The Two Gemini

Chapter 10

I felt someone violently shaking me. Yelling, screaming. The voices weren't my own. For reasons unknown, I couldn't open my eyes.

But then I heard something new. Hoarse screaming. Screams of terror, absolute fear. It took a few seconds to pinpoint who this new scream came from. And it came from me.

Soon sights came into view, sights I had seen before. The whip came down. One, two, three, four. I can't feel anything. The screams lessen. Five, six, seven. Still nothing. The screams are almost silent now.

Eight. The pain is so intense. The skin ripping apart. My stomach, my arms, legs, everything. I feel the pain everywhere. So intense, it's paralyzing.

The screams come back, louder than ever. I can feel the screams tearing through my throat. It echoed throughout the halls of the cave, I heard that much.

Then nothing, again. The screams continued, but the pain was gone. The sights were gone. The whip was gone.

"Has this happened before?" I heard a female voice in the distance.

"Kind of. She's been having nightmares for a while now, but never this bad. Never have I heard her scream this much." A male voice, just as distant.

I feel arms wrap around me, holding my hands across my stomach.

I slowly become more and more aware of whatever's going on around me.

"She stopped screaming, and pretty much going insane. Does that mean it's over?" That was Rayna, I know it was her voice.

"We can only hope." Luke, from right above me. "She's shaking uncontrollably. That was worse than she's seen before."

"Oh," Phoenix started. "I forgot you could read each other's thoughts. What was she seeing?"

Luke sighed loudly. "Some guy." Luke seemed to not be able to continued. "Wh-whipping her." He shuddered, I don't think it went unnoticed. "Lately she's been blocking me from seeing her dreams, but she didn't this time. I don't know why."

I heard movement to my right, then nothing. I still couldn't open my eyes. I still couldn't move.

"Maybe she's going to wake up soon. I mean, she's been screaming for the passed hour. How long is one dream?" Phoenix, that had to have been Phoenix. She sounded bored, as if this wasn't anything bad.

I wanted so bad to open my eyes, tell her how bad it was. Tell all of them how painful it is to be whipped. But I didn't have to.

"The same thing keeps repeating. She can somehow feel the pain, as if she's actually getting whipped." His grip tightened. "And there's nothing I can do."

"Just give her different thoughts. You can do that, can't you?" Rayna said.

"It doesn't work that way. She has to accept them, have a clear mind. Clearly her mind isn't clear."

More words were said, but everything just dulled. The words became sounds, the sounds became silence. I couldn't hear anything anymore.

Light soon invaded my sight, and I thought I was waking up. Oh how wrong I was.

Yet again, I was in that theater. Luke was hanging up high, eyes wide open. I took a good look at him for the first time, noticing his mouth was gagged. He couldn't make a sound. Blood drips down from his forehead, just above his right eyebrow. A bruise darkened around his right eye.

I tore my gaze away from him, looking at the man in front of me. The man with the mask, whip and my broken locket. He stepped forward, then another step, and another. He stood right in front of me, the whip curling around his hand. As I looked to the rough ropes that kept me bound to some tree, I readied myself for the eighth blow.