Chapter 23: 21 | Chapter XXI - The Girl In The Basement

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"We Must Accept Disappointment, But Never Loose Hope." ~ Unknown

Schindler's List Theme

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Darkness.

Something I'd always had a fear of as a young child, and even a teen. But as I got older I started to embrace it. Going to sleep in the dark, watching Tv in the dark.  It had became part of my life - it was normal.

Except the darkness that completely surrounded me was unndescribable - it was too sinister to be considered darkness. It was horrible enough to scare even the manliest person. It wasn't just the dark, it was the cold dampness that surrounded it. Toying with your every fears. Threatening you...Taunting you, wanting to suck you in.

It took a few minutes, but gradually my eyes adjusted slightly to the room around me.

After I saw what I did, I wished I would've just kept them closed.

My ears hadn't fully adjusted yet, and the ringing in them was loud and painful. It was expected, after all I'm pretty sure they hit me in the back of the head. I didn't even pay attention to the screams I could hear from all around me until I caught eyes with another girl.

Suddenly It snapped, and like a switch my conscious decided to start working again.

I was in a cage. A cold, slightly damp, black void of a cage.

It was just long enough for me to spread my legs out and I guessed for me to stand up. Surrounding it was thick wire which occasionally would sizzle, causing me to believe that it was electrocuted somehow. I avoided all contact with it.

Right now, I desperately want to stand up but I didn't have the energy and the two broken arms I had weren't doing me any justice. I felt like a T-rex....minus the scary predator part.

The room around me was large and long, a rectangular shape with wolf-sized cages running side by side as far as I could see. Now was when I took the time to notice the girl across from me that looked around 14 as she was screaming at the top of her lungs. Ripping them apart in fear as wet tears soaked her pale face.

But she wasn't the only one, almost everyone seemed to be shouting something or crying about another considerable matter. Some were lying on the ground in tears, others violently punching their cages as they bled.

I found the strength to sit up the back wall and only noticed the noises coming from my stomach once I was sitting straight. I hadn't eaten much, and I'm guessing there wasn't a buffet...

My left arm was in shreds and I was biting my bottom lip just to make sure I wouldn't have a mental breakdown. I spoke my mind to myself, barely hearing my own thoughts over the inhuman screams that were exiting some of their bodies..

I looked painfully to the left and noticed another girl beside me. She was sitting, her legs in a basket, staring right at me with black eyes.

She looked as if she had been here for quite a while since she wasn't making a single noise, just staring as if she knew what was going to happen.

She looked slightly older than me, with shorter blond hair. But then I could've been black, either from the amount of mud and grease that was in it or just the dark. It semmed to play tricks on your mind as it tortured your sanity.

A high-pitched scream then stung my ears, changing my attention from the creepy girl beside me to the crazy one in front of me. She was crying her eyes out and running towards with a large amount of force towards her cage.

I did the only thing the voice in the back of my head told me too, it probably was stupid and didn't make much sense but it was worth a try. My voice rang out amongst the others, I felt vulnerable. I was scared.

"Somebody help me! Please! I need help! SOMEBODY!!" I cried, looking down at my numb arm.

Not exactly feeling brave anymore, slowly I let the tears run down my face. Everything hurt, everything was sore and I was starving and tired.

I was ready to give up, I was drained of all energy but yet wouldn't be able to sleep. It was too noisy and damp, all I could do was wait, forever being denied my sleep.

"Damn... I thought you would've lasted longer than 10 minutes." An unfamiliar voice echoed from beside me, blending in with the darkness.

My head then looked over to the cage on right side, I had no idea there was someone even in there. I couldn't see a thing, so I'd just assumed there was nothing. However, I couldn't have been more wrong.

The voice was unfamiliar but smooth, giving me comfort in the fact that it actually sounded as if it were coming from someone sane.

But then, maybe they weren't - you never knew who you could trust.

"You can obviously hear everyone here screaming, no ones coming for us so you're just wasting the small amount of energy you probably have." The male voice murmured to me in a really sarcastic tone. Clearly they were in a great mood aswell, but that didn't stop the pain the words gave me.

It was at this point that I had a total meltdown, the words stung and I wanted to curl up and melt into the darkness. What would my life be if it was spent in here, in the darkness, doing the exact opposite of living? It wasn't worth it. How would I survive without Hunter?

"Oh... sorry? I've just not exactly talked to a girl in like 2 years, so I kinda need to brush up on my skills." The voice spoke to me, calming me slightly. But after hearing words like that, any sane person would be upset.

Wait, 2 YEARS.

"How long have you been here!" I nearly screamed at the guy beside me. It wasn't intentional, but I really needed to know.

Stuff this this was sorta important.

"I've been here 4 years." He sighed, " but on average, people last about a month." His words echoed around my head, giving me more questions than I could deal with.

"What do you mean a month? What happens to them?" I anxiously asked, desperate for an answer but too scared of what it would be. My eyes had now begun to adjust slightly more to the dark abyss around me.

He sighed again, and was silent for a second which sent fear into my heart. It was so much more comfortable when he was speaking, he was the only sane person here I could talk to by the looks of things.

Finally he gave an answer,

"See that girl across from you." He spoke lightly, as I eagerly watched her as she screamed and cried as loudly as she could. Desperately wanting help. But no one was listening, no one was caring. The stanger then sighed,

"She's probably the most sane person in here after both of us." He laughed. My head immediately snapped towards him.

"How! She's screaming like a lunatic!" I fired back. If the young girl was the third-most sane person here, I didn't want to see the craziest.

"The fact that she's even screaming is a good sign. Once they stop... You know they've lost it, and when they've lost it, there's no going back." He finished.

I slowly turned to the girl on my left, she hadn't moved the entire time I had been conscious.  I don't even think she had blinked, she just sat there staring at me or maybe into space, who knew?

"What...what do they lose?" I asked the stranger beside me, realizing I didn't know a single thing about him.

From the pitch of his voice is guessed he couldn't have been much older than me, but then he could easily be in his early thirties aswell. Guessing ages wasn't a strong point for me.

He spoke slowly and worryingly for some reason, but once the sentence was done... There was no going back.

"They loose their souls." He added softly,

"Once they go through the doors at the bottom of the corridor, they are slowly picked off of their souls until there's nothing left. For a soul is what makes a person them, its made up of all their emotions, their feelings...the people they love."

"Once they're done for, they get killed and the bodies are taken away somewhere.

But just know that...there's never an empty cage in here."

"As soon as they're gone...a replacement is already in the way to take their cage." He finished. I could tell this hurt to talk about for him, and me being the genius I was decided to push for an answer.

"Wh.....who was in here before me?" I asked softly, getting a feeling it was someone he was friendly with or even knew.

He spoke two words softly, and I immediately felt a huge amount of pity for him.

"My mate...."

We both sat in silence, not needing to say any words to each other. I could easily sense that he was upset. Who wouldn't be?

The guy had spent four years in a cage, in complete darkness and had watched his mate go slowly Insane beside him.

Yet, he was still sane...a huge burden to pay for his pain. I had never seen such a strong person but yet I couldn't even see him. I wasn't alone in here anymore, and neither was he.

Somehow, I was going to get out of this hole and I was taking him with me. He deserved a life again, especially after all of the pain he had been through.

An idea struck me, and I suddenly felt strength that I thought impossible to feel.

Hope.

"Listen..I have an idea of getting out of here, and I'm taking every single person in here with me."

And just like that, almost became less loud.

Everyone was looking at me with wide eyes as their cold lips fell silent. I had to admit, it felt pretty good, but it also felt natural.

This time the girl across from me spoke, the young girl around thirteen that had only cried and screamed since I was here. She was sitting on the ground, combing her hands through her dirty blond hair as if she suddenly cared about her appearance.

"Can-can you really do that?" She sobbed, reaching her hands out through the cage to get as close to me as possible.

"I want to see my sister again." She cried, her chest violently shaking from the intensity of her sobs. This time she wasn't crying out for help, she was crying in happiness. I had given her hope.

I had given them all hope.

With the small amount of energy I had, I reached out to the little girl in front of me and grabbed her hand gently. Careful not to injure my arm further.

Slowly my hand heated up, and the light from them flowed into the young girl with ease. Her sobs stopped and she closed her eyes and she received some of my energy. Probably the most she'd had while being stuck down here.

She was too young and too innocent. She reminded me of the young girl I had chased in the woods all those weeks ago, for they were very similar if not exactly the same.

It was her, she was the little girl that tried to kill me. I searched for an explanation as to how she had been able to turn while being too young.

Many gasps let out as I gavr her energy, and for the first time I got a better look at the room around me. It was long in length and not very wide. I'd say there was about 30 people in total, all mixed up with men, woman and children.

All were wolves, that I could tell.

"Well I'd be damned." The voice on my right murmured, and I turned to face him. Only now getting a small look at his face.

He had long, dirty hair and crystal eyes. And from where he was sitting, he looked extremely underweight.

He wasn't much older than me at all, in fact he was probably about nine-teen or so, which meant he had been here since he was fifteen years old.

"D-did you meet your mate in here?" I asked, realizing that he must've since he was young when he was taken here. Heck, he must've turned for the first time in his Damn cage.

"I did.." He spoke lowely," I never got the chance to hold her."

My heart ached for him, being away from Hunter hurt me. But for him it must've been insane to not even have a clue where I was. Hopefully Em could help.

"How are you even alive?"  The crystal eyed boy asked me, and I immediately became confused. "What?" I bluntly responded to him.

His mouth was still open in shock.

"You're a royal...how are you a royal?" He nearly shouted. He was still in a state of shock, he seemed extremely confused.

"They're all dead...how are you alive? How on earth did you end up here?" He asked, but I didn't get the chance to give him a response.

"My father told me you all died, how is this possible?"

A large steel door at the end of the corridor opened, and the man from the forest appeared from behind it in a grey suit.

Suddenly as if there was a switch, everyone began crying out to him, asking for help and screaming again.

He ignored them all.

The only girl whom wasn't screaming before was the young girl in front of me

Instead, she looked angry and fed up.

The man in the suit walked slowly by all of the cages, placing one foot in front of the other. Almost to create suspense as he stopped directly in front of me.

He had a creepy smile on his face and he picked out a ring of keys which he used to unlock the door into my cage. The boy beside me then began shouting as my stomach turned.

"Don't touch her! You can't... I won't let you!" He was silenced when a jolt of electricity hit him and he became unconscious, well I assumed he was.

The man in the suit dragged me by my broken arm along the ground to the Large steel door. Inside was a right room which my eyes immediately struggled to adjust too.

I felt as both arms were dragged behind my back and something was put on them.

This was what I could only guess was chains. By this point i'm pretty sure that my arm was hanging off, I  could feel the warm blood run down my back.

Slowly my eyes adjusted to the lights and noticed that there was two figures standing directly in front of me.

One figure seemed slightly familiar and I could smell that they were human, but the other I had no idea. I'd never smelt anything like it before, but it stunk of danger. My nose was in pain from the smell.

My eyes suddenly focused and I took a mental note of the girl standing further away from me. Twidiling her hair nervously as she took a large gulp of her own spit.

Her ginger hair...

Her large green eyes....

The smell of human...

Amy.

My eyes widened as I looked to the other figure in the room, it was the girl from the woods that I spared, it was the girl that was in the cage just outside.

The girl I have my energy to, not less than five minutes ago. To say I was confused was an understatement.

Both were standing staring down at me, and I fell into a dark Abyss as the guy in a suit put a needle into my neck.

Well that was a rollercoaster and a half. I know this seems rushed and I will explain so don't worry!

WHY IS AMY THERE? WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK?

Remember I said many chapters ago I had two huge reveals about Cece coming up, and one of them was that she was the princess.

WELL LADIES AND GENTLEMEN PREPARE TO HAVE YOUR MINDS OFFICIALLY BLOWN APART.

See you next time with "The Truth They Forgot"