Luminescence

Five.

Mara

As I woke, the first thing I felt was sweat.

Cold beads of salty water cascade down my skin, being absorbed by my tank top and camouflage  pants I wore. I was freezing, yet felt like I was being baked in an oven at the same time. It was pure torture laying in such a small room, feeling claustrophobic as I wiped down all of the water on me with a nearby blanket.

Looking around, I wasn't in the junkyard anymore. My eyes widen at the realization. I was laying on a bed, something I hadn't been blessed with ever since my parents died.

White walls of steel surrounded me, with small windows that gave me a small glance of the facility I was in.

Suddenly, a door to my left opens with a few whirs and clicks. A man enters—and suddenly I feel intimidated. His dark brown eyes were the first thing I noticed about him. They gazed into my soul, analyzing anything he could find. His gray, scruffy beard moved up and down as his jaw chewed a piece of bubble gum. I could tell he was in his upper fifties almost immediately due to the many wrinkles on his face.

He flips a piece of paper back attached to his clipboard. "Miss Amara Winters, better known as Mara, yes?" He questions and I nod my head suspiciously. How did they know my name? "Good. Procedures will begin shortly after we sedate you into an unconscious state once more."

"Excuse me?" I question angrily. "Where on Earth am I?"

The serious look on the old man's face is soon replaced by a light smile, then a chuckle, which eventually evolved into a full-on heavy laughter. He stood there clenching his stomach as if he were under a laughing spell, while I sat in bed utterly confused out of my mind.

"I'm kidding!" The man says loudly. "My name is Wesley, Wes for short." He sticks out his hand for me to shake, which I hesitantly return. "No procedures will be performed, I'm just playing with you."

Another girl from the side of the room walks in, this time looking much younger than Wes.

"Already harassing her with your horrible sense of sarcasm, huh Wes?" The girl asks and chuckles, sending a warm smile to me. "My name's Lana. I'm Wes's daughter."

I shake her hand, still not trusting these new people fully. Everything was moving so fast I could hardly comprehend it all.

"Not to be rude or anything, but where am I and why am I here?" I question, wiping a fresh coating of sweat off my forehead. "And why is my fever literally drowning me in sweat?"

Wes sighs as he pulls a chair from the side of the room, sitting as the smile quickly diminishes from his face. It felt like I was in some kind of serious interrogation movie scene as his eyes narrowed in on me.

"Mara," Wes starts off. "You're a mutant. We brought you here because you are in significant danger. As you may or may not know already, almost all of the hero mutants in this Earth have been killed off, except for few known on file and possibly countless others who are unknown. If you were to stay at the junkyard, you would've been captured already by Commander G-R72, one of the most ruthless evil mutants of them all. Once his job of killing all hero mutants is complete, he will take the throne from King Red and rule his own world, much worse than a dictatorship."