Vacation

10

The doctor finally gave up trying to fight the young fire boy and told the loudspeaker voice that she quits. I watched her walk out the door and get shot from a guard outside the door.

The next time I was able to move was half an hour after that. No one came to replace her. They just allowed me to sit there and recover. I had half an hour to plan my next move. I don't know what that next move would be just yet, but when I get the chance I will run. They said they want me alive so no one will kill me. I just have to make it to the door.

When I was finally able to move again I noticed they didn't strap me this time. It was probably because of the drug they used on me. This made it easier to explore the room I was in without fire eating the room around me.

There wasn't much sitting in the right room. There was a metal table still sitting on the left of me. They didn't have many things still on the table. There still was a blade sitting on it and next to that was a bottle with foggier liquid. This one was a faded light blue. That was all they left on the table. What did they want me to do with these? Was it a riddle? I love riddles!

"Is this a riddle?" I looked around not knowing where the voice would come from. No speaker was visible.

"Maybe." The voice came after a few seconds.

"What if I solve it?"

"Who knows." The voice seemed to have been challenging me now.

"I will solve it!" I walked confidently around the room to see what I could find.

I began to look around the room closer. The tiles on the floor changing black, white, black, white. Then it hit the wall and the walls were different than I remembered. They were a faded but somehow a deep burnt white. The paper was all crumpled and dried out.

At one part of the wall it looked as if the fire boy burnt it off. There was a hole in the wall paper with charred black edges. When I touched it the paper crumpled into my hand. I tipped my hand and watched the burnt pieces float down to the ground. It made me happy. The pieces of paper made me remember nature. How bird's feathers, leaves, petals from flowers, acorns, all of them float to the ground. They float with the breath of the earth. They glide with the wind that will allow them to gently land on a soft patch of grass. How long have I been in here?

I noticed the wood on the other end of the wall paper. I knocked on it to hear a hollow sound echo back to me. Small footsteps of a rodent scampering through the walls came with the echo. So the walls were thin. Really thin and empty.

I then looked back to the tiles. I could feel something wrong with the floor. The feeling was a right gut feeling. My eyes can't stop looking back to the floor. Nothing was wrong with it though. It was a perfect pattern all the way through the floor. I began to walk around the edges. All the tiles ended as they should. Then I had a feeling to look at the whole ground not just the tiles themselves.

I stood up on the chair they had me laying in to get a better view. When I did this I noticed something odd. Pieces of grass, yellow old dead grass, were sticking through the tiles. I tried to pull up some of the loose tiles and under them was molding wood. I began to tear down parts of the wooden walls when the two men came and drugged me once again.

When I woke up I was back with Tiffany. This was a different room. I could smell the nature. There was a blocked off window. The fresh but strangely silent air came and filled every breath I took.

"So it's nice to know you have fire and water powers. Sadly, the doctor was too scared of you to finish the fire. However, she has learned her lesson." Tiffany was talking to me but I couldn't respond. My voice wouldn't seem to come, my mouth just opened and closed.

My throat felt hard. It was difficult to swallow almost like something was blocking it. I could hardly breath. My eyes were burning. It was a feeling I couldn't forget. I felt it before, but where?

"Oh I'm sorry. Did you want to say something? You know this trick really came in handy and it's all thanks to you and your stupid young self."

Then I remembered, I was four at the time. It was my first time ever having a minty candy. It was one of those with the holes in the center. It was really hard but I thought it would be fun to try and swallow it. So that's what I tried. Then I felt a terrible pressure in my throat. It got stuck so that I could breathe but, it would let any noises come through. I began to silently cry hoping Tiffany and Todd would hear me but they didn't care. They acted like nothing happened. It wasn't until the candy was dissolved enough to go down the rest of the way, that I was able to finally talk.

This is what Tiffany did to me. She found one of those candies and carefully placed it, well wedged it, in place so the victim can breathe but not talk. It took a long time for mine to dissolve. I'm sure that's what she wanted. She wanted me to listen to everything she had to say before I was able to respond to her.

"I don't want you to think too hard about how to escape. The other room did not have a riddle but we did notice you trying to escape. Don't deny it. This place you are in is an old secure secret hold. It belongs to the government. We don't want you messing anything up here." She paused to look at the door as it opened. The two men walked inside once again.

"We are sorry Miss but we are afraid someone would like to come and talk to the girl." One of the men stepped forward as they looked at Tiffany totally ignoring me.

"Who would that be?"

"Todd." As soon as he said the name I nearly jumped out of my seat. Half joyful, half trying to run away and hide for my life.

The man pushed my 'father' closer to the seat. I was tied to this chair for sure. Todd ran his hands over the latches holding me down. I flinched every time his cold hands touched the leather straps. I could feel the freezing touch blast through the straps.

I won't say just what I fear from him, I believe it was mostly my tired childish self-imagining things. He was, however, the only person who was able to stop Tiffany when she began to hurt me. For this, I respect him.