A Short Story : A Story?

“Uh, yeah! Sure!” When I knew I was l alone I ran all over town looking for the source of the snow. I finally found it at an abandoned warehouse just outside of town. I waited a couple of seconds before saying something but before I could, someone spoke.

“Why are you here,” I peeked around her quickly, frightened, “and where are all of your friends?”

It took us three days to find our way home, but little did we know we entered hell. Welcomed back as members of the pack we were to be trained.” She stopped in front of him again her head twitched, “More like tortured. Yes, more like torture. Children were torn from families and forced to live in animal cages, removed only to be beaten by the strongest warriors. I remember my arms chained above me as that beat me with wooden rods. On other nights we were awoken only to be beaten by fists and feet.” Briseis removed her glasses and hooked them on the front of her shirt. Her green eyes met

The sound of the door slamming shut reverberated ominously through the ten by ten holding cell, filling its lone occupant with an eerie sense of foreboding. As instructed, Jed Baker turned around and stuck his hands through an opening in the bars. He didn't move a muscle when the handcuffs were removed, nor did he rub the red gouges where they had dug deep into his wrists.

Scuttling innocently through the twisting corridors I bore the same expression; head down, shoulders hunched, avoiding any eye contact - my desperate attempts to deter the despot for one day at least. Despite my efforts, there was no escape, as seemingly within the second of having that naively optimistic thought, a cruel, callous voice demanded I surrender my broach. Fear spiked, as it always did, but with it came something else, an alien emotion ... Looking back now, I see that it must have been the cumulative effect of months of torment that brought me to the realisation that at this point I had reached the nadir of my life. Deriding cackles pierced my ears and this time I recognised the emotion, fury. It burned through my veins, along with the memories of the past to form a feeling of overwhelming power. I met the daggers that would usually invoke terror, and calmly, I said “No.”

Edward slowly stalked out of the dark, dusty cell. A guard lay motionless next to the open door, his throat slit and his face drained of color. He had been trapped in the tiny room for months and he was finally free. He inhaled deeply, taking in the ancient, musty air. The corridor that contained his cell was dark, damp, and humid. There were streaks of red along the walls, most likely due to the massive iron deposits above his underground prison. Edward took all of this in as he crept through the unlit hallway, a small, jagged piece of bloody glass in hand.

It replayed over and over in my head. The screams and shouts echoing. They grew louder and louder, shoving me into the back corner, behind the old red rain coat, never worn. The floor was cold as ice, the room was so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. My heart beat rapidly, louder and louder, as it beat out of my chest. What was I doing, why was I here? Let the noise stop, let them surrender.

“You’ll never be one of them.” Alex couldn’t stop a sneer from marring his face that simplicity of Michael’s statement, as though rising

Their regret overwhelms them and eats them alive- literally. But no matter.” and my Guide grabbed my hand and brought me to the doors of the cathedral, where the heat was almost unbearable. “Inside?!” I asked, with a surprise as she flung open the doors with a wave of her hand.

“Hey, you!” shouted a voice far down in the hallway. “So you’re the new girl, huh?”

“Escape? No no. It is impossible to escape from this dungeon. In your ideal world, the prisoners never get away. The rebels are planning on....how to put this delicately....send you to a better place as a symbol of the beginning of their reign.”

“I don't mean to be rude,” he said, “But if you're going to kill me could you please get on with it?” They looked at him surprised.

“You have a weird sense of humor kid, but whatever, hurry up and get ready, we have a long day

For the next two months Jackson tried hard to keep his head in the game as he watched for any small chink in security. As his concentration waned, he knew he was sinking farther into his nightmares due to the depression and terrified one day he would climb into the dark hole and not have the strength to climb out. But the thing that scared him the most was if he disappeared into that hole he’d become very dangerous to everyone around him, including his friends because not only would he be suicidal, but homicidal as well. When he managed to keep his mind on the task at hand, he noticed there were now three guards instead of five taking them to the showers on the weekends because the guys were model prisoners, doing exactly what the guards asked

“What?! No! We have no idea what is inside the shack! We should just check inside and then leave” A slightly younger boy, Carl, with blonde hair cried. From far away you could see his pupils dilated with fear