Timelines

Chapter 2

        Cordelia woke with a dull headache and an agonizing stiffness from her neck to her feet. She blinked her heavy eyes several times to adjust them to the dim lighting in the unknown area where she lay. The girl lifted her head gently from the cold surface and took in her surroundings.

       The ominous room was actually quite small in dimensions aside from the ceiling, which was fairly high and bore a great hole in it. If one could figure out how to climb up to the opening, they would be free from their capturers. The walls surrounding Cordelia were reinforced with some sort of cement and the only exit from the cell from the ground was on the wall opposite her. This wall was not like the others; it featured a cage-like wiring across it and a barred door with a lock and deadbolt on its front. It was obviously designed to keep the inhabitant of the cell in.

    Cordelia pushed herself up with her elbows and dragged herself backwards until she could feel the back wall against her shoulders. She used the wall as support and slid into a sitting position. She surveyed the room once more to make sure that she was alone in the little cell.

    She held her breath as she listened for any other sound in the mysterious, underground place. She stayed as still as she could, struggling not to burst out in cries for help. She also fought the urge to fiddle with her hoodie's sleeves, which she often did subconsciously when she was nervous or uneasy.

      The teen had begun to lose blood in her face when she was given an indication of another living being near her; long nails scratching on the cement ground. It was definitely coming towards her since the sound carried down the hallway and around the corner to her cell. The echoes grew more and more distinct as they approached her.

     Cordelia released her breath and immediately started gasping for air. She hadn't realized just how long she had been containing that breath, but it was long enough for her thoughts to grow muffled and face to tinge a tint of purple.

       She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly. Her worn sneakers made scuffing noises as she scrambled to become as small as she possibly could. She knew that she couldn't hide and become invisible like this, but she felt as if she didn't have time for an actual plan.

     The clicking of the claws came closer and closer, each step seemed loud enough to shake the earth. The fact that they were underground added to the many possibilities of what the claws belonged to. Cordelia surely did not want to find out.

    A long, crisp shadow stretched down the hall past Cordelia's cell as its owner approached. It shortened with each step and finally the creature presented itself at the barred wall of the cell. Cordelia's wide eyes nearly popped out of her skull as she nearly fainted from the nervous bouts of breath holding she had had while awaiting the creature.

    The menacing creature who stood silently at the cell's entrance, studied Cordelia for a long time. Its breathing was deep and slow, each release of air was more of a sigh rather than a regular breath. The figure's frame was narrow and slender, sporting a billowing cloak that seemed to swallow the creature in its loose shape and a hood that distorted its face. The creature fiddled with its cloak's seam slowly, as if in deep thought and unconscious of the long time habit.

   The creature also seemed to have huge paws for feet with equally astonishing claws on each toe. As Cordelia watched her capturer, she noticed that as the creature fumbled with the cloak's edge, its fingers were human, and so were its hands.

     It breathed in and out as if it had time to spare and was in no rush with any matter at hand. The long sighs had an chilling calmness to them as if the creature was waiting patiently for just the right time to strike. Cordelia waited. The creature waited. The atmosphere around them waited.

    Seconds after Cordelia began to feel her tense muscles loosen in her arms, the creature slightly  inclined its neck forward and from where its mouth should have been dropped a metal cylinder that clanged on the stone cold floor. This thing has a muzzle?! Cordelia thought wildly inside her head.

    And she was right, when the creature tilted its head back up after dropping the object, a shiny, animalistic nose and muzzle had caught the dim light from the hole in the ceiling of the cell it was in front of. Long whiskers had also caught the light and flashed for a moment before returning to the shadows of the hood.

     The metal tube rolled across the floor, slipped between the bottom bars of the cell, and gradually decreased its speed as it made its way into the cell. Cordelia tried to watch the cylinder and the mysterious figure at the same time, but ended up watching the cylinder more intently.

      When it stopped, Cordelia swiveled her eyes up quickly to only find that the creature had disappeared from the cell door and was nowhere in sight. It had made such a loud entrance and had exited with the stealth of an owl.