The Dragon Warrior

Chapter 10

Waking to a faint rumbling noise, Emma's eyes fluttered open and she sat up wearily. Her head was pounding and her back ached profusely, but otherwise she seemed to be unharmed... until a sharp pain in her left arm shot a serum into her arm and she was asleep once more.

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This time when she awoke, Emma strained to stay as still as possible so she wouldn't activate the serum again. She wasn't certain, but she was fairly positive a large amount of unnatural liquid in her veins wouldn't help her escape. So she didn't move a muscle, but her ears were tuned for even the slightest sound in her surroundings. Soon she began to hear notes of a hushed conversation behind the door to her right, in rasping, husky voices that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

"Sir, we may be able to use her for information -"

"Silence! She is nothing but bait. Anyway, that fool will have not told her much information yet. She has only been there a few weeks."

Emma was already frozen stiff, but her body tensed up even more at his words. There was a spy in the Dragon Warrior Complex. She thought she knew who it might be, but she cast him away for now and focused her hearing to hear the reply.

"Very well, sir. How shall I attend to her?"

"Nothing, for now. It is no use if she is dead."

"Very wise sir, very wise indeed."

"How many times has she woken up?"

"Once, sir."

"Keep an eye on her. It should be twice any minute now."

"It will be as you say, sir."

"That is all."

Then the servant was gone. Emma heard his footsteps leave the echoing chamber, and the other beast lean back on what must be a throne. She listened for a moment longer, to ensure the conversation really was over, and then let her body relax on the stiff bed she was trapped in.

So she was bait. Emma supposed this was a good thing, because of what the beast in the other room had said himself. It was no use if she was dead.

She thought her brother must be coming to save her any time now, because she had no idea how long she had been out, but that it must have at least been a couple days. She only hoped he wouldn't do anything reckless, because it was sort of in Noah's forte: He was very brave, but he did the first thing that came into his head. She rolled her eyes before she remembered she wasn't supposed to be moving, but the machine to her left did nothing to put her to sleep. Emma was alone with her thoughts.

Since she seemed to be able to use her eyes, she glanced around her prison. It was bare and stingy, though it looked like no one had ever lived in it before she had arrived there. The wardrobe's doors hung wide open, covered in filth and dust, and the floor wasn't really a floor, just a baseboard that was sure to scratch her feet raw if she ever managed to get up. The walls had been painted an ugly peach colour, but it was as though it had been splashed on with buckets - Emma could make out the marks the dripping paint had made running down the wall.

The bed itself was a stiff metal frame with a thin mattress, covered by a scratchy, moth-eaten blanket. The machine beside her seemed to be made of four different compartments, glass containers of liquid labelled F, W, S, D. She had no idea what that meant, but she observed the rest of it with as much peripheral vision as she could manage. Emma couldn't see where the machine was getting the liquid, but she could see that tubes ran from each of the compartments into a syringe that was implanted in her vein. She gagged slightly at the sight of this but swept her eyes around the room once more.