𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗥𝗨𝗡𝗡𝗘𝗥 𝗚𝗜𝗥𝗟 ᐅ 𝙣𝙚𝙬𝙩

𝗼𝗻𝗲

╔═══*.·:·.☽✧    ✦    ✧☾.·:·.*═══╗

My name is Alethea.

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧    ✦    ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

I wake up with a jolt.

It's dark. I'm shaking. Red lights flash around me, making my heart shudder, the heat instantly leaving my trembling body. Where am I? I feel around in the dark, yearning for any sense of where I am. My fingers grip onto thin bars...a cage?

My breathing quickening as I scramble around for an exit, the cage lurches, and I'm sent flying upwards, gripping the bottom of the see through floor for support. My heart feels like it's flying out of my chest, paranoia consuming me as I regain my senses and fumble around in the boxes for anything I can use to defend myself.

Red and green lights flash around me, blurring my vision into bursts of multicolour. The sensation of sick rises in my gut — flooding my senses in nausea. Glancing up as the cage flies even faster, the ground slips into darkness underneath me, finally making me heave, a warm liquid spewing out of my mouth and falling into the bottomless shaft. I glance upwards. There's a ceiling. I'm going to hit the ceiling.

Where am I? Who am I?

Pulling a knife out of the box, I'm knocked off my feet as the cage slams to a halt, and I land with a painful thud against the bottom of the floor. An alarm rings around me, tearing through my head, and I clutch my knife, my knuckles whitening at my grip on it.

Light.

I shield my eyes as the ceiling slides open, the white glow illuminating the cage I'm in. Is this where you go after you die? I almost laugh at the thought. I'm dead so they chucked me in a cage and sent me sky high. Thoughtful of them... though I'm not exactly sure who they are.

Who put me here?

Shadows appear above me, surrounding me and I fight the urge to gasp from the splitting pain ripping through my head. I can't see faces, they all blend together in a confusing whirlwind of noise and colour. Who are these people? I scan their faces, begging silently for an answer to any one of my questions.

Almost agonisingly slowly, each shadow comes into focus.

They're just boys. They range in all manners of races, heights and weights, though they all share one similar trait. Confusion. Angst. Their heads turn towards a tall boy, easily one of the oldest. Their leader?

I'm only able to form one coherent thought.

My name is Alethea.

Voices erupt around me, and under any other circumstances I'd not bother fighting the urge to scream at them to shut up, however I can barely breath quietly, the vomit left my throat raw.

"It's a girl!"

"No way, thought it was a dinosaur."

"Shut up, shuck face."

"I'll chuck ya' in the Slammer myself!"

"I'd stay in the Slammer with her any day."

"I call her!"

"You most certainly do not you piece of—"

"How old is she?"

"Bro, it smells of barf in there!"

"Enjoy the trip? S'only one way."

A tall, muscular boy with blonde hair and a pale complexion jumps down, landing in front of me. I shoot to my feet, clutching my knife tighter in my hand. I don't miss his strange, warped eyebrows. I'm not sure anyone could.