american asylum

chapter twelve :: foreshadowing

Bentley and Hana, hands clutched to one another, stumbled through the darkness.  Their breaths fogging up the metallic walls around them, their feet growing heavy, and their stomachs churning and burning from lack of food.

Sinking to the floor, Bentley said in a dry cry, "I can't!  Everything hurts, I can't do this anymore.  They're going to kill us, Hana."

Hana sunk down beside him, her body pressed up against his trembling shoulders and her hands still clutching around his arm.  "It's going to be okay, I'm sure Matthias is figuring something out."

"Do you trust him?"

"More than the man in the button up shirt?  Yes.  I think he means well, he's just not like us."  Hana wiped the sweat off her face and leaned the crown of her head on the wall behind her.  "Bentley?"

"Hmmm?"

"What do you think is going to happen next?"

Bentley was quiet.  He was trying to think through what could possibly happen to them.  But everything had been so sudden and unpredictable that anything he guessed would be one up by something more terrible than he had even imagined.  

"How we're going to beat the system?"  Hana whimpered, feeling whatever hope she had been carrying with her seep through the cracks beneath her.

"Live.  That's how we win," Bentley said, swallowing.  "We can't let them kill us.  We have to live. We have to live long enough to exploit them and get this place burned to the ground."

Hana raised herself up onto her knees, her hands moving from his arm and against his chest.  "Bentley."

"Yes?"

"Do you have anyone at home?  You know, a girlfriend?"

"No.  Do you?"

Hana laughed through a smirk.  "Not a girlfriend.  No, I don't."  She leaned in, her soft breathing alerting to him what she was going to do.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Bentley whispered as he met her kiss.  His hands found her waist and he pulled himself to his knees as well.  

Before either could continue, footsteps filled the hallway and Matthias's voice broke the intimacy.  A flood of yellow broke between them and they saw Matthias standing at the end with a torch in his hands. "Hey, come here, quick."

Bentley and Hana found each other's hands and they both staggered to their feet.  Breaking off into a run, they followed Matthias. They watched him turn a corner, not knowing that when they made the same turn, Matthias tripped Bentley, sending the two them sprawling onto the ground.

Hana rolled several feet from them, stunned too much to get up.

Matthias didn't miss a beat, he ran over to Bentley and pulled him roughly up by the shirt.  Slamming him against the wall, he said in gruff, frightened words, "Listen, they're going to kill us.  I don't know how...he said something about Hana killing.  We-we have to get our minds right."

"Let go of me," Bentley said, trying to pry Matthias's fingers off of him.  "Matthias, what are you talking about?"

"The third level.  One of us is going to die.  They want us to die in the end.  We're here to make a point.  We need a plan."

Hana pushed herself to her feet and began running over to break the two up before Matthias held a hand out, stopping her.

"Matthias, let him go, this isn't going to help."

"If you get attached to him, Hana, for any reason for any second, you've just created a hazard.  Finishing this will make it harder on all of us and that's what I think they want."  Matthias threw Bentley to the ground and stared at the two, fists balled and feet grounded.  "The only way out is to do what he says and accept the fact that only two of us will make it out."

"What's that noise?"  Hana declared, looking over her shoulders, fear streaking through all of them.

Bentley looked down at the ground.  "Matthias, your flash light, shine it."

"My what?"

"Your torch, sorry, forgot you were British.  Shine it.  Where did you get that?"

"The man in the button up gave it to me.  Not sure why."

As the light shone on the floor, they saw the floor opening up, shaking the walls around them.

"Should we go down?"  Hana asked.

"What?  Why?"  Bentley yelled over the grinding.

Hana shrugged and knelt down, her hands reaching down in the dark.  "Shine your light!"

Matthias directed the yellow stream down the hole, revealing a flight of stairs.  "Should we go down?"

"We don't have a choice.  He obviously wants us to go there, come on."  Hana was the first to go down, then Bentley, and then Matthias.  

It was dark, cold, and it smelled weird.  As if something had been rotting slowly for a long time.  The three of them, using the light Matthias had, began exploring the downstairs.  At first, it looked like a warehouse, but as they moved deeper into the dark, there was an iron door in front of them with bars across a window.

"Do you have those keys?" Matthias asked Hana.

She nodded her head.  "Should...I mean, should we open the door?"

"If it's a way out, maybe.  Or, it could be a trap," Bentley said.  "Honestly, if you two weren't here, I wouldn't be doing this."  He laughed to himself before stepping forward first.  He led the way, checking his left and right in case something jumped out at them.  

"Hana," Matthias whispered, keeping them a good distance from Bentley's hearing range.

"What?"

"If they tell you to kill someone, kill me, okay?"

Hana laughed, as if she thought if was a joke.  "Come on, no one is killing anyone.  I wouldn't kill you."

"Why not?  You barely know me."

"Yeah, but you're a person, trying to get out of this hell-hole like the both of us.  I can't kill you.  Let's not talk about this."

Matthias snatched her arm and pulled her aside, glancing up at Bentley to make sure he was still on the same mission.  In a hissing voice, one that was spooky, but one that was strangely concerned, he said, "You're going to kill someone.  The man said you would.  This torch he gave me is..."  Matthias leaned forward, mouth close to her ear, "It's a tazor.  We have to tazor Bentley and torture him.  I wasn't supposed to tell..."

"Then stop telling me."  Hana yanked away from him and ran up to Bentley, who was crouched at the door, figuring out which key would work.

Matthias sighed and caught up with them.  Reaching over Bentley, he grabbed the keys, glanced at the keyhole and then at four selected keys.  Muttering something to himself, he chose one key and fit it in the hole.  He twisted to the right and the door unlocked with a tired groan.

"Always amazes me," Bentley said, pointing up to Matthias.  "How do you do it?"

"Can you keep a secret?"  Matthias asked with a small smirk.

"Of course."

"Me too.  Now, let's go."