Everything is broken

Everything Is Broken- Part 3

Being out for more than a few seconds is bad. That's something everybody in the City, and everybody anywhere else, I guess, learns early on. Words I don't really understand float uneasily through my hazy mind: concussion; amnesia... the Myzers. I open my eyes slowly, my brain waking up to my surroundings far more quickly than my vision does.

My name is Elliana Evermore, and I was born thirty-four years since the end of the Destruction. I am still alive.

As my vision starts to become clearer, I can see Nuada stood a few feet away, leaning against the wall of - wait, where am I? It looks like some kind of a prison cell; underground, probably. The walls look to be made of some damp, brownish stone, and they glitter faintly in the half-darkness. There's electric light hanging from the ceiling, I think. It's strange, and cold, like some kind of round window to the sun. There's a faint humming noise, too.

"Thank god. You're awake." Nuada sounds really scared. I look up at him with faint concern of my own, unsettled by the strange light and his fearful tone of voice. Other than a few minutes ago when the Myzers were about to catch us - or however long ago it really was - I didn't think I'd ever heard him sound like that.

"What kind of place is this?" I ask, sitting up to look around and feeling a sharp pain in my neck. "We're not - they won't..?" I trail off, leaving the questions hanging in the room like the hum of the light. I notice it's flickering.

"It's what it looks like - a prison. But the guard who brought me here seemed friendly. I couldn't understand everything he said, but there was something in there about helping them, or about them helping us."

"How did I get here? I was knocked out, I mean."

"You came down a few minutes later, being carried. I assume they changed your clothes, as well." He gestures vaguely at me. "They're old-fashioned, aren't they." I lift my arms and look at the tight long sleeved top and horrible scratchy trousers as he talks. "They remind me-"

"You bet," I say, cutting off whatever lecture was about to start on the clothes, which I was beginning to notice were unbearably tight when I started to move, and were made of a scratchy, course material. "But what I still don't understand is why one of them talked about us having to help them? It's a bit strange, considering they're Myzers."

He shrugs, deep in some kind of thought. "Maybe it has something to do with the former Amberlee," he adds, with slightly crass sarcasm.

Now that I've finished waking up, I attempt to stand up, pushing myself up against the rough, wet wall and feeling a wave of dizziness rush over me. "Woah, hey!" I hear from somewhere in front of me, and I fall into somebody's arms as I crash slowly back towards unconsciousness. "Crap, Ellie. Ellianna, I mean. You've got to stay lying down."

I try to refocus my bleary eyes as he lays me on the ground. The sound of the light buzzing drags me uncomfortably back into the harsh reality of the prison cell, and a sharp feeling of nausea washes over me, accompanied by a cold sweat and a fresh dislike of the awful clothing. Nuada returns to leaning in the same point, and I note with something between panicky detachment and wry amusement that the back of the checkered shirt the Myzers have given him now has a large wet patch on it.

And then, inevitably, the door opens.

(Credit to my friend who helped write this with me and will probably do so for more chapters to come!)