This is a prologue of my new Rori story. This is like back ground information and things aren't very clear yet on what exactly is going on.

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Prologue

It wasn't going to work, but they pushed forward.

It was dark black – blinding. They couldn't make out the thin pointy fingers of the branches clawing at their skin. They couldn't make out the thick roots that tripped them and the hard jagged rocks that made their falls pain them so bad. They couldn't run for much longer.

They could hear the loud howls of the beasts that haunted them, and the voices of the animal's masters. They could feel every cut and bruise – new and old on their abused bodies. They could feel one another – his hand wrapped around her wrist leading her. They could feel their bodies growing weak and slowing down, the burning of their lungs and the ach coursing through their muscles weren't easily ignored.

They pushed forward.

As the black sky began to lighten the two came to a stream at a slow stumbling pace, they collapsed alongside it. They cupped their hands into the narrow stream and drunk the filthy water greedily, the cool bad tasting water sliding down their parched throats soothingly.

"W- We…" Robbie took short quick breaths and closed his eyes tightly. His heart wouldn't calm and air wasn't easily returning to his lungs. He licked his dry cracked lips in an attempt at gathering his words, "We aren't going to make it."

Tori captured her bottom lip into her mouth and breathed heavily out of her nose, her eyes were trained on the running stream. She brought her scratched, bleeding and bruised bare legs to her chest and absently picked a leaf out of her hair. "We… can't give… up." Tori swallowed heavily and coughed lightly to clear her throat. "We made it out, right?"

They hadn't, they both were aware of that. Yes, they were out of the 'building' that had been their prison but they hadn't truly escaped anything.

Another howl sounded far too close to them and they both struggled to their feet. The hounds were coming and they couldn't be there when the animals showed up. They had no true expectations of getting away, but they had come too far to give up now.

"What if we make it out and no one believes us? What if they make us come right back here?" Tori asked breathlessly as they moved over the running stream.

The runaways shared a look. They had a plan for that.

It begins with how it all started. No. How the beginning of the end started.

Five Months Ago

They plead guilty.

They had too – their parents advised it as a good idea. So much evidence was pointed to them as the murders of their teacher Sikowitz, finger prints, surveillance, and DNA. Only the teens hadn't… they wouldn't murder anyone.

Robbie and Tori aren't murders, but that was exactly what they were being accused of being. That's what they had no choice but to say they were.

They were being trialed together because of the nature of the case. They were accused of being Satanic murders because their teacher was found with a pentagram drawn on his forehead and missing internal organs. They had found him.

Sikowitz had picked them for a two person play and they were to meet him in the black box theater, they had and he was there – only not alive. Evidence had been collected from the horrifying scene and school was closed the next evening not even twenty-four hours later they both were arrested and charged.

So much evidence was against them. A blade had been found in Robbie's desk drawer in his bedroom, Tori had bloody clothing shoved into her closet and a book on sacrificial rituals under her bed. Robbie's finger prints were on the blade and Tori's DNA under Sikowitz's finger nails.

They were advised to take a 'generous' deal, that would keep them from doing life and accept a new program that would give them fifteen years – no early releases only complete rehabilitation. It would be run by a woman named Sharon Crow.

Only that fateful day, it boomed and bounced inside Tori's skull in Judge Marciano's loud monotonous voice told them of sentences. It clawed at her mind, that word, but comprehending it was truly not happening.

She remembered the energy being zapped from her body, and going deaf to everything around her. She missed Robbie's verdict, but was certain it was like her own. They shared an attorney.

Her hearing came back when she was being forced to stand again, she hadn't even remembered sitting down. The familiar feeling of handcuffs being tightened around her wrists came to her along with her mother's voice.

The woman was telling her everything would be alright, and that things would turn out for the better. She wanted to believe that, and she forced her mind to believe that their verdict would be overturned and they would find Sikowitz's real murder. Before that could truly sink in and calm her heart her eyes found her father's. There was rage boiling behind those eyes that once held only love for her, and she could tell. He believed she was guilty. Trina wasn't in court today.

(1)

The ride to their prison was long and they were alone on the bus besides each other, the guards, and the bus driver. They traveled along highways for a while then paved streets turned into dirt roads during the fifteen hour bus ride. This prison wouldn't be co-ed in any sense of the word, which should have been an automatic red flag.

It was night when they were ushered from their bus and lead into a building and down and elevator and began their descent into hell.

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