I'm unique. Not like how people say everyone is special. Earlier this year I did a bad thing to a gang member. No, not a gang member, it was a mafia. They call themselves W&R: 'the Wrathful and Ruthless'. I learned that their name perfectly describes them. I can take a punch, but they tortured me until I was broken. Scared. Mental.
This is my story.
All I did was swipe a twenty-dollar bill from a hit man. I didn't even know it was a mob member. He looked like a normal citizen. I needed food. I have no family to support me. I don't live in a house, or a condo, or an apartment. I usually sleep in the dumpster at McDonald's. The dumpster provides me with my daily meal and shelter. But one night a late night worker was taking out the trash and found me. Busted.
Anyway, I took the twenty and ran to the nearest alley. To my surprise, three W&Rs were waiting there. They shoved a gag in my mouth, kicked my head down on the hard concrete, and shoved a bag over my head. They beat me until I saw only black.
I woke up in a cell like the one I'm in right now; only the first cell was still in America. I heard footsteps come toward me. I closed my eyes. They were coming for me. Slowly. It was driving me crazy. But to my disbelief, they walked past my cell to the one next door.
"Orders from Seeker, demands you come with us." I heard one guard say.
'What?" NO!" a female voice was screaming. "NO! Don't take me to him,
Please! Get off!"
I then heard several thumps, splattered blood, and I saw an unconscious girl being dragged to Seeker, who, to my knowledge is the Head of the W&Rs. I wondered what that poor girl did, but obviously it was bad, because when she came back after a week all she was saying was, "Water. Water. Water. Water. Water........."
What was going to happen to me?
The next day I woke to a guard demanding that I stood up. I didn't want to be beaten like the other girl, so I did as he said.
"Well, well. Looks though we don't need to beat you like we did Aquaria."
Aquaria. That must be the girl in the cell next to me. I thought she was familiar, and the name clicked too. But where have I seen her before?
I walk up to the guard and he put some shackles on me. Then he latched them closed. I followed the guard up the stairs, through a very long tunnel, up a ladder, up more stairs, until he blindfolds me when we reached a fork with 10 paths to follow.
"Location of Seeker is top secret. Keep the blindfold on until I tell you when you can look." I nodded.
After walking down the blindfolded part of the tunnel, he takes it off. I see a large, muscular man with a cigarette in his mouth. He was holding a pretty blue sapphire.
"Do you know what this is? This gem makes you answer yes or no questions. Keep that in mind. Now, do you know why you're here?” Seeker asks.
"I stole twenty dollars off one of your hit men." I say. But I can't take my eyes off the gem.
"No. You are here because you're special." He grins. "You are a homeless orphan. No known family. You live in a dumpster for Pete's sake! God, life must suck for you!" His grin widens. "I'm here to make you more special. Its going to cause pain, agony, and will cause you to go mental. You saw Aquaria. That poor girl. But, the end result will eradicate all of those things. You will be living large!"
"I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about. I- I just want to know what's going on."
"I'm honestly not a bad guy, Miss Ashni. Honest to god, I'm not. I want to activate your powers."
"What?" I say.
He begins to whisper." You are a Destined. A Destined is a person deeply afraid of a natural element such as air, rocks, fire, water, psychic abilities, and some others that are more unique that we have yet to discover. I am a Destined. My power is finding other Destined. I can't bear to lose anything. I can sense when I am in the presence of a Destined. We need to channel your fears and bring it forward to form it into your chakra." His voice rises. "Aquaria's fear is water. It took a while to figure it out. Had to dunk her in the middle of the ocean. Now. Do you want to find yours? Look deep into the sapphire. Deep. Deep."
It's so pretty, I think. Those deep blue colors mixed in with turquoise, It- it makes me feel relaxed. I just imagine what it would be like to- what it would- "Ahhh."
"Now do you want to do this?"
I stare into the gem. "Yes... Yes. I will."
"Good." He puts the gem away. I snap out of the hallucination. Had I really said yes? "Now tell me what you fear the most. If you don't answer truthfully, you'll go through the process. And we know if you're lying."
Should I tell him? He might be lying. I- but what happens if he just wants to see me in pain? And what did he mean by 'the process'? Well, he's got me here anyway. I just don't know. I decided to lie.
"I'm- I'm afraid of the dark."
He pulls the pretty gem out again. So pretty. So deep. So...
"Are you lying?" he asks.
"Yes." I unwillingly say.
Seeker whispered to the guard. The guard nods.
"Come with me miss Ashni. I am to escort you to your cell-- room, I mean."
He puts the blindfold back on. We walk back. The guard put me in the cell and locked the door.
"Can you take the shackles off please?" I ask.
He just grins and presses a red button. A fiberglass window began to rise from the ground and holes appeared at the bottom and top of the cell. What the heck is going on?
A smelly scent begins to seep through the holes. Suddenly- I feel- I fee- I-. My eyelids grew heavy and I fell asleep.
A cool liquid waked me. Water! The water kept rising, and I began to panic. Luckily the water stopped at knee height. I realized what was going on.
"I'm not afraid of water, Seeker!"
He thinks water is my soft point? Yeah right! He's going to have to do better... oh no, not the smell-I - I'm tired again-. Once again the gas seeped through the holes and I fell asleep.
When I wake, oil began to fill in one of my cell's corners. Hmm. It spontaneously combusted! A fire begins! Whoa! What the heck! The fire lasted fifteen minutes. Oddly enough the fire then dissipates leaving the residue that is slowly draining away.
"Ugh! What's that smell?"
I immediately fell asleep.
Once again I awake to another oddity. Water has been filled up to my neck and a copper wire has been attached to my shackles. What's going on now? Haven't I already been tested against water? But then two worm-like creatures dropped out of the ceiling. Oh no. No, no, no, no, no, no.
Electric eels.
I tried to swim away, but the coil was tightly tied to one of my cells' bars. The eels...were coming toward me. I screamed.
When I was eight our house was flooded during a storm. I didn't know what was happening. I was playing with a paperclip and I stuck it in the electrical socket. My family grabbed the paperclip and pulled it out, but they just shocked themselves. We were immediately sent to the hospital. I was legally dead for 2 minutes before the doctors revived me. My family didn't survive. The overhead speaker boomed to life.
"We've found our fear." Said Seeker. The eels and water were drained away.
What was he going to do? But before I could collect my thoughts, the horrid fumes seeped through the holes and I drifted into sleep.
