A World Beyond Our Own | TFP AU

32 || Rescue

A headache greeted Taylor as she slowly came to her senses. Almost immediately, her eyes flew open and she sat upright with a soft gasp. She was laying on a cot in a small room. The room was bare and had no windows. Artificial light from a bulb in the ceiling cast a sickly yellow glow on the walls.

"Good. You're awake." A voice came from the door.

Taylor stiffened, her fearful gaze locking with Silas's stoic one as she turned towards the steel-bolted door. She could only see his face through the small opening in the door, but that was all she wanted to see. As long as he was behind that door, she was safe.

"Where am I? What do you want with me?" She asked him, struggling to keep her voice from trembling.

"You're in my domain. And to be honest, I only sought you out for that dragon friend of yours." Silas replied calmly. "He will make a wonderful specimen for study. The first one we captured was too young to get everything we wanted, but he is older. He's had more time to grow and mature. I'll finally have the missing pieces in the puzzle of dragon evolution."

Taylor pushed herself up from the cot. She needed to reach Ratchet, but how? "You shouldn't be messing with them."

"And who's to say I can't?" Silas turned and stepped out of sight. Taylor thought he'd left before he suddenly spoke again. "A war is coming. It's either us or them. You can't have both."

Once she heard his footsteps fading down the hall, Taylor released a breath she didn't know she'd been holding in.

"He's crazy..." She muttered under her breath, glancing back up at the door. "I have to find Ratchet before it's too late."

She crept over to the door and stood on her tiptoes to peer through the opening. The door was bolted shut by a padlock. For a group with highly advanced tech, you'd think they would invest in better security. Perhaps this wasn't their main facility, which only made Taylor's worries grow.

How were they operating right under the nose of the United States government?

After searching the room high and low, Taylor found a piece of wire on the floor. She bent the end of it into a hook and examined it.

"Let's hope this works." She murmured, heading back over to the door.

Five minutes passed with no success. It certainly didn't help that she had to cease all efforts whenever a patrol passed by. Now nearing the ten minute mark, Taylor was about ready to give up. The muscles in her arm burned as she jiggled the wire around in the padlock. Short huffs of exertion escaped her as she stretched her arm further, determined to make this work.

Finally, after what felt like ages had passed, she heard the padlock click and clatter to the floor. She let go of the wire and pushed open the door with a low creak. Breathing softly, she cautiously traveled down the hall to her right. Her plan was to find something that could give her a hint as to where they were keeping Ratchet, like a sign or a directory. In the back of her mind, she prayed that he was alright.

Navigating the endless twists and turns of the facility while simultaneously avoiding patrols of soldiers was no easy task, but Taylor was rewarded in the end. She had spotted a sign while traveling down a narrow corridor that said:

CONTAINMENT CENTER: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Judging by the awful smell, she figured that's where they were keeping their specimens. Every sense was on high alert as she crept down the corridor. Soon, the corridor opened into a room that could've been considered large if it wasn't cramped by dozens of massive cages. Well, massive by her standards.