Upside Down

(42) A Voice In The Dark

~~If you're just now seeing that I uploaded I also uploaded chapter 41 today even though it was just like a short poem or something. allonsyepicsnowman said it was "friken scary" and I was all like YES! SUCESS! So yeah. Here's your next chapter! oh yeah and if yall forgot who Casey was go back to chapter 20~~

Chapter 42

Emerson : Surviving :: Bad Guys : Dying

It was so dark. It reminded me of when I was younger and was afraid of the monsters that hid in the shadows of my room. I remember my dad telling me that monsters don't exist and I would go back to bed saying he was right.

But I still believed they were there.

I felt like they would smile at me as I closed my eyes. Their eyes would flash in the dark but I when I turned to look at them I would only see them out of the corner of my eyes before they disappeared once again.

And now I can feel his eyes on me.

I can't see him but I know he's there.

I can't smell or hear him but I could smell my blood staining his clothes and I felt as if I strained my ears enough I would be able to hear maybe a squeak of his shoes or a heavy breath of air.

Then I heard a slight chuckle and a click of the door.

I didn't even try to get up as he said something to me and walked away, through what I presumed was a door.

It was no use. He probably locked the doors and I was in no shape to fight him.

Apparently their other strategy to get my blood pumping (other than toughing no-no places) was to beat the shit out of me and damn did Xavier know how to beat the shit out of someone.

I couldn't move.

I literally could not move, my legs at least. My arms were so sore I didn't want to move them but my legs? I seriously couldn't even feel them at this point. If was like someone cut off their connection to my brain.

I wanted to scream but my throat was too raw.

I wanted to cry but I was all cried out.

I wanted to think, about anything or anyone, but my brain could only make static like buzzing coming from a broken radio. All I saw was black and all I heard was white noise.

Kriss ...

Her name kind of just floated between the stars I saw. So many questions floated around in my brain but my mind was too foggy to really process any of them. Though once in a while a question of two would appear from the fog only to dive back under. Like ... was this what Kriss went through every day before we met? Was everyone else okay? What did they really want with us?

And the most terrifying question of all

How were we going to get out of this?

I closed my eyes, trying to mentally disperse the haze covering everything by focusing. I had to get up. I knew that the only way for us to get out was to make a plan and I couldn't do that while laying down on the cold cement ground, completely K.O.

I prepared my muscles, slightly tensing and pushing myself up with my elbows. I could feel my entire body ache, screaming at me until I was almost in tears.

"What are you doing?"

A voice called out and I spun my head around so fast it felt like my head was going to pop off my neck. "Who's there?" I croaked out with a cracked voice.

"How are you doing that?" The voice asked instead of answering.

"Doing what?"

"Moving," it whispered and I tilted myself in the direction the voice was in. "You're not suppose to be. I should know, I've been thrown in Xavier's wrath before. You shouldn't move afterwards, because you can't. You shouldn't be able to move afterwards."

"Well, it doesn't exactly feel like I'm on a bed of roses either," I told him and crawled forward a bit. I was glad to notice the feeling was coming back into my legs slightly.

"My name is Casey," He whispered to me. I still couldn't see his face but I could feel the bars that were in between us. Damn, it was dark in here.

"How long have you been in here?"

"I don't know. I don't really have a way to track time but if I was to guess, about a week."

"Well, doesn't light come through during the day or something?"

"No, and even if it didn't I couldn't really see it."

"What? Why?"

Before he could answer, I heard the door starting to open again and Casey hissed at me to play dead. So I flung myself back at the floor and made myself look knocked out. As the door behind me opened wider and light flooded in, I finally saw Casey's face.

At a first look he had short blond hair and pretty normal features but I saw the dried blood caked around the outside of his eyes like one of those gooey mask mom would stick in the freezer to put on her face later. Then I saw that in the middle of each side where the eyes were suppose to be were just shallow black pits. He had no eyelids or even eyes for them to cover.

"Thank fucking god both of you shit heads are knocked out cold," a voice (the dude who opened the door I guess) said before a boot made contact with one of my bruised sides.

I groaned, still trying to stay knocked out.

The guard dude did some shit for what felt like forever until he left and we were both able to talk again.

But it stayed quiet for a while, both of us not talking and letting questions pass through our heads.

"My name is Emerson," I finally said to him.

I couldn't see him due to the darkness developing us again but I felt as if he almost smiled. "It's good to meet you. Well, not really in these circumstances but it's nice to be able to talk to someone who didn't want to inflict pain on my again." He laughed bitterly.

"You know," He started, whispering softly. "It's crazy really. I would have never thought this could happen, to me or anyone else. In our society this ... this just doesn't happen. It's like ... like ... like listening to a song all your life, a beautiful song that's easy to memorize and with the sweetest words that you always remember and you go through life singing this song but ..." He trails off as he starts to get choked up.

"But then," I whispered back "it's like forgetting the words to that song. You can't believe it. You were just always singing it. You try to feel the beat but then a totally different song comes along, shoving the old one out of your head."

I heard him sob and I'm pretty sure he started crying, his voice croaking out, "Everything that I thought, everything I believed in was just broken. I-I-I ... " He sniffled, "I won't be able to make it."

"Casey ..." I whispered but he just started crying harder.

"Emerson," I felt something touch me, a hand, his hand. "Take this. I don't know what it's for but I just know it's important. Take it and get out. Get out of here before it's too late"

I felt something cold hit my palm and rubbed it with my thumb.

"A house key?" I asked.

"Take it and run. Run and make sure everyone knows what's going on."

I wrapped my hands around it, making a fist.

I thought about Kriss, and Charmaine, my sister, my family, my friends, and I thought about Casey.

These fuckers are going to rot even if I have to die to see it happen.

"I will, Casey, I will."