Awakened

Chapter 1

The lone light bulb in the center of the room swung back and forth casting shadows on the walls.

She whimpered and opened her mouth to scream. But out of the darkness she saw a figure clad in black approach her. The person put a hand over her mouth.

"Shhh don't scream. No one would hear you anyway," the male behind her said.

She decided to scream anyway despite his hand over her mouth.

"Someone! Help me! Please!" she sobbed.

"You're just going to hurt yourself and seriously annoy me," the man replied to her cries.

She looked around the room trying to figure out where she was but it was far too dark. The only things she could see were large objects covered in white sheets. She tried to hold back her sobs but couldn't keep her body from shaking.

"This is boring!" a rough female voice called from the darkness. "Let's cut her loose-" she continued but was cut off by the girl tied to the chair.

"Yes! Please! I won't tell anyone anything! I promise!' the girl's voice cracked.

The boy and girl clothed in black began to laugh. "Oh! You're-Not-Being-Set-Free!" the girl said between her laughter. But she sobered up as quickly as the laughing fit began.

"What I was going to say," she said with a glare towards the girl tied to the chair, "is that we should cut her loose and set her in the maze".

The two looked at one another with humorless grins with a glint of glee in their eyes. The girl couldn't make out many defining features in the darkness but she could see that they both had porcelain doll skin and eyes as dark as their black hair. They looked like they were buzzing with excitement for whatever this maze thing was. They were freshly showered and looked clean unlike her.

She knew she couldn't have been tied to the chair longer than a couple of hours but her face was covered with dirt and bruises; her wrists were bloodied from trying to pry apart the ropes. Her blonde hair once straight, now curled and glistened with her sweat. She began to regret wearing her contacts to class instead of her glasses. Every blink was causing her discomfort.

The pain in her eyes distracted her enough that she didn't realize her captors had stopped talking and were looking at her expectantly.

"How does that sound sweetheart?" the male one asked.

"Shut it J - don't play with your food"

"Food?" the girl squeaked earning a laugh from the female captor.

Jay glared at her. "Fine should we just skip all the games then?" she asked him.

Jay shook his head and whined, "The chase is the best part!" He looked down and said, "It's just been so long Cece, I'm hungry."

Cece sighed, "Let's start then." She turned towards the girl in the chair. "What's your name blondie?"

"St-st-"

"Stutter?" Jay and Cece laughed.

"Stephanie." Her voice shook when she said her name but she accepted her fate and had stopped crying.

"Well Steph-mind if I call you that?" Jay began but only earned a blank look from Stephanie.

He continued, "I'll take that as a no you don't mind. So Steph, here's the deal: You have a five minute head start. If you manage to escape... congrats but don't get too excited it's never happened before. But if you do somehow succeed and escape you're free. So basically you have five minutes and when we catch you you're dead." He turned toward Cece, "Did I forget anything?"