Naihabi Ridge

Chapter Thirty - Liberation

Oriole

The dark quivered as I quivered within it. For what must have been hours, the ground shook beneath my chair and the air was rustled and hot. There was an irony taste on my tongue and the draft that came through the newfound crack in the wall stank of blood.
    
The escape mission was underway. Without me.
     
I had blacked out after my two torturers had cut my arm and when I'd awoken, the slice had been bandaged neatly. For a whole minute, I had just stared at it, confused. But it had dawned upon me then that they were not out to kill me. In fact, it was of my popular opinion that they wanted me alive.
    
Even though I thought this, I had been cut, injected, and toyed with countless times since then.
    
Shortly after I had reached this conclusion, a man came into my cell and sat down in a chair across from me. My memory was hazy, but I remembered clearly the utter terror that wrapped around my lungs and heart when I saw him.
    
He was obviously a man of high stature and as such had a clean, sharp demeanor, but this man's edges were as clipped and stern as an assassin's blade. He had leathery skin so pale it was as if he had never seen the sun and his hair was so black it was as if it had been the one to suck all the sunlight from the sky. His hair had been cut close to his skull on both sides, but the top had been kept longer and he had slicked it back as if to make his long, angular face seem even longer. His cheekbones protruded like daggers under his eyes and his mouth was a thin line, turned slightly upward in a devilish smirk.
    
But it wasn't until he leaned forward to fully examine me that I saw the evil that laid behind his deceptive blue eyes. There was an undeniable darkness behind those eyes that made me never want to see them ever again.
    
And as a work of fate, I hadn't seen him since.
    
Shortly after that, I figured out by eavesdropping on my torturers' conversations that the man was a general—in fact, he was the general. He was the sole person in charge of the experiments being run on us, though I didn't catch why they were testing us.
    
His name ran through my veins, making my blood boil and my injuries sting. I constantly muttered it under my breath, cursing his title and power.
    
"General Venrythe."
    
He was all I'd been thinking about since I saw him. He was the mastermind. He was their killer. And he was a monster. I would never forgive him for what he did.
    
I jerked my head up as I heard something bang on the door. The darkness didn't allow me any hint of sight, but I had memorized the layout of the room enough to know that the door was to my right and was, in fact, the thing that had been hit.
    
I listened for another strike or the click of the latch on the door, but nothing came. The explosions still went off and the shouts and gunshots still rang, but there was silence in my ears.
    
Then, with an earsplitting crack, the door flung open and slammed into the wall. I screamed, startling and nearly falling over if not for the chair that was bolted to the ground. Blinding light poured through the doorway and straight into my face and I blinked several times, my eyes burning.
    
"Oriole, what in the name of—"
    
"Warden?" My eyes adjusted to her silhouette and I smiled—grinned, actually, giddily.
    
She ran forward, unsheathing a knife, and skidded down to a kneel next to me. She sliced straight through the ropes that had held me for all this time, and the skin that was under the ropes felt bare and cold when they fell off. I rotated my arms, looking at them in amazement.
    
I could move.
    
The Warden moved back after she cut the ropes around my ankles and I took in a freeing breath. I pushed off the chair, then discovered my legs couldn't hold me and my knees buckled, sending me to the floor, but no sooner than I stumbled the Warden had swept me up off the floor. Then I struggled uncomfortably against her and she put me down. I stared at my feet as I wobbled, but this time I stayed standing.
    
Actually, considering I hadn't stood in days, my legs were much stronger than they should have been.
    
I brushed it off, grateful for my strength, and looked back at the Warden. "Why did you come back for me? It wasn't in the plan."
    
She just gave me a sad look and shook her head, turning around. "Let's go."

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These chapters are seriously too short. But whatever, I guess.

Second question! What is your guys' favorite food? What do you think Oriole's favorite food is?

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