HUNT, OR BE HUNTED

CHAPTER 44: THE STRATEGY

The soft trickle of filthy water down the metal pipe was the only sound that reverberated around the dungeon. Guards were everywhere. Not normal-looking guards, but big, bulky, sinewy men. Each of them looked as if they could take a bull down easily with their bare hands. They were obviously built for fighting, built for war.

In each of their arms were hunting rifles, and sinister-looking blades hung from the belts around their waists. They had hard expressions on their faces-they showed no fear, no sympathy. Cleanly taking people's heads off their necks was probably what they did for a living. 

Escape out of this prison was impossible. They were no visible exits, no place to run, no place to hide. And the dungeon was similar to that of the mansion in the mountains-dark, smelly, and goodness knows how far it stretched. 

"There must be a way to get out of this goddamn place," Bane clenched his fists around the metal bars of the dirty cell he was enclosed in. "I'm so going to kill that madman when I get out of here."

""We've been here for weeks, man," Raphael pointed at the carvings he had made on the stone wall. "I feel like a caveman without my phone," he sighed forlornly. 

"There must be a way-"

"Forget it," Raphael muttered. "There is no way."

"And why are you the one who's giving up? You weren't the one who wanted life to end. You weren't the one who tried multiple times to kill himself, and then failed. I never thought you were going to lose hope, to lose faith."

"I lost everything the moment my own father died on me!" Raphael raised his voice. "Have you ever had this feeling...this wonderful feeling you get when you see someone you thought you'd never ever see again for the rest of your life? Have you ever lost everything, only to get it back, and then lose it all over again?"

"Raph-" Bane started to say. "I understand," he bent down, put a consoling hand on his shoulder. "But nothing is worse than losing yourself."

Raphael didn't answer. Bane seemed to know the right things to say every time. He couldn't argue, because Bane was right. Nothing was worse than losing yourself when you had already lost everything else.

"So don't give up. Don't give up on yourself. Everything happens for a reason, Raph. Don't make your father die in vain," Bane said. The rusty chain strapped to his ankle made loud scraping noises as he limped over to sit beside his friend.

"Then tell me that we can," Raphael said after a moment. "Tell me we can get out of here, that we can get through this. That we are strong enough to escape this living hell. Tell me everything will go just the way you want it."

"We can get out of here and we can get through this because we're strong. Everything will go just the way I want it," Bane repeated. "We weren't built to be imprisoned. We were built to kill."

Raphael could already feel it- a strong, fiery feeling in his chest. A feeling that jolted every nerve in his body awake, a feeling that made him feel invincible.

And that feeling was hope.

 ###

"We rescue my friends first thing tomorrow," I told Matt. He picked his teeth with his extra sharp fingernail, gave me a questioning look.

"Why not now?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

"No, it's too risky at this time of the day," I glanced at my phone which was already running out of battery. "We go when the humans are asleep."

"Asleep?" Matt eyed me as if I was crazy. 

"Yeah," I shrugged, moving to a sitting position on the old couch. "You got a charger?"

"Iphone?" I looked up to reply, but he had already disappeared.

"So," I heard a soft, timid voice behind me, and I turned to look at the speaker. "Can we all come?" the girl's big blue eyes gleamed as she stared right at me.

I must have looked confused, because she repeated her question.

"No," I said after a long while. "We can't all go at once."

"Why not?" she gave me her little girl pout. "We're all strong-we will have no problem taking the humans down."

"To deal with humans, it's not about strength. It's about strategy," I said, and Matt walked in with the iphone charger in his hand. "Thanks," I took it from him, then turned my attention back to the girl.

"Strategy?" her big eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

The couch squeaked as Matt took a seat beside me. "Humans are cunning. They may not be as physically strong as we are, but their intelligence is enough to defeat us all if we are not careful enough," I said. "Where's the plug?" I glanced at Matt again, who let out a deep sigh.

"I'll do it," he took my phone and the charger from my hands, and walked over to the socket which was merely a few metres from where I was.

"The humans don't have what we have. But we too, don't have what they have. We can't underestimate them," I said. I didn't know why, but all of a sudden I felt like a wise old man advising his grandkids about the do's and don'ts in life.

"So what's the plan?" a young bloke who looked my age walked over to us. He pocketed his phone which he had been fiddling around with for the past hour, and focused his glance on me.

"We observe the place tomorrow. Know where the exits are, the types of people we are dealing with, where my friends are being held. We have to know who we're up against before we make our move," I  announced. The rest of the group had already made a circle around us. "We can't just walk headfirst into their trap. Like I said, they may not be strong, but they're obviously smarter than we are."

"So...who's coming with us?" Matt splayed out his arms, a cheeky grin on his face.