The Hunt

Nightmare

Ringing… That's all Emma can hear. Ringing. She feebly attempts to open her eyes but quickly gives up due to the glaring light shining from somewhere above her. She lies on the cold stone floor of an unknown room shivering, curled up in a ball, and whimpering slightly. After a couple of minutes, she slowly opens her eyes, wincing at the harshness of the glare that is the single light source in the unknown room. When she finally does manage to get her eyes open, she looks around blearily for any other signs of life. At first, she sees nothing, but as her eyes adjust to the harsh glare of the lamp above her, she sees four other figures, also laying on the cold stone floor.

She recognizes all four of the figures around the room. The first, a larger man, Andrew Delta, her roommate and fiancé. The second and third, Emma's two daughters, Lyra and Sapphire. Sapphire had a black eye, which enraged Emma beyond belief. Sapphire was 7 years old then. Lyra was only 10 months old. She looked around the room more closely and noted one other person. Li Belladonna, who had been a childhood friend of Emma's as well as a babysitter for Saph and Lyra whilst Emma was away. Emma had been preparing for Sapphire's 8th birthday party when she had received a phone call from Li, asking if she could spend a few nights with Emma and Andrew. Why? Emma never got the chance to ask why, due to the fact that the line mysteriously went dead for no reason. Emma had tried to call Li back… no response.

Emma attempted to rise from her current, uncomfortable position, but found her movements barred by shackles binding her to the floor. At this point Emma started to panic. What was she going to do? How had she gotten here in the first place? But none of these questions were as prominent as the one eating at the edges of her mind. How was she going to get out of here? How was she going to get her and her family and friends out of this desolate place alive? How? She didn't know exactly how. But she knew she had to, her family depended on her. As she was contemplating how she was going to get out of the current situation, she heard a quiet rustling behind her. She craned her stiff neck around to possibly identify the source of the noise. But when she turned her head over to locate the source of the noise, she saw nothing but a dark corner of the room she, and her other family/friends were currently located. She discarded the idea as a mere figment of her own, panic stricken imagination.

She returned her head to it's previous position, sighed, and closed her eyes in exasperation. As she was wallowing in her own self-pity, unaware to her, a camera lens flashed as it rotated to face her. Silently it stared at the motionless woman laying on the floor of a room, lit by nothing but a single string-bulb lamp. The camera slowly panned to the rest of the room, in which the other 4 "inhabitants" were stationed. None of which showed signs of being alive, other than the slow, methodical rise and fall of their chests, indicating that they were breathing, or at least simulating breathing. All but Emma had been tranquilized. Emma however, had been knocked out with a condensed, serum that could be administered through contact. None of the five in the room knew of the true intentions of whoever had done this.

Andrew woke slowly and attempted to roll into a more comfortable position. He also found his movements contained by thick iron shackles. He was not a small person by any measure, but found it difficult to even lift the shackles. He, like Emma, had started to mentally panic. Except his version of panic was a tad bit different to Emma's. While Emma had remained calm and collected, Andrew had begun to flail around wildly, causing Emma to jerk her head upwards violently. Which in turn woke Li, who then started to scream loudly, which in turn caused both Lyra, and Saph to start. Everybody was awake now…

The camera in the corner snapped around to view the whole room. Which in itself, was not very large. The group in the small room was trying to calm down the hysteric Sapphire who was blubbering about a short figure in an overcoat, who had attacked her, Li, and Lyra. Andrew meantime was trying to find a way to undo the shackles around his wrists with no success. But his efforts were not in vain. By the time Saph had calmed down enough to be able to understand what she was actually trying to say, everybody else had communicated a little bit about the current situation. From what they had discussed, they had been kidnapped, brought here, and were being held here for who knows what. Still one question burned in all of their minds. Why? Why would somebody abduct 5 people just for the heck of it.