it may be my night vision kicking in. Austin, your father’s illusions are coming to life. We shouldn’t have broken arms and legs. If this was an illusion, all of this would’ve gone away by now.”

I knew she was right, but I just didn’t want to say it myself. All of this, this illusion stuff, is unreal. How can you even call it an illusion if it’s coming to life? Someone has to be helping him make them come to life and be an actual tornado, or an actual hole in the ground.

“Is this what happened when you went after your parents, Anna?”

She gently shook her head. “They had your parents there when I went after my parents. They didn’t need my parents, they had yours. They were willing to kill them just to see us miserable. Your father is the only one left out of the three. Since Alexander and my father are dead . . .”

She looked away, for once showing emotion. I want to hug her, but it’d cause too much pain for the both of us. She cleared her throat, and turned back to me. “So, what are we going to do?”

She looks up, squinting. She must be seeing if she can see anything with her night vision. She then looks around, squinting even more to get a better look at something behind me. I turn my head and see nothing but darkness, though I do see an occasional rock sticking out of the wall.

“It’s just a huge circle,” she says matter-of-factly.

I sigh loudly, wanting to just give up right there and then, but I don’t. I promised myself I’d save my parents, and this is just a little obstacle in the way of that. I turn my left hand facing up, and soon a fireball appears. The room is illuminated by the fire, and soon I can see the big circle around us. Nothing but dirt and rocks. I move my palm up toward the opening and see that there is indeed a small opening from where we fell from.

I examine the walls, and see a few of the rocks are big enough to step on. Anna glances in the direction I’m looking at, her eyebrows raising. “You want to scale it?”