the next dark age: book two insanity

chapter 8 the basement

The group had tied Dawn up to a shelf in the basement of a shop. The basement was originally a freezer, which meant that the room got very cold very easily.

"Okay, so what now?" Trisha asked, shivering "should we contact Tim?"

"Yeah," Adam said, "I know someone who lives nearby who could contact him. If we start walking now we could make it there before the sun rises."

"Okay, should we leave someone here with him?"

"Oh I really don't care." Dawn said. He said this while staring very intensely at one of the boxes that filled the room, before staring at the wall "If I get bored I can stare at the patterns of the wall. Have you ever tried to make pictures out of the patterns in the wall. It's quite fun." he scraped his fingers against the wall, and they made an awful screeching noise.

"Will someone please shut him up?" Stephanie asked, very annoyed, "there has to be some tape somewhere in the boxes somewhere around here." Stephanie grabbed a box from off the wall and started rummaging through it. She found some pencils, some papers, and an old picture of some people who looked loosely familiar, but no tape. In her frustration, Stephanie threw the box onto the ground.

"Hey, its alright," Sapphire reassured Stephanie "once we get Tim back we can never have to deal with him again."

Stephanie put on a slightly exhausted smile "I know, but I am so fed up with Dawn, and Tim, and everyone else."

"I know, but tomorrow everything will be good again."

Neither one of them noticed that Dawn had put his foot over the picture and pulled it towards him. Dawn smiled, he knew he had exactly what he needed. He could now do whatever he wanted. He wondered which people would be left behind. He hoped it was someone he could kill.

"Why don't you stay here Angel?" Trisha suggested, "you deserve some rest after today. you and Lance can catch up; I'm sure that you will want to tell him all about the previous days." Angel thought it funny how everyone keeps saying that she deserved rest, but she somehow keeps being pulled into more problems. Instead of bringing this point up, Angel decided to instead just walk out with the others.

As she walked out, Angel looked back at Dawn, who was tapping the wall with his long fingers.

...

Dawn had long ago mastered the ability to tap exactly every five seconds, which made great use for telling time. In fact he had known that exactly that five hundred seconds had passed.

When he realized this, Dawn took off his glove, and used his claws to rip out the area right below his wrist. Hidden between his bones were a few metal objects which could be used to pick locks. He quickly and silently undid his handcuffs, and stood up to stretch.

"See I told you those lock picks would be useful." Dawn said to seemingly no one.

He went to turn on the lights, and examine the picture. Sure enough the picture was legit, being one of only five pictures that documented that day in 1997. Was it really 1997 that this picture was taken? The picture had sure aged well. There was some fading, and the faces were a little hard to decipher, but overall it was still good enough.

Why Nydia never tried to blackmail Tim with this picture was beyond Dawn. Maybe she did and Dawn just didn't know, or maybe Nydia still felt bad for Tim. Nydia never was able to let go of the friendship between her and Tim.

Dawn shook the thoughts from his head, and opened the door and stepped out into the quiet night. He had always hated those kinds of nights.