[3] Just A Mortal Girl | Avallone the Avenger [DISCONTINUED]

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

The next morning brought familiar sounding laughter that somehow managed to sound foreign to my ears. Perhaps because it was my laugh that didn't come from my body.

I stared at my three captors, wearing our skins as if it didn't make me feel sick to the stomach. There was a reason no one had suspicion that we were gone. To everyone in the outside world, we were still very present and definitely not strapped to metal machines that drained our magical abilities.

Some time had passed. My hair was matted together from the neck down. I hated knowing that when I escaped, cutting it would be essential. There was no way I was going to waste my time trying to salvage that wasteland.

Although the captors assumed they had broken me, and even though I believed it for some as well, the hope had been welling up inside of me. With each scenario of escaping made up in my head, I had begun my slow crawl from the pit they had thrown me into.

It was a long climb.

"Okay ladies, look pretty. It's picture day."

I frowned, unsure of what was about to happen. When did picture day exist for prisoners? The fact that they had a camera with them should have cleared the confusion, but it only buried it deeper.

"Avallone dear, smile for me."

A bright flash stunned me for a moment, and I blinked to clear the haze that had appeared over my eyes. It had been a while since I'd seen anything brighter than the dimmest halogens that lit the room.

"Sifffff, show us those pearly whites. "

Another flash, but this time it didn't hurt my eyes at all. I suppose it was the result of superior genetics, but there was no sure reason.

"Okay, Philly, last but not least."

I watched in amusement as the photos slowly printed out; a Polaroid camera. As they waited for the photos to develop, I studied each face. It had been the first time that the chance was presented to me, and there was no way I was going to miss it.

The Sif look alike was very close, but I was able to pick out things that most would not see. For example, the eye colour wasn't quite right and the hair was a lighter shade than the real Sif's. It was as if something wasn't quite right.

They began to move again, destroying my chance of studying them further. My lookalike held the picture of me up to my face and pretended to care about the comparison. "A photo never really does capture all of it, does it?"

It was strange and discomforting, hearing my voice sound so thickly bitter.

By the dangerous glint in her/my eyes, I decided it was best to keep my mouth shut. It was a great idea to aggravate my captors. "You are probably all wondering why we have taken photos of you," she said, stepping away from me and looking at Phil and Sif.

They did not speak a word.

"Well, we wanted to remember how terrible you looked. These wonderful heroes, driven to a state of disgusting waste."

My mind was already working overtime. They wanted to remember us, which signified that we would not be seeing them again. I wasn't sure when, but it was probably soon.

She/I smiled, lips curling up in a devilish smirk. I hated how it looked. "I hope you're hungry." With those words, the three of them turned and left, slamming the large metal door behind them. It echoed through the room for a few seconds and then all was silent.

Phil's eyebrows were creased with worry. "They are going to kill us."

Sif shook her head, the incident somehow shocking her back into communication. "We are for too important for them to just kill us outright. No, it has to be something else. But what, I don't know."

"It's either they kill us or leave us here to die. The pictures kind of sealed that information in an envelope and handed it to us," I mumbled, angry at myself for not quite understanding why they were doing this, and what for.

The room was silent for a few pregnant moments. "Do you think they're working for someone?"

I raised my eyes to meet Phil's. His questioned seemed logical enough, but it made me sick to the stomach. "If they are, he must be a downright asshole." The words would have been more affective if I'd been able to cross my arms, but to no avail.

But then an idea began to form in my mind.

"You can't just assume this person's gender. That's offensive in this day and age," Phil said, desperately trying to make light of the situation. The half crooked smile on his face made me want to cry. It looked so wrong as it sat between his cheeks.

No one laughed, but I did force a small smile onto my face. If my plan did manage to come to fruition and somehow magically worked, then he could crack all the jokes he could ever dream of, and I'd laugh at every single one.

It wasn't clear how much time we had left before they were going to kill us, but I was hoping it was enough to think something through. A well thought out plan could be our only hope at that moment.

But first, I needed to appear even more broken than before, to make them believe that I just wanted to die right there and then.

For the first time in months I began to scream.

The next chapter is very detailed and rather gruesome. Read at your own risk.