One Tortured Soul

Chapter Eight

When I finally came to, I opened my eyes to see I was in the same place as before. After thoroughly surveying my surroundings once again, I felt relief that as far as I could tell, nothing had changed. I was still in the same bed with tubes and wires all over, there were still others in beds just like mine to my left and right, and we were all strapped down. The only difference this time was that several others were awake.

First, the noise. I turned my head to the right where a girl two beds from mine was sobbing. Her pale blonde hair was strewn all over her face and it was matted, probably from her tears. She was tiny, probably barely five feet from what I could tell with half her body hidden beneath a blanket. She wore a white t-shirt and similar pants to the ones I had on.

"Hey," I called out to her, hoping to calm her down, "It's okay. You're okay."

She perked up a bit at my voice, and tilted her head towards me. "Who are you?" she asked curiously, her tears slowly stopping.

"My name's Lucas. What's yours?" I smiled at her.

"T-Teresa," she mumbled, then abruptly started sobbing again. I didn't know what to do.

"Um, no... hey, calm down. You're going to be okay, Teresa. Don't cry, please."

"Why shouldn't I?" she sobbed, "I'm never going to see my parents again." With that, a even heavier round of sobbing started up.

I sighed and relaxed back into the pillow behind my head. I didn't know what to say to that. The girl did have a point; if she had an ability then she probably wouldn't ever get out of here.

Just like me.

"....going on?"

I tuned in on another conversation to my left between a boy and a girl. I didn't turn my head, finding myself slightly tired from that simple movement earlier, so instead focused on listening.

"Isn't it obvious?" the boy scoffed, "They finally caught up to us. All of us. And it didn't take them too long, did it?"

There was some sniffling, then the girl replied, "But why now? We had been in hiding for almost three months. What tipped them off?"

That peaked my curiosity, so I did my best to tune out Teresa's crying and listen harder. I didn't want to miss what they were saying. From what I could tell, they knew more of what was going on than I did. I drowned out the other noises and my exhaustion, fighting the urge to sleep.

"That, I have no clue. I mean, if they did know about us all along, why did they wait until now to take us? However, maybe they just found out about us. But," the boy added, quieter, "it's no matter. We're taken and nothing can change that."

With that, the conversation ended and I was left to understand what everything meant. The kids had said that they were in hiding for around three months, but my power, or whatever it was, had just sort of happened a few days ago. Or, at least, what I assumed to be a few days because I honestly didn't know how long I had been in here for.

A faint pull in my gut reminded me that something wasn't right. I tried moving my legs to shuffle the blanket off, but it didn't work. Instead, I followed the tubes and wires from their starting point until they disappeared beneath the blanket.

Finding my eyes tired and having trouble keeping them open, I stopped searching for answers as it was proving to be too tiring.

Why was I so tired? I had never felt this tired before in my life that I could recall.

Halting my thoughts, was a person who entered the room from the door to my right, and headed straight for me. I forced my eyes to stay open and watch as they walked towards me. This time, it was a young man who came over. He didn't acknowledge me at all, but instead set to work on typing something into the machine on the right side of my bed.

Once he was done, he looked down at me and said, "Do you have any pain on your body?"

I didn't answer at first, startled first by the fact that he was talking to me and second, by the thought of the question. Then I came to my senses and decided it would be wisest to just answer truthfully.

"No, I don't. Would you mind telling me what is going on?" I probed rather forcefully, not caring to be patient or considerate. This had gone too far and I deserved some answers. I hated that no one thought to give me any.

"Are you sure?" the man pressed, ignoring my question completely.

"Yes, I'm sure," I snapped, "Now tell me what's going on."

The man, in return, pressed on an area in my stomach, causing daggers of pain to shoot from the spot. I involuntarily moaned and struggled with the restraints.

The man removed his hand and crossed his arms, "You sure about that? If I didn't know any better I'd say you were lying."

"I... wasn't lying," I hissed through clenched teeth, feeling as the pain seemed to grow, spreading from my lower stomach to my legs as well and my chest. I gasped and arched my back. "W-What's... going... on?" I managed, trying to hang on to anything grounding that would distract me from the pain.

Instead of telling me anything, the man instead pressed his finger to his ear and said, "We have a twenty-six at station nine. I need the doctor here right away." Then he lowered his finger and looked straight at me. "If you try anything at all, you will regret it." His voice was icy cold and I could tell he was dead serious. But that didn't change the fact that if I got the chance to escape, I would take it. Despite the overwhelming pain I was in, I couldn't let that stand in the way of finding my children.

Another wave of pain carved through my stomach and I found myself throwing up the meager contents of my stomach, but I couldn't sit up and it all ended up on my chest and the bed. I would have been disgusted with myself if I hadn't been more concerned with surviving the next few seconds.

Pain. It blurred everything around me until that was all I knew. I desperately tried to focus on anything else in the hopes that it would ground me to reality, but I failed.

Black.

And pain.

Someone screamed.

Cold.

Sensations floated in and out of my head, but I wasn't aware of really anything. And when I tried to focus in on just one sensation or feeling, it slipped away like mist as when the sun shone on it.

Hello readers! Sorry for the little later update than usual! Classes have started now for the semester and I am a bit swamped with all the work. But I really wanted to get this in before my brain completely died on me, so I hope you enjoyed it!

Please don't forget to leave some feedback or a vote if you liked it!

Ithildae