CHAPTER SIX
Fifteen people in a jungle. Six are invisible, nine are upside down.
They sit in a circle around some bluishly glowing campfire, their shadows getting lost in the darkness around them.
Suddenly the ground cracks and erupts in an explosion of ash. Enormous brown snakes sprout out of the cracks and hiss at the people around the campfire. Each of the snakes has hundreds of heads that branch out in all directions, just like that creature in ancient Greek mythology – I always forget the name.
Only these things have something else about them, something botanical. They remind me of big branches, or tree roots…
For a moment, the snakes hover high above the people's heads, menacing silhouettes in the darkness. Then they collapse down on the fifteen people.
Before anyone can react, the creatures wrap themselves around the campfire-people until no one can move. They squeeze so tightly, that breathing gets harder and harder, and one after the other the fifteen faint. The campfire gets extinguished and the whole scene turns black.
I realize none of this makes any sense at all and wake up.
I keep my eyes closed, enjoying the last moments before I remember what happened before I fell asleep. It can't be something good, that's for sure.
The air smells of electricity, and I have a metallic taste in my mouth. There's a steady buzz close by, like from high voltage.
I take a deep breath, then try to think back to the latest turns of fate.
Let me see, John, Nine, me and the others were in that military base in a desert in New Mexico. We fought all those Mogs and Setrákus Ra, then they suddenly disappeared. With the whole base empty, we stole a car and drove all the way up to Michigan; surprisingly enough, there were no further incidents.
Until we got to that small town near St. Ignace, I think and my heart skips a beat.
Oh god, now I remember. The Mogs' ambush. I walked right into their trap, and there was nothing I could do about it. The fight with the hordes of alien soldiers, they were all just there for one reason: to keep me inside that park, to distract me from the real threat. The tree roots, John's and Nine's appearance just before it happened, me warning them, John staying out and Nine running right into the trap; it all comes back to me at this very moment.
With a jerk I open my eyes.
A shimmering blue light just like the one in my dream dazzles me. For a second I'm confused and pinch myself in the arm, just to make sure I'm not sleeping anymore.
Yes, fully awake.
I sit up way too fast and a fierce pain shoots through my ribcage. My head is spinning, as if I had just taken a rollercoaster ride.
I can still feel it in my bones, the shock and the horror from when the ground shook and those giant roots wrapped themselves around me. At first they had only been at my ankles, to hold me in place. When I started flailing, they crawled up all around me and squeezed so hard I couldn't breathe anymore.
My whole body aches, and it literally feels as if I got pelted several times.
With a loud groan I turn my head and look around.
I'm in some sort of hall. The floor is made of plain, polished marble, which feels cold under my bare feet. The dazzling blue light that stung into my eyes comes from all around me. It takes a while until I get used to the brightness.
I am surrounded by a wall of this strange blue light. Squinting my eyes I can make out blurred movements on its surface. Long, circular shapes, racing around the bluely glowing wall.
It's beautiful and frightening at the same time, but there's something calming, mesmerizing about it.
I slowly crawl towards the light, too dizzy to stand up and walk. When it's only inches away, my hands reach out towards the light as if of their own accord.
The wall radiates an oddly inconvenient heat the closer I get, but I somehow can't force myself to stop. The blurry glow pulls me in like a mot in the light.
Just a second before I touch the blue surface, someone behind me whispers "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
I flinch and turn around, trying to find out where the voice came from, but I can't see anyone in the room.
"Up here," the person says.
I raise my head and spot Nine, cowering upside down on the ceiling.
"Finally woke up, huh?" He says and jumps down to me, doing half a front flip so he lands on his feet. Pleased with himself, he raises his arms and gestures towards the glowing wall.
"This, my dear Six, is a force field. If you touch it you will be out for at least another ten hours."
"Ten hours?" I say, my mind trying to process what this means. How long have I been out? What happened during that time? Are the others okay?
"Where are we?" I ask Nine.
"I can't tell you for sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's definitely no Mog base. All the guards I've seen up until now were human."
"They work together, have you forgotten? The government and the Mogs, they're in cahoots together."
"That's the point, Six. Maybe things aren't quite as obivous as they seem. The whole thing sucks out loud," he says and keeps his gaze on the blue wall. "Our captors might have alien technology, but they're definitely not Mogs."
"But it were the Mogs who attacked us in the park." I argue.
"Maybe the humans were using them as bait, to get you into that trap. I mean, I'm sure Setrákus Ra would have wanted us to be brought directly to him, or at least into a Mog base. He wouldn't trust the government with such an important task."
I let that sink in. What Nine's saying does make sense somehow, but I'm not really convinced.
"So we don't know where we are, neither what happened to the others. Got any idea on how we're going to get out of here?" I ask.
Nine sits down next to me and I look at him. His usually neat appearance has been reduced to a bruised, wounded, dirt-covered boy, his long black hair ruffled and full with dirt. He looks almost as bad as I feel, but he still is as self-confident as ever.
"Don't know. Well, this force field thing is telekinesis proof. And you can't break through it, believe me, I've tried many times."
I tilt my head. The way he says it makes me wonder how often he has faced such force fields before.
"And there's no hole in it? How are they going to bring us water and food?" I ask.
"Well, don't ask me, they haven't brought any yet, and I'm not sure if they are planning to."
"What about the floor and the ceiling."
He gazes at me for a second. "What exactly do you want to do? Punch a hole in it and escape, like in those westerns?"
"Kind of, yeah, or do you have a better idea?" I answer.
He looks me in the eyes for a moment, then looks away.
"Good luck trying," he puffs and lies down on his back, his arms folded under his head.
"So you suggest we just sit here and do nothing?" I ask, but he only shrugs. His indifference starts bugging me.
"Seriously now, Nine, you're the one who always drives us to act. What do you want to do?"
Again, he shrugs and shakes his head.
"How can you possibly be so calm? I mean, we don't know where we are, or who is keeping us prisoners, or how and when we're going to get out. We don't know what happened to John and the others. Hell, we don't even know if they're alive.
And you, you are just lying here, not even giving a damn about any of this. Do you even care about anybody except for yourself?" I rant.
Nine doesn't react, I'm not even sure he's listening to me. He just keeps staring at the ceiling. Now I'm really mad.
"You don't even know how helpless you are," I yell at him, and that's when he's had enough.
"You think so?" he says and suddenly sits up. He grabs my wrist and forces me to turn around to him.
"You really think so? You think I wouldn't do anything, anything, to get out of here and find the others? Do you even know what you are talking about?" He roars at me, and his voice is so full of emotions he must have kept back for a far too long time, that I feel sorry for shouting at him.
"Do you even know who you are talking to?" He yells. "Has John ever told you where he found me, when you were in Spain, looking for Seven?"
"He said you were…" I begin, but he interrupts me.
"In a Mog cave, yeah. In a prison. And for how long, my dear Six? For. A. Whole. Goddamn. Year!" He yells, stressing every single word. I blink in irritation.
"I'm sorry, Nine I didn't…" I start saying, but again he doesn't let me finish my sentence.
"Didn't what, Six? Didn't what? Didn't think I had a hard life of my own? Do you believe you're the only one who went through horrible things in all these years we spent on this planet? Do you think you are the only one who had to witness his loved ones getting murdered right in front of your eyes, while the only thing you can do is watch?"
Tears form in the back of my eyes, and I try to clear my throat, but Nine doesn't leave me the chance.
"You think we are helpless right now? You think we are? Let me tell you a story about being goddamn helpless," he spits out the word as if to get rid of a bad memory.
"Pretty much a year before the day John and Sam came to that Mog cave and busted me out, I loved a girl. A girl so smart, cute and beautiful you can't even imagine. And what happened, my dear Six?
The Mogs kidnapped her parents, forced her to turn me in to save them. When the Mogs had me and she finally got her parents back, they killed her." His eyes glow from a frightening amount of fury.
"Oh, but they did not only kill her, they ripped her to pieces. And they forced me to watch every second of it.
Killing her had no sense. She had played her part. They could have just let her walk away.
They didn't benefit from her death. They didn't do it for a greater cause. The only reason they killed her was for their own amusement.
So they could make me suffer. So they could see the look on my face when it happened. So that I would have all the time in world to replay the scene in my mind over and over again in all the time I helplessly sat in my prison cell.
Now, my dear Six, I hope you understand you don't have a clue what helpless means."
His face is red and distorted from anger. I can't believe what he just told me.
He gulps loudly, I don't dare to breathe, and exactly in that moment a hole in the bluely shining wall appears and special FBI agent Walker steps through it.
She walks on crutches and a big bandage is wrapped around her head, but she doesn't seem to care about her injuries. There's a disturbing, almost insane look in her eyes. Her mouth is stretched to a triumphant, diabolic grin.
"Welcome, Number six and nine," she says in a bittersweet tone. "I hope you are enjoying your stay."
And then, as if she can't hold it back any longer, she blurts out a sentence that makes the lump in my throat feel twice as big.
"We have Number five."
Hey everybody!
I'm back with a brandnew chapter, yaaaaaaaaay ;)
Thanks for all the following and reviewing. Helped me get through a rough day :)
I'll try to get out a chapter in the next three days, as usual, but you might have to wait a while longer this time, as there are a couple of things I have to do first.
Nonetheless, I wish you all a good time.
And as always, Thanks two tons for reading my story :)