The Planet Keeper

Chapter 9

 Suddenly I felt a pinch, like a needle penetrating my skin, on the back of my left calf. Confused, I slowly turned around to see a group of guards just like the one I had shot pouring out of the doors to The Keeper's throne, all pointing guns at me. One of them held a circular tube, dangling it near his thigh. The room began to spin. Losing my balance, I fell forward to the floor, but caught myself on my hands and knees. What looked like five men branching out from one man walked quickly towards me and aggressively pulled me to my feet by the back of my shirt. I felt weak, as if I had no control over my limbs or anything. I was paralyzed, and suddenly everything went black.

**So long later**

I woke up in my cell. I was lying on my cot, my head throbbing and making a weird noise in my ears each time it throbbed. How did I get here? The last thing I remembered was me shooting that guard, but that was it, I couldn't remember what happened after that. I reached up to hold my head, but my right hand came up with my left, and a cold metal tugged at both of my wrists. Looking down at my hands in utter confusion, I became angry. They cuffed me! Are you serious!? I could feel my facial expressions change from anger to an overwhelming sadness as I looked away from my cuffed hands. I started to think about how I even got here in the first place, but my thoughts were quickly interrupted by the opening of my cell door and the voice of the guard standing in the opening.

"Let's go," he demanded, motioning with his gun for me to walk out of the cell. I obeyed.

I walked out into the hall from my cell and there were four other guards standing there, two to a wall on either side of me. I continued to walk down the hall, taking slow steps but at a decent pace. When I got a few feet away from the guard that was positioned at the door, he began to walk closely behind me and the four other guards walked closely to the right and left sides of me. I guess shooting one guard gets you four more guards?

This felt like a really uncomfortable entourage.

Nope, they were now my body guards. Because I was famous and special.

I tried to make myself laugh or at least lighten up the mood a little, or at least my mood...

As we continued our walk, I realized that we were going the same path that the first guard led me down to the Keeper's throne room place. Puzzled as to why they were taking me there, I consciously slowed my pace, becoming more aware of my surroundings.