captor ❀ daniel seavey [ON HOLD]

6 ; visions

days pass, maybe even weeks. we've gone through rounds of experiments. some days a single person underwent the trauma, some days multiple, some days none. zach had been taken the most, and it was beginning to make him quiet. when we had group conversations, he was always the one to lighten the mood, bring in a little fun no matter the topic, but the more he's experimented with or on, the more he's closed down. shut off. the light in his eyes has been fogged over and frozen. if the eyes truly were the window to the soul, his went from being the sun - bright, shining - to being neptune - pitch black, pale blue. it hurt to watch someone so vibrant be forced into such a dull, dark corner.

the rest of us were holding up. weak, tired, emotionally drained, but alright. it's not like we were on the verge of organ failure or anything. not yet, at least. my mind had been stuck on the things i saw in that bizarre vision. the more i thought about it, the more i believed the boy to be daniel. in fact, i became certain it was him. it was the only thing that made sense. it had occurred to me that i should find that brick wall, and i should figure out how to open it the way daniel did in the vision. something about what's hidden there had to be important.

i had yet to tell the others about those parts of the visions. all they knew was that i knew bexley's name. i intended on telling them, i just didn't know how.

one night among the many dreary ones, we all felt particularly lost, our hope dwindled. other than the sound of hushed sobs from zach's room, a heavy silence blanketed over us. it was my experiment day that day, and despite the fact that i had been through hell and back, i would have done it all over again in the same day just to hug zach and tell him it was alright.

jack was asleep. he was cuddled up to the wall, holding the blankets for dear life with his back to me. for once, he looked peaceful. undisturbed. the usual pain in his features had melted away as he lied there calmly, his chest heaving up and down. it was beautiful to see him not hurting, and i wished he would be like this always.

coll sat on her cot, watching the water flow through the stream. "it's all we have left, y'know?" she said, catching me looking at her. "of the outside world, i mean. sometimes i just sit and listen to it to remind myself that there is a life beyond this hell we've been thrown in." she smiles halfheartedly, "it gives me hope that maybe i'll return to that world someday. maybe we all will."

"maybe," katrina sighs, "but i'm not getting my hopes up."

"probably smart," coll responds, "but i'll do anything to have some kind of hope. even if it's broken. even if it's childish or dumb. it's the only thing keeping me going, honestly."

i lie down on my small cot, opting for a nap to escape reality for a small while. slowly but surely, i slip into a very light slumber, being just asleep enough to be at peace.

however, peace is not permanent. eventually, my quiet rest was accompanied by vivid visions, but not dreams, like it should have been. this wasn't lucid, and it wasn't unrealistic. it was another vision like the one with bexley. except this one was different. this time, there was no wall. it was as though i was looking through my own eyes, living a normal day, but i knew it was just a mental projection. maybe a memory i couldn't recall before. in the vision, it was my experiment day. daniel took me from my cage and escorted me down long hallways in a wheelchair.

normally, due to the gas, i'd be out of it for this. conscious with no consciousness, like a strangely paralyzed personal mind slave. but somehow this vision was letting me see everything i missed, everything daniel hid from us. he pushed the wheelchair down long corridors that almost seemed endless before arriving in a room where a single clear tank, i assumed for sensory deprivation, sat in front of a mirror. daniel began to take me from the chair and raised me into one that was meant to lower into the tank, but before submerging me in the water, he stuck silicone pads connected to wires on my temples, likely to monitor my brain activity. it struck me as odd when he put a few on my chest around my heart as well. i began lowering into the tank, but to my surprise, i didn't begin to float. in fact, i began to sink, and a lid closed me within the clear plexiglass as i sunk beneath the water, air escaping my body in bubbles that blocked my view of daniel walking into another room. i realized the significance of the pads on my heart, and what daniel's experiments consisted of. he killed us over and over again, then brought us back to life using electric pulses to restart our hearts. i still didn't understand why he did it, though, but i no longer had time to think about it. the water was becoming too much. i struggled, screaming as liquid filled my lungs and my vision blacked out-but that's where things went weird.

the human brain has no knowledge of what happens after you die, and therefore cannot create an image of the experience. because of this, when you're killed in a dream, your brain wakes you up because it cannot project the next scene to you. same goes for visions. however, when i evidently drowned, my vision didn't end like it should. my sight faded back in from black, a foreign place i'd never seen before in front of me. it seemed to not be of our world. everything was distorted. colors unimaginable to earth filled the space around me. there was no ground, no sky, no plants. the best way it could be described is that there just was. i just was.

and i wasn't alone.

a very human creature approached me, but it didn't feel human. an undescribable aura surrounded it, and the slightest things kept it from looking realistic. far too wide-set eyes, an intensely strong brow bone, and large, dog-like ears were some of the more noticeable features. to my surprise, the being began to speak.

"alison, you must listen to me. we're going to save your friends, we're going to save you, but we don't have long."