The Slayer

8 - Trapped

Elise immediately grabbed me and put her hands around me to prevent me from moving. The old man took a syringe and injected me. I lost consciousness.
                                  
                              ***

I woke up in a white room.(or a cubicle as it was so small) I was really getting tired of waking up in places I didn't recognise.

I looked around. There was a small toilet and a shower head on one corner. Other than that, the room was completely bare. Not very good living conditions.

Now, where on Galaxia was I?
The room lurched forward. It was moving. I listened and heard the sound of the sea. I was on a ship?! Wait, I thought they weren't going to kill me. Then where were they taking me?

I was in the room for a while. I looked around, touching the walls, knocking on them. The knocks echoed. So there were other rooms on the side. Then, I heard a knock back! I was just about to knock again when the door opened and a man came in.

I tried to run out of the way he came in but he grabbed my arm. He cuffed my hands and led me out of the room into a big hall. It was filled with screams. I stopped in my tracks. I looked around to see people lying down, bound to stretchers, screaming in pain.

What the hell?! Where was I?
"Hey, healer! Walk," The man said, pointing towards a stretcher. No way... I turned pale with horror as I realised what I was here for.

Whatever they were doing to all those other people, it was about to happen to me. I began backing up. The man was behind me in no time, in an astonishing speed. I guess that was his ability.

"No! No!" I cried, not knowing what to do. There was no way out. He picked me up and put me on the stretcher. There were cuffs attached on it. He put me down and attached the restraining cuffs on my neck, hands and feet.

He took one of my hands and inserted something like a drip into my mana mark. It was connected to some kind of machine. My fear made even that minor pain more terrible. He hovered his finger around a switch and said, "Try not to tire your throat out too much. You'll have to come here again tonight."

He turned on the switch. For a second, I didn't feel anything. Then I felt it. "Aaagh!"
The pain! I let out an involuntary scream. If I thought I'd felt pain before, I was wrong. All that was nothing compared to this. It felt like my soul was being ripped apart, my whole body being cut into pieces with a knife.

My eyes watered and I was crying and screaming, my skin getting scratched by the cuffs attached to my body. This went on for about 2 hours. By the time it was finished, I fainted out of exhaustion.

When I came to, I was in the white room again. My whole body was sore. Not to mention my throat. I tried to speak, but my throat hurt and my voice sounded like a croak. I got up and knocked on the wall again. For a while there was no reply and I was disappointed. But just when I sat down, I heard it.

I knocked back again. Then I heard a girl's voice inside my head. I don't know how to describe it, but it was like someone was transmitting a message into your head. Like telepathy.

"Hello? Can you hear me? Oh god, I sure hope you can. I suck at telepathy."

So it was telepathy!

"Uh..." I said aloud. "How does this work? I speak out like this? Hello? Can you hear me?"

"Yes! I did it!" The voice responded. "Oh sorry. Like I said, I suck at this so you can probably hear everything that comes into my mind."

"Is that why I can hear the baby shark song?" I asked.

"Oh...yeah, I'm having a hard time getting that earworm out of my head. As for your earlier question, yes, this way is fine. You can eventually talk to people like me in your mind through a little practice."

"I'm sorry, who are you?"

"That's kinda rude. Sorry! Like I said, I have no filter. I'm Lena. I'm a clairvoyant."

"Whoa, you're a clairvoyant? That's amazing! You can have visions of the future and stuff, right?"

"Yeah. What about you?"

I didn't want her to pity me. "Nah, never mind about me. But can you please tell me what the hell is going on here? I was kidnapped and sedated and tortured, but for what?! Nothing makes sense!"

"I get how you feel. I've been here for a week now."

Oh god, a week in this place? I was surprised she was still sane. Maybe clairvoyants had more mental endurance..?

"It's some kind of mafia. We were kidnapped too. My friend was quite powerful, but they ganged up on him. They extract our mana using that machine and sell it. Mana is a depleting resource, after all."

So that's why it hurt so much. I'd heard about extraction before. It was highly illegal. Mana was like a part of your soul, your very being. It shouldn't be possible to extract it. But it was.

"Why can't they at least sedate us while doing it?!" I asked. My anger was increasing.

"I don't really know. Maybe because it doesn't work when we're not conscious, or maybe because it would cost a lot more to buy the anesthesia. Either way, I don't plan on staying here long.

"I know a way to escape. But I need your help. I'm guessing you don't have an offensive ability. None of us here have. Except for my friend. I saw them taking him to the upper deck.

"They usually only bring defenseless people in here. But they got greedy. They captured him and I'm going to make sure it's the biggest mistake they ever made.

"His ability...well it's kind of strange. They're probably conducting experiments on him. But if we can somehow release him, we can get out of here. And I have a plan."

That would have to wait because then the man who had come earlier barged in again. At least knock, dude! Two more hours of torture. Heaps to look forward to, right?

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