Hijacking Reality

Chapter 3

Lance's eyes fluttered open as he was greeted by a dark void. He couldn't recall what he was doing beforehand. This feeling gave him a deep rooted nostalgia but of the unknown kind. Pieces of his memories missing. All he knew was what was in front of him. He would just have to get up and move forward. That was, if he could stand up.

His mind felt groggy and his eyelids drooped downwards no matter how much he had tried to keep them open. There was a sharp pain digging into his temple, a frozen harsh pain that made his cheek cold. A sense of dread and foreboding radiated around him like a muddled up dirty brown aura that just consumed him whole. The usual determination that filled Lance with his invigorating personality was missing completely from his lack of posture and dare he think it, degrading facial features. Hell! His looks were everything to him yet he felt the heavy bags under his once flawless trademark, his face. His beauty sleep; where had it gone? He had no idea why he wouldn't, why he couldn't sleep.

Aside from his worries of when he could apply his next facial, he caught a whiff of the dense air that filled the darkness. Then something horrifying echoed off the walls that enclosed him in an almost claustrophobic state. A scream. Not just any scream. It was blood curdling. It was a cry for help as sobs soon came after; then, there was nothing. It prompted Lance to stand up, hand on the wall, to take in his surroundings.

His own voice seemed foreign to his lips when he spoke, the only thing he recalled from his dreamlike amnesia, "Keith."

Lance forgot how to breathe when standing there just hoping that his rival would once again scream or say something at all. He just wanted to know if he was alright. If he was alive or if that was his last dying breath. He wanted to know. He needed to know. His heart felt like a stone that had been stuffed into his chest making him a lifeless chunk of human rock.

He stumbled on his feet not knowing where to go but he just limped off. This was a true mission of life and death. No matter how much pain and suffering that would be brought upon him in his path, he would continue onward to save Keith. He felt as if he owed him as much. And every time his name graced his unfamiliar lips he could only feel his stomach dance to various tunes of the drumming of his own heart. That was the only thing keeping Lance grounded on this plane of existence.

"Keith please be alive. I swear to god, you better be and if you're dead I'll kill you," Lance whispered to himself, not caring if he made any sense, trying to edge out the quiet drops of water that streamed in the tunnel.

Even if the tunnel seemed to edge on forever as he aimed to go into the light at the end, there was another opening. In that opening he heard a loud thump hit the ground followed by metal clanging and booted footsteps reverberating in the room. With a scrutinizing view and his back hiding behind the wet wall, he eyed a buff man with a hard expression descending the hallway as if he were ready for war. Once the disturbing looking man left, Lance peered around the corner making sure to meticulously observe this new setting for any other brute looking men.

For once, luck was on Lance's side as he noted that no one with a mom tattoo was anywhere near here, for now. Everything in this room looked the same as the corridor he just emerged from except there was a small looking cage boxed up in the corner. The metal bars had rusted over time in the dank atmosphere that hung low like a cloud of fog trying to suffocate its victims and inhibit their sight. After allowing his eyes to adjust to the now inky illumination, he noticed a lump curled up in the corner of the cage like cell.

As he carried one foot in front of the other Lance noticed how he was wearing no shoes. Soon enough his eyes traveled to the rest of his outfit that was torn to shreds. He had been so distressed about hearing Keith's yell to delve further into the predicament that he was in himself. Where was his gear? His bayard and his paladin suit. It was all non existant and to say he just remembered why he was here in the first place was the truth.