His Weakness

Point B

White.

    Blinking, I turned away from the bright light with a groan, my head falling to the side.

    “She up?”

    For one delusional moment I thought I was back home in my bed, curled up around a comfortable pillow, dreading the next day at school because of how awkwardly things had been left off the night before.  For a moment, I imagined that my biggest concern was Charlotte dating Ethan.

    “Shouldn’t she still be out?”

    But the bright light wasn’t from my lamp and I recognized the back of the van I was lying in, the hatchback open and leading into what looked like a garage.

    This was really happening.

    Fingers snapped in my face and, drowsily, I looked up toward the boss of the operation, now crouched beside me with a flashlight pointed down at the ground next to his knee.  “You just keep waking up, don’t you?” he asked, twirling a toothpick between his teeth.

    I didn’t bother with a response, my head pounding too hard as I was abruptly dragged from the van and, flanked by two men that locked their arms with mine as they raised me to my feet, my legs stumbled, bare feet scraping painfully against the concrete floor.  I let my head stay down, too tired to fight now.  I’d been hit, molested, and drugged all in the span of one night.  Or maybe more time had passed?  There was no way to know from the windowless building I was being dragged through.

    It looked like a military bunker, a long corridor with doors lining both sides.  Numbers were painted on each door and tiredly, I noticed the number 14 on the door we stopped in front of.  “Your new home,” the man to my right scoffed.  I noticed there were two men on either side of us, each pointing their weapon toward the door that the fifth was now unlocking.

    Fear rippled through me.

    What the hell is behind this door?

    The door was metal with a heavy deadbolt and a padlock.  They opened it quickly and I was tossed like a sack of potatoes into complete darkness.  Landing with a thud, the door was immediately slammed shut behind me and I found myself completely blind.  Panicked, I stumbled forward, banging on the door.  I couldn’t see anything, I realized, my eyes straining as I looked around nervously.  Nothing.  Just empty blackness, like staring into a void.

    Shuffling.

    I froze at the noise, turning my back to the door, trying to see something.  Anything.

    A giggle.

    “Hello?” I asked, my voice coming out in a tight rasp as I squinted toward the sound.

    God, I was just like those idiots in the horror movies trying to have a conversation with the serial killer.  Trembling, I pushed back against the door, slumping down to the ground on my butt.  My head was pounding and I could hardly breathe, my panic obviously trying to strangle me.

    Slowly, my eyes adjusted.

    Shapes.  I could see people.  No, they looked like children sitting all around the room.

    I hugged my knees close to my chest, horror stricken as I saw one stand.  I could tell by his form that he was male and large.  He hummed, a deep rumble in his chest.  It sounded animalistic and I found myself wondering if I’d just imagined the noise.

    “Are you for us?” a feminine voice asked from somewhere to my right.

    “She must be,” another said.

    There was a chatter throughout the room and the standing boy took a step forward and another rumble sounded, silencing the group.  My eyes flickered about, slowly taking in more details in the dim lighting.  About a dozen children in the room.  Why did the guards direct all their weapons toward unarmed children?  Nothing made sense.

    The boy took a few steps forward and abruptly cumpled to the floor.

    Panting with the effort to try to breathe, I watched in confusion as he groaned, dragging himself backwards until his back hit the far wall where he’d been settled before.  What the hell just happened?  Glancing about, I waited for the children to speak again, for somebody to try to explain what was going on here but all I was met with the sound of my own strained breathing.  I’m losing my mind, I decided.  Clutching my throat, I pressed my head between my knees, trying to remember how to breathe properly.  I’m sitting in a strait jacket somewhere and this is all just in my imagination.  I’m crazy.  I must be insane.  My lungs burned, tears prickling at my eyes as I gasped.  I’m going to die.  Hell, maybe I’m already dead.  Maybe this is hell. I’m in hell—

    “Calm down,” the same gravelly voice from earlier said in my head.  My breathing evened out without any say from me.  “Just go to sleep.”  My eyes fluttered, drooping at the command.  Suddenly hit with exhaustion, I went limp and fell sideways, my face being met with cold, hard floor.