RUN | TMR [minho]

PROLOGUE

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00 ; ONE THOUSAND, ONE HUNDRED AND TWO DAYS

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DAY ONE

She awoke in darkness.

Her eyes fluttered open, but she saw nothing. Metal scraped against metal at an uncomfortable pitch and the ground rattled unevenly beneath her. She felt like she was moving, yet she remained in her foetal position on the floor. It was disorientating. Her stomach lurched, she wretched, and a foul taste filled her mouth.

Her breath came out in short gasps now, her body trembling as she uncurled from her position of safety and attempted to stand. She was unsteady, her legs weak and threatening to buckle. She weaved her fingers through the holes of the grate wall, an attempt at stability, but it did little to help her. Her head was pounding, the blood pulsing through her head at an alarming rate, and she thought she might vomit again.

She closed her eyes and lent her head against the grate, letting the cool metal soothe her as she tried to order her thoughts — she couldn't concentrate on anything until the world around her stopped moving. That made her pause... The world around her was moving. Her eyes shot open, her pupils now adjusted to the dim light, and that was when she processed the unfamiliar environment.

Four walls surrounding her, a set of sealed double doors above her, a floor that gave way to an endless shaft below her. This was not what she should be waking up to. She was in a cage, a locked cage moving up to the unknown, with no explanation of how she got there, who put her there and why, or how the hell she was going to escape.

That's when the panic set in.

She frantically banged her fists against the walls, any sickness or dizziness long forgotten, and screamed for help. Her throat was dry and her voice hoarse but she didn't care — someone needed to hear her, she needed to get out. The walls were beginning to close in around her. She was suffocating. She squeezed her eyes shut, sobs wracking her body as she slid to the floor of her cage. She was curled up in a ball; her head between her knees, her hands clasped behind her head, her whole body trembling, breaths short and quick, tears streaming down her face. This was it. This was how her life would end. Trapped in a cage with no air left to breath.

After that, she stopped registering what occurred around her. She didn't notice when her cage screeched to a halt at the top of the shaft, she didn't notice when doors opened and light flooded in, she didn't notice when someone dropped into the cage beside her. Everything had shut down. She was empty, broken, still. Her mind didn't restart until she felt warm hands clasp her upper arms softly.