Disclaimer: Handing over captives. Here you go. Now if you would ju… Hey! come back here with my ransom.
Stella tensed, but remained looking defeated and scared. The same man who had knocked her out (or tried to anyway) was standing before her. His pale countenance was made ghostly by the poor lighting and his choice in clothes. Dirty blonde hair gave off a weird sheen in the small light of the lantern he held. Time to repay the favor. Stella thought dryly.
"Hello. You three have been chosen along with many others to participate in some experimentations that will help Methuselah, like me, defend ourselves against your ghastly species." He said in a low voice as he unlocked the door and slid the bars right.
"Just how many are here?"
"Four dozen Terrans and one dozen Methuselah." He commented, before stepping forward. "You three are going to be very useful. Two strong males and one pretty female."
"Can you tell us anything else about what is going to happen to us?" Stella carried on the conversation, ignoring the man's lecherous looks.
The man looked downtrodden for a moment. "I am too young. I will not be told anything until I am needed. When I am needed, however, I will follow my orders without question. Just as you will now."
"You won't get the chance." Stella said calmly.
She jumped on the man and pulled a thin knife out of nowhere. She slit his throat, going almost halfway through. When she turned back to the men, she saw Abel staring at her, mouth gaping.
"How did you…. How did you get a weapon? Me and Tres were stripped bare!" (A/N: Not like that, you perv.)
Stella shrugged and stood up. "As was I, but I had this." She held up the knife, no more than a razor, really, in her hand. "Hidden in my bra. Apparently, they were too bashful to look there. Good thing, too." She looked at Abel, who was blushing furiously. "Oh please, Father Nightroad. I know you priests are innocent, but surely you are not that innocent not to know what a…" She watched as Abel's face took crimson to a whole new level. "Father Nightroad, do I really need to explain this to you?"
Abel gaped at her, speechless. Stella giggled at his face. She felt people in other cells move. Apparently giggles were not heard in this place.
"Father Abel Nightroad, bras are generally used to r-"
Abel immediately tried to dissuade Tres from going any farther into his description. Stella rolled her eyes and bent down. How he is able to bring comedy into any situation? She pulled two needles out of each of her shoes. She unbound her hair, which had been in a ponytail, and took out two pins that snapped into knives as well, though slightly smaller than the one in her hand. Turning away from the men, she took out one razor knife from the other side of her bra, and two bigger ones from the back. The ones in the back were quite a bit larger than the two she held in her hands, more like small silver daggers. They had cut her in several places, but she ignored it.
"Father Nightroad, you will be taking two silver daggers, one large and one small. Tres, you're the same. I'll take the four needles and the hair-pin knives." Stella threw the weapons at their assigned owners.
"Right." Abel nodded, all silliness and embarrassment forgotten.
"Let's go." Stella ran out of the cell.
An old man saw them first. He threw himself at the bars of his cell, pleading for them to bring him with them. Stella tried to get him to calm down and told him that they would be back for him, but the man's wits were far too gone. He screamed and pulled his hair, then rolled to the back of the cell and rocked himself in the fetal position. Stella took a deep breath and hurried onward.
A bolted steel door came into view. It took Tres's full weight to open it. The room they entered was vastly different than the room they were just in. In fact, it looked like a mansion's reception room. The bronze tiled floor had a straight red carpet covering it in a path to the pearl-like steps. There was a pounding from somewhere around them. Left with few places to go, Stella strode toward the stairs.
Stella could tell that Abel followed her with some apprehension. The pounding sounded like what a fish would hear if you tapped on the glass of their bowl, what's more it sounded as if it were on this floor. Still, there were no doors and Stella doubted there was much to find in this hallway. So up it was, then.
Stella ran up the steps and Abel, despite his long legs, had to try very hard to keep up with her. Tres kept up well enough. By time they reached top, her calves were on fire and her chest screaming at her for going up forty-five degree steps so fast. She ignored her body's complaints for the decision at hand.
Stella gazed along the hallway for a moment. Both sides of the steps were strikingly similar, but her Titan senses told her it wasn't. Sight. There were expensive vases and big chests and hallway tables down the left corridor, while the right was left bare except for high placed paintings. Smell. There was a normal, wooden smell down the left hallway, but the right had the smell of old dried blood, various bodily fluids as well as dried dirt. Someone went down that hallway often. Hear. Stella didn't even look down the left corridor again. There was a resonating, almost pulse similar to the ones downstairs.
She ran down the hall without question, with the men's footsteps not far behind. There was more of a blood smell now, and if one would look closely, or had a chemical in their blood forcing them to, you would see small places on the wall where the owners had attempted to wash it away. They came upon many doors, but most of them were bedrooms and the like. Finally, they came to a dead end.
Abel was about to suggest they go back, in fact he even started to say so, but Stella sniffed the air knowing it would silence him. The sniff brought the heavy scent of fresh paint through her nose. She blinked a searched the walls. Nothing as far as she could see. Feel. She ran her hand along the wall. There. It was an indent in the paint so miniscule that no one would see it. She put her face as close as she could to it, her nose brushing the paint. Yep, someone definitely painted here, and it wasn't that long ago. She followed the indent with her finger, chipping the paint away with her nail. Soon, a five foot by six foot rectangle was in front of them. She went to the right side of the door, looking up and down and running her fingers along. She knew that both of her companions were wondering what she was doing, but she was glad that they knew better than to ask. Finally, she found that near the top of the door, much to high for ordinary humans, there was a small square bump in the paint. She used her nail to chip away at this until it finally revealed a square of wallpaper. She pealed this off to find a perfectly round hole in the rectangle. Hooking her fingers into it, she pulled, using every ounce of Titan strength. A normal human wouldn't have been able to do it, much less a weakened and emancipated one like the people in the cells below them. The rectangle opened to a gray, lightless, and hopeless hallway that seemed to exude cold.
"Now what was that, Father Nightroad, about turning back?"
A/N: Ohhh… spooky. Hey guys, whats up? I left the last chapter on longer than any of the others and it didn't get a single review. Anime tears flowing down cheeks. don't you love me anymore? Ach, go to hell. Just kidding, god you guys need to learn how to take a joke. Review or bad things will happen. Mwhahahahaha!