A Silent Betrayal

Trapped

The sound of the door shutting and the lock turning made an awful feeling form deep down inside myself. I had watched Kai as he closed the door behind me and now I stood there staring at it while I felt and well... really was trapped. The room was a windowless box, the only exit being the way I had come from which was locked. Regret suddenly filled me. I didn't know where I was. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't have a plan.

"Who are you?"

I spun around, my eyes landing on one of the four teens that were in the middle of the room, sitting or laying down on the floor.

The one who had spoken up, a girl with short dark hair and green eyes, stood up and glanced at the others before squaring her shoulders with my own. "Who are you?" she repeated. I could tell she was trying to be brave, but the shakiness in her voice and the energy radiating out of her and transferring itself into my own body told me that she was in fact terrified. "Where are we?"

"I-I don't know," I replied, my eyes roaming over everyone else's before returning to her's. "I can't remember anything."

"Oh," the same relieved look that I had seen on Kai flashed across her own face. "Well, you don't need to worry. We were in the same situation not too long ago."

I nodded, even though I didn't quite understand what she had meant by that, and then turned my eyes to the ground where I caught another movement. A boy with blond hair and light blue eyes got to his feet and stood next to the girl, lightly touching her arm as his eyes remained skeptical of me.

"It could be a trap," he said. "Another test."

The girl glanced at him before shaking her head with a frown and staring back at me. "I don't think so."

An amused expression came across the boy's face as he gave her a side-ways look, but I could see the bit of anger within his blue eyes. "Need I remind you the last time you thought it wasn't a trap and it ended up being a blood bath?"

"It was a fifty-fifty outcome!" she snapped at him. "This time feels different."

Straight anger morphed his features into a glare. "For all we know she could be here to kill us."

"Can you two please stop your bickering for once!"

My eyes found their way to the other boy who had spoken up. He lay face up on the ground with his eyes closed. His hands were locked together underneath his head and I could see his left leg was bent beneath his other one.

"You're giving me another headache."

The two teens both turned their attention onto the dark haired boy, the blond boy not losing the scowl on his face. "Are you even paying attention to anything that's been happening the last few minutes?"

The boy on the ground finally opened his eyes, the bright light above us making the darkness of them gleam. "Of course. There's nothing in this room that any person could miss."

"Then what do you think we should do about her?" the blond boy asked, nodding in my direction.

The one on the ground turned his head to the side and glanced at me before turning back to the other and answering his question.

"Start off with not talking like she isn't just standing right there."

I could hear the sound of the blond boy's teeth grinding themselves together, but he kept his mouth shut as he continued to stare down at the boy on the ground. The girl remained silent as well, and I noticed the other girl that was watching everything from the side was also waiting for something else to come out of the dark haired boy's mouth. This boy must be the leader of the group. I wondered silently what he had done to achieve that status.

"The next thing you could do is ask her what she knows," the boy said. "She's been further than we had gone while being conscious. She at least knows what's on the other side of that door."

Once the boy had finished, they all turned their eyes onto me and waited. My heart sped up almost instantly. What would I even say?

"Well?" the blond boy raised an eyebrow. "What do you know? What's out there? Where are we?"

My head spun uneasily. Each question that he asked sent many other questions and even a few answers to swirl like a tornado in my head that only got worse. I wasn't sure which question to answer. I didn't know what they knew. I didn't even know where I was.

I felt so useless. I was supposed to be here to help the human race and here I was not even able to answer a few questions.

"Where did you just come from? Wh-"

"One question at a goddamn time," the dark haired boy snapped up at the other boy after seeing the distress that must have shown across my face.

The blond boy let out a small groan as he rolled his eyes before throwing a hand out to gesture to me and plopping himself back onto the ground next to the other girl. I took the gesture as, 'fine, do it yourself then'. The dark haired boy seemed to have gotten the message as well.

He sat up slowly and ran a hand through his hair before staring up at me. "Do you know what they want with us?"

I shook my head even though there was a large part of me that had a feeling that I knew exactly what this place was. Kai's words repeated multiple times within my mind; 'welcome to compound forty'. If I was correct, –what I thought this place was, is really true– then the thought of there being thirty-nine others sent a strange mixture of feelings running through my body.

I quickly pushed the feeling aside and glanced at the ground toward my feet. "I'm sorry. I don't remember much."

Everyone cast their eyes to the dark haired boy and waited patiently for him to say something. We watched him frown at my answer.

"Alright, well can you at least tell us your name?" he said, ignoring the other pairs of eyes on him and keeping his eyes locked onto my own.

"Leah," I replied, glad I could finally answer a question.

He forced a half smile onto his face. "I'm Rylan." He gestured to the blond boy, "This is Hunter," the girl still standing, "Zara," then finally to the girl that was seated on Hunter's left, "and Asuka."

I smiled at each of them with a nod of my head before staring back at Rylan, my smile fading away from my face. "So, when you guys said that you had been in my situation not too long ago, what exactly had you meant by that?"

Rylan glanced down at his fidgeting hands before looking over at the other three and then staring back at me. "Well, if you really want to know, I guess I'd have to start from the very beginning..."