Young Writers Society

The grammatical mistakes in the speech are deliberate.

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Zack jolted awake. Light stabbed through his eyelids and flooded his vision with a harsh bright light. Nausea swirled at the pit of his stomach. Slowly opening his eyes against the light, he let out a feeble gasp. It felt as if Zack’s arms had been wrenched back behind him against his will, and a rough material cut into the skin of his wrists and ankles. Something dug sharply into his back, the miniature ridges blades against his body. Every limb of his body felt stiff and ached with a dull pain that throbbed deeply in his bones.

Although his vision was blurred and out of focus, but Zack could still make out the silhouettes shielded against the light. Their voices, he presumed, were muffled and faint but grew louder and louder with every passing second. It took a few moments for Zack to realise that there were two of them altogether: the voice of the boy from the market, still tinged with childishness, and another voice deeper this time.

Zack frowned and tried to shift in his seat but an explosion of pain raced through his arms and it felt as if his ankles were superglued to something. He froze in his seat, the realisation beginning to hit him like an icy cold wave. He had been tied up. He was their prisoner.

“I managed to fix him up, Tancred. He should be alive and well now.”

Terror began to pulse through Zack’s veins and his breath came in short, ragged gasps, hissing through his teeth. He glanced at the silhouettes and down at his feet obscured beneath him, tugging as hard as he could at the bindings.

“Does that mean I can interrogate him when he wakes up?”

Interrogate?

The words gripped at Zack’s heart like the icy hands of fear. The fear seemed to paralyse him and eat away at his nerves, like a slow moving gel that consumed the muscles. His vision had begun to clear, enough for Zack to pick out the details of the silhouettes. There were three of them: two of them both had their backs turned to him but he could still see that one had turbulent jet-black hair and the other had chocolate coloured hair in a page boy cut. The third silhouette was further away, from a distance. It was too shaded and blurred for Zack to see who it was.

Sod, sod, sod…

“Can I ask you something?”

A moment’s pause of silence.

“Just how hard did you hit him with that crowbar?”

Another pause of silence.

“Well, how hard would you have bloody hit someone chasing you?”

Their words ate away at Zack, like starving piranhas savagely ripping their prey to pieces.

“Well, how hard would you have hit someone chasing you?”

“You could’ve killed him! He’s just a kid like us!”

“Oh yeah? And he could be working for them too for all we know! We gotta be on the lookout and can’t take any risks. You don’t wanna go back there. I don’t and Tai don’t either. We’re lucky to have even survived this long.”

“But it’s unlikely a kid like him would even be working for them. They don’t take in kids. They’d do what they’ve done to us to them. He’s even fresh out of school. He’s still wearing his uniform!”

“He could still be an Esper like us. An Esper working for them.”

Zack yanked at the bindings. He had to get out of here, before they had the chance to interrogate him. Images of bloody knives and torture tools flashed through his mind. Tears burned Zack’s eyes and began to blur his vision once more and whimpers escaped from his mouth.

The silhouettes suddenly turned and Zack was finally able to catch a glimpse of their faces. Two pairs of eyes stared at him, their gazes burning into his skin like lasers. The kid with the neat brown hair had blazing amber eyes with golden flecks scattered in his irises. He was willowy, tanned and wore a simple patchy shirt, scruffy shorts and scuffed trainers, well dressed in comparison to his companion.

His companion’s hair was a turbulent shock and stood up in all directions and he was a ghostly pale as if he had never seen the sunlight. Dark rings sat underneath his eyes giving him an almost vampire-like appearance, as if he hadn’t slept for centuries. A long and jagged scar ran vertically over his left eye, beginning just below his eyebrow and stopped halfway to avoid his eyelid. Then it continued to run an inch more. The kid was skinny and small but there was a certain ferocity about him, as if he could achieve something destructive but far destructive beyond anything. Zack realised that they were just urchins. Teenagers, like him. Zack could see the third silhouette too now. It had short black hair and was sitting on the ground, crouched over something as if something had caught its fascination. Zack guessed that it was a young child because it was small and nimble-looking.

“He’s awake,” Amber Eyes mumbled, “He must’ve heard us talking all along.”

“Brilliant,” Blue Eyes said, “I can interrogate him now. He’s scared and shitless – just the way I like ’em to be.”

Zack’s heart froze in its place.

Blue Eyes clomped over to Zack, his boots ringing as the soles struck the floor. A snarl twisted back his lips and he glared at Zack for a few moments. Their eyes locked and Zack found that he would never forget the boy’s eyes. He had electric blue eyes with a dark blue in the middle and zig zags of white – like a pattern of electricity – running through it.

Then he held up a long and thin nail. Rust had begun to tinge at its edges but it still winked wickedly in the bright light at Zack. Zack’s eyes widened and his breath caught in his throat.

“You see this?” he snarled, pointing at it. “If you don’t answer any of my questions I’ll shove this nail up your goddamn arse. And I can promise ya, it won’t be pretty.”

The sound of blood rushed in Zack’s ears and somewhere far away, he found himself gulping and nodding.

“No, Tancred,” Amber Eyes had leaped forward and he now gripped Blue Eye’s arm, “Do not hurt him. We do not need someone else against us. And he is a kid just like us.”

Zack had to speak up. He knew he had to. To tell them that he wasn’t a murderer. Just a normal school kid.

“Get…off…me,” snarled Blue Eyes, wrenching his arm free of Amber Eye’s grip. He glowered at him. “I told you, I’m going to interrogate him and find out why the hell he was following me and if he is one of them.”

“Y-you dropped your wallet,” Zack’s voice was squeaky and shaky, feeble from the fear that rocketed through his body. The moment the words left his mouth, the two boys’ eyes landed on him. It was a miracle that he was even able to speak. “I tried to follow you, to give it back to you. That’s all I was following you for!”

“And how would I know that you’re not working for anyone? The government? The Organisation?” Blue Eyes sneered. Electricity crackled through the boy’s hair and wind breezed against Zack’s cheeks. Adrenaline pulsed through Zack’s veins and his heart raced. “My friend can tell me if you’re lying or not. And if you’re lying to me, I’ll fry you alive like a bacon rasher.”

“No, you won’t,” Amber Eyes’ voice was smooth and cool, like honey. “I won’t let you do that.”

Blue Eyes ignored him.

“I-I’m not working for anyone! What gave you that idea?” cried Zack, squirming to free himself of the ropes. But they bound him to the chair, denying him of his freedom. “I came straight out of school and found your bloody wallet and wanted to return it to you. That’s all!”

Blue Eyes glowered at him.

“And where am I?” Zack yelled. He fumbled for the words in the squirming mass in his mind. Then he remembered. The pair had been talking about something. What was it again? Espers? Yes! That was it! Espers!

“And what are Espers?” he shouted before any of them could seize the chance to open their mouths again.

“Shut your bloody mouth and stay quiet!” roared Blue Eyes, thrusting his finger at Zack. His eyes hardened and glinted, his hair crackled with sparks of electricity again and a snarl twisted his lips back. The knife-like wind sliced at Zack’s cheeks. “I’m the one here asking questions, not you!”

Zack watched the boy, fear racing through his veins. What was this boy? Was he a monster? Some kind of magician with superpowers? But superpowers didn’t exist. They only existed in fiction…

“Tancred, calm down!” Amber Eyes shouted above the rising wind, “You can’t let your temper get the better of you. Remember what happened last time?”

Blue Eyes paused, freezing on the spot. Zack switched his gaze from one boy to the other, from Blue Eyes’ snarl and Amber Eyes’ cool and dangerously calm face as if he had experienced this a thousand times before. What was going to happen?

“I know what bloody happened last time,” he hissed. The wind whipped through his hair violently and he clenched his fists. “And that’s not gonna happen again.”

“But it will happen if you don’t stop now,” yelled Amber Eyes, “Do you want to hurt us? Yourself too? You could kill us!”