Wavering a bit, somewhere between a realm of trance and truth, Jesse
struggled to keep his ground. He kept his eyes closed for a purpose, in
almost certain denial of where he was. Feeling groggy and bleary, his head
pounded and ached in response toward after-effects, which he concluded he
must have been drugged. He slightly shrugged his aggrieved brain, in an
effort to release the pain. Not daring to move any further, he waited for
some clarity to spring forward. There was a slight ringing in his ears,
and an almost audible tone of voices could be heard. Unable to decipher
them, Jesse squinted his eyes, keeping his mind concentrated on
interpreting the incoherent language that seemed to be spoken. Before he
could infer anything, a wave a nausea passed through his lower body, and he
opposed it, begging his body to keep it in-the fumes were repellent, and
consisted of nothing better than a thick aroma of all that could be
considered vile, putrid, and rancid. His resistance soon gave way,
although instead it resulted in a forceful, and violent coughing.
Sputtering and hacking, Jesse's body could take it no longer and began
wildly convulsing.
Strangely, not a soul was around to witness this event, or to soothe Jesse's infirmity. Eventually, his coughing grew more subtle and gentle in its continuation, and soon, the complete episode had elapsed, leaving Jesse to "rest." Rest as much as possible, not knowing what was going on or with whom he could speak. The coughing spell had forced Jesse's eyes to open, and they widened even more now, taking in the atmosphere. It was unpleasantly cold, sending small shivers up and down his spine, making him want to rub his goose bump-covered arms and hands together. There was a dampness about the room, and Jesse wanted nothing more than to actually see something. A coat of darkness had cascaded over the room, and Jesse could see no more than was a few feet in front of him. Small drops of rainwater found their way off the ceiling, splattering onto Jesse's eyelids. A slight moan escaped from him as his entire body shook with a throbbing pain, in an effort to wipe the globule from his eyes.
That proved difficult, however, as Jesse soon realized that his hands were bound together with metal straps and he was lying forcibly on the ground. His right hand reached for them, sailing his fingers along the smooth metal, calculating the strength it would take to uncoil. In a circling motion, Jesse tried to determine the make of this metal. Staring at the shimmering hoary, he couldn't establish the type that this object was made out of-which baffled him. The first thought that came to his mind was to phase through the straps, but because of the mysterious origin of the material, it refused to let an intangible object go through it. In utter disbelief he threw his fists at the ground, slamming them into the concrete beneath. Gritting his teeth and chewing on his lip, he muttered a few unmentionables and tried to think of a way of escape from the shackled torment. Tiny beads of sweat were beginning to stream down his face, and his face showed the signs of annoyance and irritation. Thinking fast, he tried to remember what had happened before he got there.
That scream.that scream that he heard coming into the wall. That was all he could remember. That was all he wanted to remember. It sounded like...a growl. A bravura and petrifying snarl: the piercing shot through the veins, slicing, pricking and stabbing at every turn. The cry that wasn't his. The cry that seemed to come out from somewhere inside of himself that belonged to the voice of another. It conveyed everything he was feeling inside, but most of all it trapped the one emotion that he was never willing to admit: fear. His terror lay hidden in his eyes-the one true window to the soul. But the fear was not for him, and a terrible panic thrashed wildly inside of him of the thought that his friends needed him- and he couldn't help them. Silently chewing on the inside of his lip, he closed his eyes into deeper concentration. In a fixed trance, Jesse slowly began to mutter under his breath:
"Something happened between now and when I went through that wall. Something to do with that scream." The wailing seemed to forever ring in his ears. It screeched like a jaguar, but had the determination like..Shalimar. Suddenly, before Jesse could begin another conscious thought, his entire body sprang forward, in an utter disbelief of pain. His entire faced cringed with it, until it was expressed through every wrinkle on his face and every hair on his body.
Scarcely blinking, the memory of the recent event made his shoulders tremble. He knew there wasn't a minute to lose, and quickly tried to find another way out beside his "handcuffs". Looking towards his feet, his shoulders soon fell with dismay when he realized they were bound also. His forehead crinkled, becoming increasingly intent on the situation. He refused to quit; Jesse began to try a new method of escaping. Within seconds, there was another pain: his chest lurched forward, twisting every which way until he couldn't feel his limbs anymore. Gritting on his teeth harder, he tried to buckle down and brace it, "like a man," and soon his eyes began to water. Convincing himself that it was sweat, he sucked up what strength he had left in him. His hands began to shake with the prickly episode, but he refused to become weak. Soon the pain had passed, and his body collapsed with relief. Recovering his breath, he panted heavily, and struggled to swallow. It was hard to comprehend what sick, twisted minds had decided to put him threw this, but Jesse knew only one thing for sure: he was in the hands of the enemy.
In the blink of an eye, blinding lights hung over Jesse. Hissing, a voice right next to Jesse's ear whispered,
"Where is it? This would be over so much quicker if you would just tell us where it is." Jesse recognized the voice. It was too familiar to be forgotten.
"What are you talking about?" Jesse sneered at him, still wrestling with the straps that bound him to the floor.
Slowly circling Jesse, he flashed a small, pocket-sized object in front of him, with dials that ran from one to ten. Cast in a brilliant metallic silver, and he ran his finger across the smooth surface. In the middle, there lay a dial, with arrows point a specific numbers. Currently, the dial read '3,' and it seemed pretty clear to Jesse what the dial was for. Jesse scorned the object, knowing it was the indicator and reason for all his pain. The predator smiled at Jesse and said, "Let's just see what number '4' is like, shall we?" The terror in his eyes soon dispelled and was replaced with a counterfeit numbness. He could still feel the pain as sharp as ever, but his outward appearance could not longer respond: it was only number four, and the dial had already paralyzed (for now) his reaction system.
He neared Jesse, leaning into his and said, "Now will you talk?"
At a loss for words, Jesse tried to remain calm, even though he certainly wasn't. He might be afraid, he reasoned, but he didn't have to show it. "Right now, I just have to get out of here." He tossed his eyes up toward the accuser and questioned, "What do you want to know?"
"Where is it?" It was the least he could have said, and more than Jesse could answer.
"Where is what?" Jesse probed. "I can't very well tell you where it is, until you tell me what it is," Jesse snipped, trying to test his boundaries. Although he hadn't said much, the glare in his predator's eyes told him he had gone too far this time.
The smile faded from his face as it rapidly turned into a "Listen, smart one, you know damn well what I'm talking about!" Taken aback by this sudden retort, he immediantly pressed the dial on five, and watched Jesse writhe, trying to endure the dosage. Squinting his eyes against the florescent light, he observed Jesse's torment with a sadistic grin. Jesse collapsed on the chair, barely breathing.
He lifted one eyebrow and cocked his head, adding an arrogant flair to his words, "Let's try that again." Jesse could only shake his head in disagreement, resisting the nauseous feeling in his stomach. His throat was choking with pain, a few small drops of a red liquid fell at the corner of his mouth. Gasping, he faced his opponent. With no words he could mutter, he simply rolled his eyes and slowly closed his eyelids in exhaustion. Becoming delusional with the pain, there was no choice but for him to open his eyes, and just stare into the face of his attacker.
Even though Jesse could barely hear him over the thumping of his own heartbeat, he could read his lips clear enough, which whispered, "No mercy." Swallowing harshly, he attempted to focus his blurred vision long enough to notice an elongated needle, threatening to poke the vein in his elbow. Too weak to remove his arm from their clutches, he could only think about what they were planning on doing to him-what was in that syringe. However, before the needle was injected, another's arm snatched the nozzle from his grip and shrieked,
"Leave him alone! We'll kill him if we do anymore!" Neatly clad a Placing the hypodermic safely out of reach, he scoffed at the man, "You kill him, and the whole thing is useless!"
"He's invaluable to us anyway!" the man began to reason. He reached for the needle once again, but the man standing adjacent to him slapped his hand, and sneered, "I wouldn't try that again, if I were you."
A few more indistinct mummers were exchanged, but one sentence struck Jesse as particularly odd: "We already searched the girl, what value can he be to us now?" the man had argued, but already knew there was no use resisting any longer. The rest of the conversation was just an incomprehensible mummer to Jesse, and they had moved further away from Jesse, almost completely disappearing from sight. But their position had become trivial to him: What girl?
Girl? Girl? What girl? Jesse thinks, his eyeballs slowly rolling around in his head, without a conscious motion. His mind became a whirlwind of thoughts, surronding who they could possibly mean. What is Emma? Shalimar! They had captured Shalimar! His blood began to boil, and his face felt hot. "By God, if they did anything to Shalimar..," he said to himself, cursing under his breath. Letting out a long breath, he could, he licked his lips, and slowly ran his teeth across them, picking up accents of the blood that had run on his cheek. But was it Shalimar? Rolling his neck, scarcely looking up and Jesse thought back.
He had reasoned that if must be Shalimar they were talking about, but it there was something peculiar that made his mind flashback to the car scene: Emma's position. There was something that had struck him as odd earlier, Emma, he remembered was also unconscious, had been somewhat blank from his memory. He remembered that like a plaything, she had been slung onto the outer side of the window, not bleeding but had turned a pale blue in color. She was sitting in the front passenger seat, and one arm had been mashed against the side of the dashboard. Her other arm had been twisted into such a shape that resembled an S; it seemed to be fine now, he couldn't imagine how much pain it had probably caused her. Yet, something seemed wrong. Now that he thought about it, the placement of Emma's comatose body seemed awkward. Her position couldn't have been natural---
What the hell was going on?
--And that scream.that scream that he heard coming into the wall. That was all he could remember. That was all he wanted to remember. It sounded like..a growl. A bravura and petrifying snarl: the piercing shot through the veins, slicing, pricking and stabbing at every turn. The cry that wasn't his. The cry that seemed to come out from somewhere inside of himself that belonged to the voice of another.
In a struggle of testament and will, he opened his eyes with blurred vision, one last time to see a blonde-haired..thing.. He thought he heard a slight mumble say his name..
A tumultuous twister of emotion and thought enveloped him and he fell into an unconscious state of submission.
Strangely, not a soul was around to witness this event, or to soothe Jesse's infirmity. Eventually, his coughing grew more subtle and gentle in its continuation, and soon, the complete episode had elapsed, leaving Jesse to "rest." Rest as much as possible, not knowing what was going on or with whom he could speak. The coughing spell had forced Jesse's eyes to open, and they widened even more now, taking in the atmosphere. It was unpleasantly cold, sending small shivers up and down his spine, making him want to rub his goose bump-covered arms and hands together. There was a dampness about the room, and Jesse wanted nothing more than to actually see something. A coat of darkness had cascaded over the room, and Jesse could see no more than was a few feet in front of him. Small drops of rainwater found their way off the ceiling, splattering onto Jesse's eyelids. A slight moan escaped from him as his entire body shook with a throbbing pain, in an effort to wipe the globule from his eyes.
That proved difficult, however, as Jesse soon realized that his hands were bound together with metal straps and he was lying forcibly on the ground. His right hand reached for them, sailing his fingers along the smooth metal, calculating the strength it would take to uncoil. In a circling motion, Jesse tried to determine the make of this metal. Staring at the shimmering hoary, he couldn't establish the type that this object was made out of-which baffled him. The first thought that came to his mind was to phase through the straps, but because of the mysterious origin of the material, it refused to let an intangible object go through it. In utter disbelief he threw his fists at the ground, slamming them into the concrete beneath. Gritting his teeth and chewing on his lip, he muttered a few unmentionables and tried to think of a way of escape from the shackled torment. Tiny beads of sweat were beginning to stream down his face, and his face showed the signs of annoyance and irritation. Thinking fast, he tried to remember what had happened before he got there.
That scream.that scream that he heard coming into the wall. That was all he could remember. That was all he wanted to remember. It sounded like...a growl. A bravura and petrifying snarl: the piercing shot through the veins, slicing, pricking and stabbing at every turn. The cry that wasn't his. The cry that seemed to come out from somewhere inside of himself that belonged to the voice of another. It conveyed everything he was feeling inside, but most of all it trapped the one emotion that he was never willing to admit: fear. His terror lay hidden in his eyes-the one true window to the soul. But the fear was not for him, and a terrible panic thrashed wildly inside of him of the thought that his friends needed him- and he couldn't help them. Silently chewing on the inside of his lip, he closed his eyes into deeper concentration. In a fixed trance, Jesse slowly began to mutter under his breath:
"Something happened between now and when I went through that wall. Something to do with that scream." The wailing seemed to forever ring in his ears. It screeched like a jaguar, but had the determination like..Shalimar. Suddenly, before Jesse could begin another conscious thought, his entire body sprang forward, in an utter disbelief of pain. His entire faced cringed with it, until it was expressed through every wrinkle on his face and every hair on his body.
Scarcely blinking, the memory of the recent event made his shoulders tremble. He knew there wasn't a minute to lose, and quickly tried to find another way out beside his "handcuffs". Looking towards his feet, his shoulders soon fell with dismay when he realized they were bound also. His forehead crinkled, becoming increasingly intent on the situation. He refused to quit; Jesse began to try a new method of escaping. Within seconds, there was another pain: his chest lurched forward, twisting every which way until he couldn't feel his limbs anymore. Gritting on his teeth harder, he tried to buckle down and brace it, "like a man," and soon his eyes began to water. Convincing himself that it was sweat, he sucked up what strength he had left in him. His hands began to shake with the prickly episode, but he refused to become weak. Soon the pain had passed, and his body collapsed with relief. Recovering his breath, he panted heavily, and struggled to swallow. It was hard to comprehend what sick, twisted minds had decided to put him threw this, but Jesse knew only one thing for sure: he was in the hands of the enemy.
In the blink of an eye, blinding lights hung over Jesse. Hissing, a voice right next to Jesse's ear whispered,
"Where is it? This would be over so much quicker if you would just tell us where it is." Jesse recognized the voice. It was too familiar to be forgotten.
"What are you talking about?" Jesse sneered at him, still wrestling with the straps that bound him to the floor.
Slowly circling Jesse, he flashed a small, pocket-sized object in front of him, with dials that ran from one to ten. Cast in a brilliant metallic silver, and he ran his finger across the smooth surface. In the middle, there lay a dial, with arrows point a specific numbers. Currently, the dial read '3,' and it seemed pretty clear to Jesse what the dial was for. Jesse scorned the object, knowing it was the indicator and reason for all his pain. The predator smiled at Jesse and said, "Let's just see what number '4' is like, shall we?" The terror in his eyes soon dispelled and was replaced with a counterfeit numbness. He could still feel the pain as sharp as ever, but his outward appearance could not longer respond: it was only number four, and the dial had already paralyzed (for now) his reaction system.
He neared Jesse, leaning into his and said, "Now will you talk?"
At a loss for words, Jesse tried to remain calm, even though he certainly wasn't. He might be afraid, he reasoned, but he didn't have to show it. "Right now, I just have to get out of here." He tossed his eyes up toward the accuser and questioned, "What do you want to know?"
"Where is it?" It was the least he could have said, and more than Jesse could answer.
"Where is what?" Jesse probed. "I can't very well tell you where it is, until you tell me what it is," Jesse snipped, trying to test his boundaries. Although he hadn't said much, the glare in his predator's eyes told him he had gone too far this time.
The smile faded from his face as it rapidly turned into a "Listen, smart one, you know damn well what I'm talking about!" Taken aback by this sudden retort, he immediantly pressed the dial on five, and watched Jesse writhe, trying to endure the dosage. Squinting his eyes against the florescent light, he observed Jesse's torment with a sadistic grin. Jesse collapsed on the chair, barely breathing.
He lifted one eyebrow and cocked his head, adding an arrogant flair to his words, "Let's try that again." Jesse could only shake his head in disagreement, resisting the nauseous feeling in his stomach. His throat was choking with pain, a few small drops of a red liquid fell at the corner of his mouth. Gasping, he faced his opponent. With no words he could mutter, he simply rolled his eyes and slowly closed his eyelids in exhaustion. Becoming delusional with the pain, there was no choice but for him to open his eyes, and just stare into the face of his attacker.
Even though Jesse could barely hear him over the thumping of his own heartbeat, he could read his lips clear enough, which whispered, "No mercy." Swallowing harshly, he attempted to focus his blurred vision long enough to notice an elongated needle, threatening to poke the vein in his elbow. Too weak to remove his arm from their clutches, he could only think about what they were planning on doing to him-what was in that syringe. However, before the needle was injected, another's arm snatched the nozzle from his grip and shrieked,
"Leave him alone! We'll kill him if we do anymore!" Neatly clad a Placing the hypodermic safely out of reach, he scoffed at the man, "You kill him, and the whole thing is useless!"
"He's invaluable to us anyway!" the man began to reason. He reached for the needle once again, but the man standing adjacent to him slapped his hand, and sneered, "I wouldn't try that again, if I were you."
A few more indistinct mummers were exchanged, but one sentence struck Jesse as particularly odd: "We already searched the girl, what value can he be to us now?" the man had argued, but already knew there was no use resisting any longer. The rest of the conversation was just an incomprehensible mummer to Jesse, and they had moved further away from Jesse, almost completely disappearing from sight. But their position had become trivial to him: What girl?
Girl? Girl? What girl? Jesse thinks, his eyeballs slowly rolling around in his head, without a conscious motion. His mind became a whirlwind of thoughts, surronding who they could possibly mean. What is Emma? Shalimar! They had captured Shalimar! His blood began to boil, and his face felt hot. "By God, if they did anything to Shalimar..," he said to himself, cursing under his breath. Letting out a long breath, he could, he licked his lips, and slowly ran his teeth across them, picking up accents of the blood that had run on his cheek. But was it Shalimar? Rolling his neck, scarcely looking up and Jesse thought back.
He had reasoned that if must be Shalimar they were talking about, but it there was something peculiar that made his mind flashback to the car scene: Emma's position. There was something that had struck him as odd earlier, Emma, he remembered was also unconscious, had been somewhat blank from his memory. He remembered that like a plaything, she had been slung onto the outer side of the window, not bleeding but had turned a pale blue in color. She was sitting in the front passenger seat, and one arm had been mashed against the side of the dashboard. Her other arm had been twisted into such a shape that resembled an S; it seemed to be fine now, he couldn't imagine how much pain it had probably caused her. Yet, something seemed wrong. Now that he thought about it, the placement of Emma's comatose body seemed awkward. Her position couldn't have been natural---
What the hell was going on?
--And that scream.that scream that he heard coming into the wall. That was all he could remember. That was all he wanted to remember. It sounded like..a growl. A bravura and petrifying snarl: the piercing shot through the veins, slicing, pricking and stabbing at every turn. The cry that wasn't his. The cry that seemed to come out from somewhere inside of himself that belonged to the voice of another.
In a struggle of testament and will, he opened his eyes with blurred vision, one last time to see a blonde-haired..thing.. He thought he heard a slight mumble say his name..
A tumultuous twister of emotion and thought enveloped him and he fell into an unconscious state of submission.
