Darklands Emerging

Hostages of Helania

"My name is Lilly Valentine," I said in a quiet tone to all the people taking a deep breath, as I felt that I was suffocating in their presence, and there was no one to save me, as I am falling, deeper and deeper, as the people scream and shove their cameras in my face, pushing me to answer with the uncomfortable stare and shouting of questions, it was almost always the same questions asked over and over again. Who are you, What happened to you, and where is you family? I wanted to cry, to show them true pain, if anyone would save me from falling into this bottomless pit, please, I don't want to do this anymore, to be this thing I am supposed to be. But I had the courage, the hope, to stand up and push all those questions away taking another deep breath, don't suffocate, please, for them, all those questions would just bring tears, tears and pain. Besides I came all this way, not for that, not for those pointless questions, not for them to know about me or what happened to me to get me here. If they knew, they would only feel what they think is the pain I feel, they think they would know how I feel. Really they would just be telling themselves that I'm sad or I'm scared, as they will feel that they know from their own experiences. They don't know anything, they don't understand the things that I have done to survive or what i've gone through, sometimes I don't even understand myself. So I stood up and said as loud as I could, even with my voice shaking and my breath still panting as if I had been running in a loop for years. All that time would come to this, all the pain and tears have made me. As it's getting harder for me to breath, they all look at me with those, give me a good story or I need money looks. And so here I say once again, as if I had more confidence, but not truly. Nothing can give me enough confidence for this, "My name is Lilly Valentine," I said it so loud that everyone dropped dead silent. All expecting an amazing answer for their story, a story that would get first page, it's unfortunate that that was what they were going to get. I breathed in and out, heavier and heavier trying to lift this weight off my chest, and forced myself to say, "I have come here to tell you, to warn you, that they are..." I turned and looked blankly into the camera, as my mind started to fill with thoughts, it hadn't hit me before now, I knew that they were watching. The reporters all started yelling "who, who are they, they what, what are they doing?"

Still staring dead into the camera, I happened to notice a van pull in, and when I finally drifted my focus from the camera, three more vans pulled in. Surrounding the people as if they were trying to keep them in where I was, and that's exactly what they were trying to do. They were big black vans, and the windows were tinted so that we couldn't see who was inside. So, pretty much you average heist getaway van. But even with the tinted windows I could see what demented things they were about to do for their own selfish wants. I had no idea what to do, I didn't think there was anything I could do. As the people didn't notice the vans and kept pestering me on who it was and what they were trying to do, I slowly turned to the camera, and I begged, "Please! Don't do this! I know you're out there. I'm begging you, they're innocent!" The people started to question once more, who and what? I turned to one of the vans as about six men in full black gear holding guns ran into the shoreline where I came from. Now that they knew it was me, I had nowhere to run, nowhere to go. The men yelled to get down and surly enough everyone dropped to the ground covering their heads and screaming, as the men mindlessly walked around searching for me. As I looked around at all the innocent reporters and cameraman, I noticed a young lady who was on the phone with someone, I looked at the men standing with their guns. They were looking at a man who was begging them to not hurt him as they held a gun up to his head. He told them he had a family and money he could give them. One of the men said that money was of no use to them because soon money would be useless to everyone. Now was my chance to get to the woman, so I started to crawl over to her. The men started to grab people and check them to see if it was me. I kept crawling for what seemed like years until I finally reached her. I grabbed her arm so she would notice me. She looked at me and realized I was the person they were looking for, then she begged me, "Please, please just go." I told her I was sorry and she looked at her shaking hand that was still holding the phone. She called 911! "Please help us!" she said to me while her voice shook. When the police answered the phone she screamed help then set the phone on the ground. I expected her to give me away to save herself and everyone here, so I braced myself for the men to grab me, but instead she looked into my eyes and say just how young I was. So she whispered to me "Hide!" so I covered my head with my black hoodie as she grasped my hand crying. The men heard the terrified woman's scream into the phone for help and knew that she called the police so the leader walked over and grabbed her by her arm with her holding onto my hand. She screamed "No! Please! No!" she released my hand and quietly said "Help is coming." The phone was still on the ground with the call ongoing, so I grabbed it and whispered into the phone while still on the ground covering my head "Help, we are at the shoreline, they have hostages" Then put the phone where it originally was so they would think it never moved. The men in black saw the phone and smashed it with his foot and yelled "Don't try calling the police or you'll end up like this her!" as he held a gun to her head. The were furios as they wanted everything to go their way, I knew that, they would never let me go, never let me free, and would always be out to get me. But I wasn't going to let them Control me. No! I won't let them. If there was anything I learned over the past few years of my life, it was that I am stronger than I think, I can fight back. However by my little show they could tell that I had a weakness, my own humanity. They yelled "Come out!" "Or have this innocent woman die!" I couldn't let her die, I had no choice. So I pulled down the hoodie as I looked at the ground and slowly stood up. An old man looked at me, almost as though he was saying goodbye to one of his loved ones, someone he had known his whole life. The man pulled me back into his arms and through the woman to the ground, then the old man got on his knees and crossed his hands over his heart, looking up at me, then to the ground, and that's when I knew, this was the start of a war.