Shifters

Chapter 20

WILL

I felt so heavy. There were restraints on my ankles and across my chest, but the rest of me also felt bound, like there were chains dragging down on my bones.

I had no idea how long it was before the beeping finally stopped. It slowed down, I thought, but too slowly to tell without any other sound to compare it to. The stop wasn't sudden, so it took me a couple minutes of anxious alertness to be sure it was gone.

Then, the room was silent. Other than me, nothing moved. My breathing was steady, but ragged because my throat was desert-level dry. The lights were still way too bright, especially reflected off all the white walls and furniture.

I closed my eyes, but I wasn't quite tired enough to sleep. I left them closed anyway.

Then the beeping started again. My eyes snapped open. I searched for the noise but I couldn't see anything. I hadn't been able to find the source of the sound before, either, but it was different this time. Before, I could tell that the sound was coming from behind me, with a faint echo bouncing off the wall in front of me. But this time, there was no source. The sound was just there. Like it was being made right next to my head, except it was faint like it was traveling from a different place toward me.

I reached up to the device behind my ear. I tapped it cautiously with a fingertip. The beeping changed to a slightly higher pitch. I dropped my hand.

I closed my eyes and hoped the noise would stop before it gave me a headache. Jeepers, it was annoying.

The beeping was getting faster. It was still quiet, barely audible, but just loud enough that I couldn't ignore it. I tried humming to see if I could drown it out, but it was always just louder than any other noise.

The beeping became a buzz, and then a single piercing keening. My head felt overfilled. I shook it, hard, but to no avail.

Then the screeching suddenly cut off. I felt dizzy. The weight on my body disappeared. If I had been standing, I would have collapsed. My head swam. I slowly tensed each part of my body to make sure I could still control them, then sat up.

I looked around, but found nothing in the room other than the chair I was sitting in. Behind it, though, two walls came to a point, making the room a pentagon, not the square I had thought it was. I got ready to stand, but then my body jerked forward of its own accord. My feet hit the floor hard and I nearly fell over.

I shuffled around the chair, propelled by a foreign force, barely in charge of my own body enough to keep from falling over. My feet led me to the point where the two walls met at a small corner behind the chair.

I watched as slowly, the walls moved apart, leading to a space that was too dark for me to determine see the edges of. I stepped into it. The walls started closing, but I couldn't move back. I was frozen. They shut, and my body snapped back to being under my control. My arms shot out for balance, but ran into hard walls.

Then, the chamber jerked and my stomach flew into my throat. I couldn't see anything. I crashed to floor as the tiny room descended into the terrifying unknown.

A/N: I'm out of school now, but my summer so far has been unexpectedly busy. As usual, I have no idea what my writing "schedule" will be like. Sorry. Thank you for your continued but probably misplaced support.