Champion of the Bots ✔️

Chapter 14 ~ MARIOLA

The girl sank to her knees, her hands red and sore against the grey wall between her and her only saviour.

Then her heart jolted when a frigid hand touched her naked shoulder.

"Why are you still wearing that horrid hospital gown?" The man knelt down, his hair glittering with grey, his teeth shining white.

The girl slowly dropped her chin to her attire—a dull grey cloth covered her body from her shoulders down. A hospital? She was at a hospital? She almost wanted to chuckle—It was more like a prison.

Instead, she gritted her teeth and said, "This was all they gave me to wear."

Tutting, the man looked over his shoulder at the woman. "Samantha, I thought you were the fashionista; get the girl something more appropriate to wear for her Introduction, please."

"Yes, sir," she obeyed, the confidence in her eyes replaced by fright. Her heels clacking quietly, she walked into the back of the shadows, probably where clothes and more dangerous things hid.

The girl cocked her head slightly. "I-introduction?" She grew wary of the man before her. If he could smolder the fire from that woman's eyes, he could do a lot worse to her. Although he towered over her now from where she sat, she knew, she could feel, that this man was no ordinary man.

"Yes." His grey eyes twinkled. "Your Introduction to my people."

"My introduction?" Once the question popped up, more surfaced. "Your people? Why is there so much grey? Where am I? Who are you?"

The man smiled, but his eyes didn't gleam this time. He rose to stand up, his cane creaking from his weight. "You will find all that out sooner or later, but now you must get ready. You don't want everyone to see you in that rag, do you?"

"W-what?"

Eyebrows furrowing, the girl didn't realize a pair of small hands lifting her up from the floor until she was stripped naked.

"Ah!" Nothing to cover with, nothing to hide behind, the girl simply stood there, fully exposed in front of a man while another woman held the remains of her only clothes. The girl flung fantasies of explaining her first time naked to her possible husband in the future and boldly glared at the man who was pretending not to graze his eyes up and down and up.

"Answer my questions!" She didn't care if her body shivered in cold or shock or fury. She needed to know. "Where are we? Who are you? And why is there so much grey?"

The man simply smiled again, as if patiently dealing with a child tantrum. "Oh, I don't need to answer your questions. What is the point when you will soon remember them?" He took a step, his cane sending a thud through the floor, and leaned his lips toward her.

Cringing and shutting her eyes tight, the girl bit her lip as the man's minty breath and whispering words traveled her neck and slithered down her spine. "Here's the deal: You unlock that tight box of memories in your head, then I'll bring you back up here. Unless you happen to surprise me and pass all the levels, which I doubt." His beady eyes sparkled. "Until then, you will experience what it is like to be at the bottom, instead of the top for once in your life."

The man took a step back. The girl opened her eyes. The woman cracked open the slab of wall.

Numbly, Samantha pulled the forearm of the girl through the door. The girl didn't forgot about Edie, about the boy who broke his promise. She kept her eyes on the man.

Before she could burst out another question, he called out, "By the way, I'll answer a question that you didn't ask." The wall began to merge back together; the man slowly turning into a shadow. "Your name is Mariola."

Whump!

The crack became whole once more. The man's words continued to echo in the hallway and in the girl's mind. The girl, Mariola, shivered as a tingle of familiarity bolted through her cold, naked body.

Mariola. The name continued to pound in her temples like a steady heartbeat as she was dragged away to another hallway and into another torture room.

Yay! Finally, one of the Unknowns has a name!
What do you think of the name? Do you like it? Also, do you know who the man is?
Again, thank you all for the support 💖 The Road Home has climbed up to #309! Eeeeek! I'm so happy (as if you couldn't tell from that shriek of joy.)
Vote. Comment. And keep reading to find out about this introduction!