One Tortured Soul

Chapter Five

I felt like I was floating. My whole body was weightless somehow, and gravity seemed to have disappeared. It was a strange sensation, almost as if I was detached from reality. I couldn't feel, I couldn't see, I couldn't hear.

The only thing I felt was empty. Hollow.

But amidst this, something else began to materialize. I felt like I was suddenly falling, or being pulled down against my will. I tried to struggle, or see, but nothing changed.

Then my eyes shot open and I was back. My stomach lurched and I turned my head just in time as it revolted against its contents. My throat burned as the acidic contents exited my stomach. The room spun around me and I squeezed my eyes shut to stop it.

Then it hit me. I was in another room. I was no longer on that cold table, but stretched out on the floor of this new place. I cracked my eyes open to see that my nausea had somewhat subsided. My stomach already felt much better and it led me to believe that whatever that doctor had injected into me was the cause of my sickness.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and looked around. The room was small, barely ten feet in width and even less than that for height. The walls and floor were completely white, and my excrements stood out blatantly against the clean surfaces.

The only thing that broke the monotony of the room was a steel door set on one wall and a fluorescent light on the ceiling that flickered occasionally.

My hands began to shake and I clasped them together in hopes for that to help. I was completely trapped. It was quite clear: this place was a prison. And I was a prisoner.

Abruptly, I stood up and walked closer to the door, examining it. It didn't have a handle, or even an area where a handle could have been. In fact, upon closer inspection, the only reason I was certain that it actually happened to be a door was due to the hinges that lined one side of it.

I grazed my fingers along the outline of the metal, feeling for some give in it. But after covering the whole circumference of it, I came up empty.

Backing away from the door, I searched my brain for a solution. I tried to evaluate exactly what I did know. I was in a strange facility assumingly because of what happened to me some days ago. At least, I assumed it had been days, but time was hard to detect in this place. These people seemed to want to keep me here for some reason, most likely to question or test. Honestly, the reason didn't matter that much.

But what did matter was that I had to get out. I couldn't be stuck in this place when my children were somewhere else, possibly hurt or dead.

Sheal and Maura were only eighteen months old and I could scarcely imagine what horrors my babies were going through at this moment. It was just too heart breaking. So instead, I chose to focus on something else.

I thought back to the day they had been born. We had only been expecting Maura, and having fraternal twins was a complete surprise to pretty much everyone, including the doctors. But once the twins were in her arms, Serena had told me that it all made sense. Apparently, she had wondered about having twins because of how heavy they had seemed, and how at times the baby seemed to have two different personalities.

When she had said that to me, I had for some reason cracked up laughing. Maybe it was relief, or just plain exhaustion, but I had started laughing like an idiot in front of everyone. We had had twins, a boy and a girl, and the only one who had suspected it was my wife.

Looking back on it, the whole situation didn't seem that funny, but it was comforting to think on it nonetheless. It was something to take my mind off of present matters.

I sank back down to the floor and leaned against the wall opposite the door, my knees bent slightly. I let my head rest against the cold wall and stared straight ahead, painfully aware now of how cold the room was.

My shirt was still gone and it made the room only seem colder. I hugged my arms across my chest to try and retain some of my body heat as best as I could. My surroundings seemed to grow dismal and dark by the moment, but I wondered if that was just my mind falling into a slump.

Abruptly, I heard a sound through the steel door before it began to open. In a flash, I jumped up and stood tensely, waiting.

The first through the door was a young woman with dark brown hair pulled back in a neat bun. She had a soft face that was set in a calm expression. In her hands, she had a folder similar to the one that the doctor had been carrying.

Behind her, a man in combat clothing entered, carrying a large rifle in his arms. He stationed himself beside the door while the woman walked closer to me. I stared into her light brown, almost golden eyes, waiting for her to speak.

"I'm sure you must have many questions," she started, and I noticed a slight foreign accent, but I couldn't nail down where it was from. "And I'm here to answer as many as I can."

I didn't know what to say. I was being offered answers, yet I was frozen. What to ask? It seemed like I didn't know anything and I honestly didn't know where to begin. I frantically sorted through my thoughts to come up with a question. But not just any question, one that was important.

"Where are my children?"

Hello again, my wonderful readers! I must say, I am actually sticking to this writing schedule I've made for myself so far... and it's working! Normally I am really bad about staying on schedule for updates... like if you have read other stories of mine, I'm sure you know what I am talking about. But anyways, hopefully that is in the past now :) Thanks for reading and please vote or comment!

Ithildae

(p.s. Gadsul will appreciate the names I gave to the kids :) Lol, it is kind of an inside joke in a way)