Disclaimer: I only own my OC's

Criticism is welcome.

I never thought emptiness could be so heavy. As it continued to pummel me like a sack of bricks against my chest, alone in my new room. They are all gone, well more like I'm gone. I'm not sure how I got here but I suppose it helps to start at the beginning.

It all started on a hot Saturday in the middle of August, at a public swimming pool with my family. I started to notice, odd swirls of black clouds in the sky, one moment they would be there, and the next they would be gone. I tried to get a picture, but it was as though I was hallucinating.

For several days this continued, I wasn't sure what was going on but a couple weeks later the clouds were getting more numerous and bigger, swirling in scary circles as if a twister would break out at any moment. But that is ridiculous, I live in Iowa inside the fork of a river where twisters never set down. But driving back from church, my baby sister in the back seat, I felt a lurch as my car was taken up into the sky by a giant black tornado.

The car spun faster and faster and I barely heard my little sister crying over the roar of the wind in the back seat. Still buckled in I tried to look at her. With my hair flying everywhere in front of my face despite it being cut short recently, made it hard to see her. With a bone jarring thud the car landed on something and the twister vanished just as suddenly as it had come.

I turned around to see my sister again, she was unconscious but looked unhurt, breathing deeply, she looked almost peaceful. I was trying to figure out what on earth was going on, when the world started to go black, I tried to fight it as much as I could but for the life of me I couldn't stay awake. And as the world went black my last thought was "am I dying?".

Waking up in a dark cell room, my little sister lying in a dirty cot a few feet from me, I tried to make sense of where I was. I heard footsteps as the figure of a female in a black ninja outfit with a metal mask covering part of her face, a katana sheathed at her side and two male ninjas clad in black on ither side of her. Looking me over her eyes crinkled in what I can only guess was a smirk. "Well nice of you to join the living miss?" She seemed off, like creepy off. I answered anyway giving only part of my actual name. "Drea, my name is drea." She motioned to my little sister expectantly, I crossed my arms in defiance not wanting to give anymore information away before I knew where I was. I was pretty sure I knew, but that would mean I was dreaming, or worse in a coma. The last real thing I remembered was driving with my little sister, if I got her killed and was in a coma I did not want to wake up. Ever.

The woman who's age I couldn't guess behind the mask but judging by her eyes and the maturity of her muscle mass I guessed her to be about 20, the same as myself. She took her mask off, I just stared at her, probably with a dumb blank look on my face. It was karai, makeup, katana, and everything, my mind immediately rejected this as reality, I was in a coma my baby sister was probably dead, it was a car crash, couldn't be anything else, I prayed to God to let me die in the dream coma.

Karai looked and me and introduced herself. "I apologize for the cell but you fell out of the sky in a car, that's a little strange don't you think?" she quirked an eyebrow in my direction.

I didn't respond I just sat there staring at her.

"Neither of you two were hurt, and you fell from higher than the empire state building." She shot a glare at me as though I should have known this. As if I was trying to hide information with my silence. I shot a glare right back, I figure if I'm stuck in this dream till I die I might as well play along.

"What now?" I ask softening my facial muscles and shrugging my shoulders.

"Now you tell me where you are from" she growled.

I had to hand it to my imagination, if I didn't know this was a dream I would have been scared instead I just laughed, I laughed harder than I ever have before. In spite of everything I knew, I laughed a full belly laugh. She got furious at this point pulling her katana out and flicking it in through the bars cutting my arm. I looked at the gash watching the blood come out mesmerized at the sight, I had never let my imagination be so gory before.

She looked at me like I had lost my mind as I continued to giggle, my laughter only being tempered by my fasination at my bleeding arm. She stomped off putting her mask back on, seemingly miffed at my reaction to her. I continued to watch my arm bleed as my laughter stopped and the pain settled back into my heart. I tore off the bottom of my shirt and used it as a bandage for my arm. I looked over to where my mind painted my baby sister sleeping soundly. I crawled over to her and rubbed her back, wanting to feel her warm body and, at least for awhile, believe she was still alive.

Several days passed, we were fed a couple times a day. Hard bread and water in the morning, a little bit of some kind of burnt meat in the evening. I gave most of it to my sister, I used to be on ADHD medicine when I was 18 and I hardly ate during that time, so continuing on just a slight amount of food was normal still for me. Plus it's not like we did more than sit or sleep in that cell.

If I had to guess I would say we were somewhere in a basement, I couldn't see any outside light and the entire place smelled dank and musty. My sister and I did a little bit of excersize, but with the tiny space we had we couldn't do much to keep ourselves occupied. I came up with stories, I could tell whatever guard was posted was sometimes listening. The thought made me giggle, I was in the middle of one of my stories when karai came back down.

She didn't say anything this time, she just stood there and listened to my story. I tried to keep from any wording that would make her angry. My shoulder was going to scar where she sliced me, and I didn't want a matching scar anywhere else. After I finished I expected her to talk. Maybe ask some more questions, but I only heard silence, I turned around and she was gone. The guard was gone, or at least too far down the hall for me to see.

Out of curiosity I tested the door, it was firmly locked.

"Well it was a nice try" my baby sister said.

"Yea I would have been mad at myself if it had been unlocked all this time with us sitting here like a couple of idiots" I joked turning to look at my baby sister.

"How much longer do we have to stay" my baby sister asked looking behind me. I about jumped out of my skin, karai was right behind me, I didn't hear her come back down.

"I haven't decided, then again I haven't decided that you will leave alive ither." She smirked at my little sister. I stepped in between her line of sight to my little sister. A silent barrier between karai and Vanessa. Karai looked me in the eye with a bone chilling stare. I returned with a glare of my own. I may have not been able to protect Vanessa in real life, but in this dream coma I could, and I would.

She berated us with question after question to which I only answered a few. My age 20 and Nessa's age 13. Nessa answered quite a few questions that I ignored. Karai digressed to asking trivial questions like favorite color and animal. I let Vanessa answer, that is until I heard karai ask if ither of us had boyfriends. Up till this point the questions had been surface scratchers, that was a little to personal. Nevermind that we were both single, moriah not even being old enough to care. I cut in "I don't think that's any of your business and you have asked enough questions to fill a book." I spat out rather rudely and a bit hoarsely because of a dry throat.

"I don't think you understand how this works, you two are my prisoners. I ask a question" she unsheathed her katana for emphasis and pointed it at me, I was smart enough to sit back out of range this time. "you answer" she growled at me and then walked out.

It had been almost two weeks now. I had been paying attention to the guards, they changed every few hours, and the night guards especially liked to sleep through their shifts. Vanessa and I didnt really do much. That is until tonight, I had been biding our time, waiting for the best time to act. Karai had started coming at regular intervals during the evening, awhile after supper meal, every night. So tonight was the night to try, karai had left a little while ago, the guard had just begun to snore softly, I reached down my shirt and pulled the wire out of my erm, unmentionable, I folded it twice so that it had some strength to it and I set to work on the lock. Now I've never picked a lock before, I know the basic concept, turn the tumbler to unlatch the hook from its locked position, but I had never actually done it.

I fiddled with the lock for awhile when I heard a loud 'CLICK' as it unlocked. I looked at it in a bit of shock, I almost had forgotten this was a dream, and for a minute I thought I had unlocked the door, ha. I heard the guard stir a bit and I pulled my arm back in, putting the wire back into its original place. I picked up my sleeping sister, she had lost a lot of weight since we came here, and walked out past the guard. I continued down the long hallway to a door that led to a stairwell that continued up for what looked like forever. I started to climb, thankful that the levels were numbered, 16b, 15b, 14b, 13b. I continued up till I came to a door marked 'ground'. Sounds about right, I thought to myself. I pushed open the door.

If this hadn't been a dream, I woulda thought it strange that there were no guards. I continued walking stepping to the side of the new hallway, it was lined with pillars and the sides were dark, the center was lit by torches on the pillars giving the hallway an eree glow. I walked to a door that led into a new hallway, this one completely unlit, I continued walking trying to head in the same direction, but I wasn't sure, my sense of direction was thrown off by all the turns I took, I finally reached a door that led to the outside.