Alone

The Next Stage

It was almost like someone was yelling in the distance, but not at me. Slowly, I opened my eyes. I was sitting in a metal chair with straps across my legs, and arms. The yelling was coming from a man wearing black slacks and a nice shirt and tie. He was yelling, "Get her out of that bloody chair! What are we, savages?!" Then, a lady wearing a white lab coat walked over to one side of the chair and unstrapped my arms and legs. The man in the slacks shook his head from side to side, almost in disgust. After sighing, he looked into my eyes and said, "Valentine, that's you by the way, you've grown to be so much more than I anticipated. You've matured a great deal. Now, of course there's still room to grow, but you are a fine young lady. " He said this almost in a fatherly sort of way. Like I was something to be shown off to people, almost like a trophy. He continued, "I can't tell you why you're here, and I can't tell you why I can't tell you. All I can tell you, is that you're moving on. This was just one stage, test, if you will. There are more of these, so called, tests, each increasing in difficulty. That's about all I can tell you as of now. I really am sorry about this by the way, all of this has a purpose. " At first, I thought he was talking about the tests themselves when he apologized, but then I felt a needle go in my arm, and I knew it was for the tranquilizer.