Moonrise ✔ [Complete]

37 Captured

When Maeyune woke again, she ached in every place imaginable. But there was no more of that stabbing pain from before. That foreign poison in her body was gone, and she could no longer feel the slithering sensation underneath her skin.

Her head throbbed as if she had been spinning for hours on end, and bile rose up in her throat. She made no attempt to hold it all back. Overwhelmed with nausea, she heaved the contents of her stomach onto the black, stone floor underneath her. She spat, dignity being the last of her concerns.

It was a long time before she could gather her senses. In the wake of her sickness, her vision cleared, and she took in her capacious environment.

She was no longer in the room with those five, stone pillars, but in a different room twice as large and somewhere on top of a stone dais. A wide ramp led down from the dais, down to a closed, arched door.

Given the intricacies of the metal walls and interwoven stone, she was sure that she hadn't left the ship. But the room was empty--empty, save for whatever this thing was that held her prisoner with her limbs spread and outstretched.

She was restrained at the center of an enormous, torus-shaped contraption. It was a large ring made of metal parts, propped upright at the top of the dais. Embedded into the ring's metal were irregular, black stones--and on the stones, Maeyune saw carvings of symbols that appeared runelike.

Whatever this metal contraption was that held her, it looked to be some sort of machine.

Tiny versions of the ring contraption held her wrists and ankles in place to the machine. She squirmed, testing the shackles. But they were locked tight, and there was no space to allow any movement.

She attempted escape again. Seeing that her moon bracelet was empty, all she could do was summon what limited, natural energy she had to crush the shackles. But the moment her silver power danced across her skin to dismantle the metal, they seeped into the nearest batch of stones and disappeared. The rune symbols on the stones lit, then faded.

She tried pulling her hands out in frustration, but her wrists did not budge inside their restraints.

This machine absorbed my energy, she realized. If that was the case, then she knew why it was holding her prisoner.

She gritted her teeth. What had originally been a mission to capture the alien leader had resulted in her own capture.

Her, captured? Having had full faith in her own abilities, not once had she ever considered that possibility. Had she made a mistake?

She tried to recall the events that had occurred before the poison.

The mission. The Overlord. The ambush. Jaysek.

In the pit of her stomach, she felt a congested ball of confusion, shock, and anger.

Jaysek.

She shook her head without realizing it, closing her eyes tight as incredulity gnawed at her.