Young Writers Society

Sebastian

I shivered, realizing I had been stripped down to just my jeans. My back was against something cold-a wall, maybe? The only way I knew I was awake was my sudden awareness, otherwise, even with my eyes opened it seemed as if they were closed.

I tried to move, to stand, but panic flowed through me when the chains clinked tight against my wrists. I moaned in agony from the pain that shot through my body, I felt like I had been hit by a truck.

Taking a deep breath in, I tried to stretch my feet, noticing they were not bound and winced. Where am I? Where are the others? Who was that girl? I had drawn her before, many times. A face that my hands always drifted to sketching, why her? And why do I now feel a sense of dread for whatever was coming next?

A light pierced my vision, flooding the room. I squinted, seeing the outline of someone-a man?- standing in the doorway. I heard a grunt, and another silhouette came into the room, motioning towards me.

“Who are you?” I demanded, my voice croaking and hoarse. They stood silently looking at me, not answering. My blood started to boil, adrenaline kicking in. "Answer me!" I yelled, pulling at the chains and ignoring the stabbing pain it brought.

I squinted up defiantly at my captor as he neared me. He leaned into me, and I could feel his hot breath on my face. He wasn't human-demon? My eyes still hadn't adjusted to the light, but it seemed as if his skin was covered in scales and he wasn't wearing clothes.

To my surprise, he unlocked me from my chains, huffing before stepping back away. I rubbed my wrists which were worn raw from pulling on the chains, but as soon as the chains were off, he then clipped some handcuffs where the chains had been. The-demon?-motioned for me to stand, and so I slowly rose to my feet, gritting my teeth from the soreness. He quickly took another set of cuffs and fastened them around my wounded wrists, maybe they didn’t know this wouldn’t hold him very long.

They started out the door into the light, and as soon as the light hit them, I gasped, frozen for a second. One had scales like a lizard, as I had guessed, but he instead of resembling a demon, he almost looked as if he was a human version of a lizard. The other had thick fur that stuck out an inch or more, almost like a wolf.

Once I regained myself and followed after them I started to look around, noticing everything seemed very white and sterile. A hospital? What kind of hospital had a dungeon in it? They led me down a long narrow hallway before turning into a bigger space with separate rooms that seemed to be either labs or hospital rooms, I wasn't sure.

The rooms seemed fairly empty except for a few, occupied by mutants of some kind and clean-cut white lab coats with, no doubt, evil humans wearing them. One-girl?-with what seemed to be grey skin and horns sticking out of the side of her face looked up to me, pleading with her eyes, help.

It was hard to snatch my eyes away from her, captivated by her gaze. However, we soon reached another long hallway with a door at the end of it. This hall, I assumed, was one of many, considering how long it had taken to walk through the center of the structure.

I quickly started to formulate a plan to attack, noticing there were no sharp edges anywhere close or objects I could use to fight them, not to mention they seemed to tower over me in muscle mass. There was no way I could fight the two of them and make it out alive.

But what if I ran? Would they be fast enough to catch me? Or were their minds slow like demons’? There was too much of a risk, and by the time these thoughts had even entered my mind we had already reaches the steel door at the end of the hallway. In any case, I couldn’t deny the fact my curiosity to what awaited me only grew as each second ticked by, and I knew I needed to know what was behind that door.

Although horrid nightmares danced around in my head when I imagined what would come next, it did not match the scene I met on the other side of the door. In contrast to the very white and clean environment of the rest of the building, this room felt almost like an apartment or a very rich man’s office. Considering the big wooden desk that sat right in the middle of the room, I would assume it’s the latter.

There was a large window just behind the desk, the vertical blinds flipped to where the sunlight splashed against the contents of the room. The walls were a muted tan, complimenting the hints of red and yellow in the pots and pillows scattered throughout the space.

My gaze only gathered this information for a mere amount of seconds before landing on the man, dressed in a white lab coat, that was looking out the window behind his desk. He seemed unphased by my arrival, deep in thought. His mutant guards pushed me into the room to stand before his desk and then stepped back, policing the door.

After various moments of silence, the man finally turned to me. I quickly noted his dark brown curls and dark eyes. The emptiness in his eyes did not match the smile he wore when he saw me. He looked fairly young, late twenties maybe.

“Sebastian, thank you for joining us,” he said with fake sincerity.

“Like I had much of a choice,” I spit at him, enjoying the way his facade dropped with my words.

He pushed his lips into a straight line, walking towards me. He opened his mouth as to reply, but then shook his head, picking his act back up, “Nevermind that, you’re here now, and isn’t that just lovely? Would you like some water, maybe some biscuits?” He motioned towards his small living room table with a coffee maker and a plate of fluffy biscuits.

I hesitated, my mouth watering. Do I continue to be stubborn or give in? If I gave in now, he would think he had the upper-hand. But if I didn’t, he would see he can’t control me so easily. Maybe I should let him think he has the upper-hand, so therefore he underestimates me.

“It’s kind of hard to eat and drink with these handcuffs,” I smirked, shrugging my shoulders.

“Oh, of course! Guards, please, uncuff this man! Show some hospitality!” he smiled at me once again. He turned around and walked into another part of the office, looking for something, and came back with a shirt. The guard quickly came over and unlocked my cuffs, and I rubbed my wrists, once again, raw from the tightness of the cuffs before sliding the shirt on, covering the scrapes and wounds I had acquired sometime since I had been there.

I raised my eyebrow at him, “Who are you?”

He didn’t answer at first, collecting my water and biscuits. He motioned for me to come sit on the couch across from him, and reluctantly I did, my stomach aching for the food in his hands. How long was I out?

“I am Dr. Erik Caspari, head scientist on this...special project. You see Sebastian, I know you are special. I know your friends are special. But you, the most special of them all. I have seen you use your powers, and they are spectacular. My job is to figure out why you are different than us.” He explained matter-of-factly.

“How do you know about me?” I asked in disbelief. We were always so carefully covering are tracks, it seemed almost impossible someone knew what we could do.

He sat back on the couch, sipping what I believed to be coffee, and looked off into space. “It’s hard to fathom how many resources I have. Let’s just say we’ve had an eye on you guys for quite some time. But nevermind that, let’s get back to you! Were you born with your powers or did you acquire them in some way?” He leaned forward, a quizzical, curious spark in his dark eyes.

“Why should I trust you? What do you want to do with me?” I crossed my arms, leaning back on the couch.

“We want to be like you,” he answered as if that would make me more willing to open up to him. I chuckled, finding that fact funny. He really is delusional enough to think that I would let him in on one of the biggest secrets of the universe?

I shook my head, my tone suddenly serious, “Not gonna happen.”

He once again dropped his act, standing up, “You will. There are many things worse than death we can do to you, we will get the truth out of you, the easy way or the hard way.”

I smiled, “The hard way, then,” I raised my hands, feeling them tingle with power, and moved his hot coffee to spray it in his face. He yelped in pain, I do hope that hurt. He stumbled back on the couch, using a blanket to wipe the hot coffee off. I swung around, facing the mutants that were now advancing towards me.

I searched the room for something to move, to slow their advance. I could feel the steady blow of air conditioning on my neck, and I smirked at them before feeling the vibration of wind throughout my whole body, almost like a thousand tiny pricks of microscopic pebbles hitting my body. I threw my hands towards them, my hair raising from the gush of wind that surfaced.

Although it was a strong enough wind to slow them down, it wasn’t enough to knock them down. I growled in frustration. The anger boiled up into me, and I pushed my power even harder, feeling my body start to heat up. The mutants started to falter, but I could feel my exhaustion and weakness start to affect me.

Suddenly, Erik had his arm fastened around my neck, and I dropped my powers, all my focus going towards the loss of breath. I gasped for air, feeling him crush my neck. Clawing at him didn’t help much, and his arm was not in the right place for me to be able to bite him. I saw spots and quickly realized how outnumbered I was. The tingling in my body was slowly fading, and I felt myself slipping away.

“You can’t win, surrender and we can still talk this out, or we will do way worse than this,” the doctor said in my ear.

“Never,” I hissed. I guess my survivor's adrenaline kicked in because I had the strength to flip him over my back, slamming him into the floor. I gasped for air, stumbling back and bending over. I felt dizzy and weak, I knew this was my only chance to escape, and I was probably going to lose.

I felt dread as I faced the scene in front of me, feeling hopeless. Erik was standing back up and the mutants were growling at me. I shook my head, I will not go down without a fight. I planted my feet, bring my arms up in a fighting stance. My powers felt faulty, weak. I knew they would be no help to me now.

The mutants stepped towards me, but without giving them time to react, I lunged towards them, throwing my fist in the direction of their faces. I heard a hard crack and it took seconds for the pain to shoot through my hand, making me grit my teeth. The reptile mutant stepped back, shaking the pain from his head, but the wolf mutant was too quick for me. He let the weight of his fist knock me from my feet, twisting towards the ground.

I caught myself before my head smashed against the ground, and before I could get back on my feet, someone was straddling my back, restricting me to the ground. I felt a sharp pinch in my shoulder, and the room started spinning.

“Kaydence,” I whimpered, hoping somehow she knew I was in trouble and could somehow find me, however hopeless that was. Did I want them here though, really? What if Erik took them too?

I continued to spiral deeper and deeper down until my vision was completely black.

“Sweet dreams, Sebastian.”

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chapter word count: 2,084

total word count: 18,140