Behind the Pages

Prologue

● Azlynn ●

I'm in the woods, and I'm running. That's all I know right about now.

It's one of those moments where your actions are based solely on adrenaline and instinct, and your thoughts are completely blank. Something tells me I'm being chased, and that if I stop running, I will die.

Though the trees surround me thickly with no evidence of an opening, I glance up slightly to see that the sun barely peeps through the trees, indicating that it's daytime. Despite my body's protests, I pick up my speed, doing everything to lose whoever's chasing me.

My lungs scream for air, and I have a terrible cramp in my side. I can feel myself slowing down by the second, due to exasperation. I have been running for at least an hour.

Need...a...break...

The exhaustion is clouding my mind, which probably explains why I don't exactly remember why I'm running. Now is not the time to think about that, though. What matters is not dying.

I hear a gunshot from somewhere behind me, and a split second later a bullet whizzes past me, grazing my shoulder and hitting a tree I run past. I slap my hand over my fresh wound, and though I try to pick up the pace, I am physically unable to.

I hear another gunshot, and it's even closer behind me than the last one. I don't see the bullet, but it doesn't scare me any less.

More shots ring out, each time coming from closer behind me than the last. I know I'm going to get hit. I am going to die.

Sometime seconds later, I collapse on the dirt, a searing pain in the back of my thigh. It takes me a moment to realize that I've been shot.

I desperately try to get up, but my upper body strength has plummeted and my arms too weak. I melt into the position in the ground, trying not to scream from the pain. It's useless, anyway. I know I'm going to die. Whoever the hell just shot me, they're going to walk up to me and finish me off.

As I hear the running footsteps come closer, my memories start flooding back. My name is Azlynn Greene. I was running from some government officials, whose one goal was to control the population's minds by implanting some technology chip thingy in their brains, saying that it would make them more intelligent. I'm one of the few people it didn't work on. They're trying to finish us last few off.

The footsteps are no more than twenty feet away now. A tear rolls down my cheek. This is not how I want to end.

"Hello, little girl," a gruff voice snarls.

That is the last thing I hear before everything goes black.

✧✧✧

White.

That's all I see. White.

So I'm in heaven, is my first thought.

My second thought is how I can't move. My third is realizing that I'm strapped to a chair. My fourth is realizing that this is probably not heaven. My fifth is realizing in amazement that I'm not dead.

My arms and legs are strapped to a chair, and those brain things that you see in movies are hooked up to my head. The walls are covered in a crisp white paint. A single door is directly in front of me, which overwhelms me for some reason. As for my gun wound, a cloth is wrapped around my thigh, but there were no further attempts to care for it.

So that official decided not to kill me, and to take me hostage to perform science experiments on me and to figure out what the hell was wrong with me and why my brain isn't cooperating.

I sit there, strapped to that metal chair, for a while. Maybe five hours pass, maybe it's twenty minutes, I will never know. My scenery never changes from the cuffs on my wrists, the cotton white walls, and that sullen door demanding to be opened.

The door does swing open eventually with no warning. It catches me by surprise. It reveals a man I've never seen before, older than fifty years old. The hair above his ears is graying, but other than that it's a dark chocolate brown, gelled neatly to the side. He wears a crisp suit with a plain black tie, not a speck of lint spotted on it. His eyes are a stone cold gray, and they bore into my brown ones, as if you can figure out someone's soul just by glaring into their eyes.

"We ran the tests while you were unconscious," he informs me in a deep voice. "We know everything we need to know."

I don't say anything. I can't find words, and I don't feel like I have to say anything, either. I know what my fate will be. They know everything they have to know. I will be executed.

The expression on his face confirms this. "The chair you're sitting in is an electric one. You will be shocked with five thousand volts, enough to kill you. Thought you would care to know."

I glare at him. "This is cruel and unusual punishment. The heck happened to the eighth amendment?"

He laughs deeply and gruffly, as if I just said something obviously wrong. "Don't you know? The Constitution got overwritten a long time ago." And with that, he turns his back to me and opens the door and walks out, leaving no trace of him ever being there.

The door opens again, his rotten head poking through. "Forgot to mention, your execution will be in a moment. You are being charged against failed cooperation to government officials, running away from the government, and assault on an officer. Your execution will come without warning."

He laughs again, and shuts the door, leaving me alone. I scream in frustration, not caring if he can hear me or not. I don't want to die. I want that man and whoever he's working with to pay for brainwashing my family and friends.

A part of me inside says to stop trying, that this is hopeless, but a majority of me tells me that I won't die, that I can't die. That I have to live. I owe it to my mom and dad, and my little brother Cody, who are all somewhere kneeling at some government official's feet.

I will not die. I will not die. I will not die.

IwillnotdieIwillnotdieIwillnotdieIwillnotdie.

I will live.

A feeling I've never felt before rushes over me, suddenly. It takes me by surprise. At first I think that it's the chair shocking me, but not even five thousand volts can make a feeling this strong. A pounding headache takes over my head, numbing my mind. I feel like I'm being stretched and compressed at the same time, while being spun around like a basketball on a finger. I can't feel my legs or my arms, or anything for that matter.

Then the sensation stops suddenly, startling me, and I let out a breath that I'd apparently been holding. I open my eyes, and I'm surprised to see that I'm no longer in the white room, but I'm sitting on a bench in an empty park.

The silvery moon looms over me in an eery glow, and the dark sky is littered with stars. A car passes by on a road nearby. I look down at my thigh, and it's still swaddled up in a once white cloth stained with blood.

I smile at my wound, and I smile at the sky. Then I start laughing, not caring if anyone's there.

I'm alive.

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Alright, so I know it's not that good of a prologue, but I'll edit it later. I am so hyped for this book, and I hope you are too. I'll come up with an update schedule soon, but now I'm just worried about when I'm actually going to have time to write.

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QUESTION OF THE CHAPTER: What is your favorite Wattpad book?

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Love you guys, and the first chapter will be up soon!

💜 Ren 💜