Call of the Hero: One Day

Chapter 9: The Mask

Chapter 9: The Mask

After some amount of time of waiting that he would place somewhere between 15 mintues and an hour, the door swung open, and they could see they room they were in with the conditions within. Azaiah saw that the whole room was metal, almost like a jail cell. DJ was held in similar way that he was, his legs chained to the wall. They were both wearing the same type of clothes, a             tattered light green shirt and brown pants. Azaiah was a bit creeped out by the fact that it meant whoever these people were ended up undressing him, but that just gave him more reasons to punch whoever it was when he got the chance.

“You are both awake?” a person said stepping into the room, though his body was completely covered, even his fface was covered with a mask.

“Yeah, what do you want?” Azaiah asked.

“That’s not important right now. You are.”

“Can I please just go to the bathroom?” DJ pleaded.

“I’m not here to be a baby sitting,” the masked man said. “But I’ll let a guard take you there later.”

“Can it be soon!”

“Azaiah, how much do you know about Cicada?” the masked man asked.

“Huh?” he asked, playing as dumb as possible. “You mean those annoying bugs that come out ever 13 years or something?”

“We know the truth, you talked to one of our operatives about it last night, or do you forget the pizza dlivery boy who you beat up the night before?”

Azaiah tried thinking back to exactly what was said, but he wasn’t sure. It had been over a day ago, and he was pretty sure that was before the author went to bed too, and its’ not like there was more than 24 hours in a day that would allow for the author to go look things up. “I don’t remember much of what happened. I think that gas messed with my memory some.”

“Did it now?”

The masked man walked closer to Azaiah. “Cicada does not like it when people lie. In fact, I’ll tell you the truth right now. Counting you, we captured 16 people.” The maksed man  pulled out what appeared to be a phone. The person then pressed a button on it before turning back to Azaiah. “15 of them are still alive.”

Azaiah fought against his chains with all his might, almost able to reach the mased man to punch him in the face. “How could you?” he said, really wanting to kill this person.

“I have no emotional attachment to kids like these. They’re pawns, sacficial in the game of chess. I can’t say I enjoy killing, but I won’t cry for them. Now, I’ll be back in a few, we can talk then.”

Azaiah let his anger disapate as the maksed man left the room. He souched over and started to cry. “Azaiah, are we all going to die?”

He didn’t want to belive it, didn’t want to think that their lives could really be in danger. He wanted to tell himself that no one was really killed, that it was just a lie to provoke him, get him to give an answer. Would they really be so heartless then? Granted, he kenw they wouldn’t be the first to deem human life as so expednible, so easy to just throw away. “No,” Azaiah firmly answered his friend. We’re going to get out of here, and no one is going to die.

“But what about what he-“

“I’m not going to believe it. People like this will lie, give you false despair or hope to get yotu to do what ythey want you to. You can’t believe them, can’t let them get to you.”

“But what if it was the truth?”

“It’s not! Just trust me, no one is dead.” Azaiah couldn’t even believe those words himself, but he had to pretend they were true, had to give DJ some hope, and then maybe with that hope they could figure out a way out of this mess.

“All right, I believe you.”

Now, Azaiah had to just find a way to make that lie into something he could believe, into something he could make into reality. The fact was that he didn’t kow what he was truly up against, and had no idea of the security in place to help him. However, as the door opened again, he knew he had what he needed to get out of here.

A guard came in, with a key in hand. “Someone said you needed to piss?”

DJ eargerly nodded. “I need to go too,” Azaiah said, knowing that could buy him a chance to get out of here, or at least see more of this place.

“One at a time. They told us to be careful around you.”

“Let him go first then,” Azaiah said. “I think he’s been holding it longer than I have.”

With DJ being lead out of the room at gunpoint, Azaiah had an idea of what he’d need to do. He could see the key used, and after it was placed back on his belt loop, that told him what he’d need to do to get it, and knowing that it was the only key, it would make things even easier.

He paitently waited, trying to think of what he could learn from the view into the bright white hallway. There were likely other doors like this one, and from the fact that it took a certain amount of time to go too and from the bathroom, Azaiah could get a decent guess at the distance between this room and the bathroom, so he started to count the seconds.

After a couple mintues had passed, DJ and the guard returned. The guard led DJ to his spot before, wrapping the chains around his ankles again. “Can I please go now?” Azaiah asked, acting more annoyed than he really was, but deciding that would work best.

“Yeah yeah.” As the guard undid the holds on Azaiah, the teen noticed that he always had the gun pointed right at him. However, a gun can always be fire so quick. Now that he was free of the chains on his feet, he accelerated his body, spinning around and knocking the gun out of the guy’s hand before deliving a punch to the face which knocked him out.

“Wow!” DJ said as Azaiah went to undo the chains around him. As he did so, he threw the ear peace out of his ear, knowing that if they couldn’t communicate with him, they couldn’t negotiate with them. Yes, this was risky but if what they said was true, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill to get him to listen, so now he couldn’t listen anyway, and they wouldn’t risk wasting hostages. With his friends lives in the balance, it was risky, but if it was his fault they were trapped here, then Azaiah knew he ahd to do something to help get him out of here.

“Stay behind me and try to keep up,” Azaiah said with a deep sigh. This is going to be hard, he kenw that much, he had to make each strike as precise as possible. But this wasn’t just something he could spend too much time on either. If he was able to get there in tiem though, and take down whatever guards there were before they could see what was going on, then he could save everyone. He looked back to the guard he had knocked out, and the gun on the floor. He went to grab it and then handed it to DJ.

“A gun?” DJ fought back a lump in his throat.

“Yeah,” Azaiah said. “If they’re attacking us directly, I can stop them, just trust me on that. But if I’m not able to fight them, or we get separated or something, don’t be afraid to shoot them.”

“But I could kill them.”

The great struggle of using such a deadly weapon. It didn’t matter they they were being held hostage, that Azaiah had been threatened to have the rest of them killed, or that they’d said they’d already killed, it didn’t mean these weren’t humans they were fighting. “You’re not shooting them to kill them, you’re shotting them to save our friends. You don’t want them to get hurt, or worse, do you?”

DJ fought back a few tears. “All right. I’m sorry grandma,” DJ said softly as they two of them left the room and started their journey down the hallways.