Find Me

Chapter 1: escaping 

Markus woke to the sound of a rattling cage and the clanking of chains. His eyes itched and his head was pounding so hard he thought it might explode He rubbed his eyes and looked around and noticed chains dangling from the cement roof. Following the chains with his eyes, he saw that they were each supporting a cage similar to his own.

"Hello?!" he screamed.

"Who are you?..."

It was a man's voice, he thought whoever it was sounded tired, his tone was all scratchy and broken. He looked around for the source of the voice but failed to find it.

He laughed, and Markus flinched in fear and surprise.

"You're new... aren't you?"

He tried to look for the man again and was unsuccessful.

"You can't find me," the man said, his voice low and ominous. "You can't find me," he repeated laughing, "but...," he said, his voice softening to a whisper, "you can hear me..."

CLANK!, CLANK!, CLANK!

The creepy, unknown noises made Markus tremble.

He squeezed his head through the bars to see if he could manage to catch a glimpse of the mysterious man.

"I can't remember anything" Markus retreated back into the cage as the man began to laugh.

"No one ever does..." his voice faded as he spoke.

"What do you mean 'no one ever does?'" but only silence answered him and the man was gone. "Where am I!" but no one replied, "Answer me!"

Markus stared out into the black abyss hoping his eyes would adjust to the darkness. Out of nowhere, the mysterious clanking noise returned from above him. A massive spotlight shone upon his cage. The bright light blinded him until his eyes adjusted to the light, then he saw the closest cage to him, a woman standing inside it.

"I'm sorry," she said. The noise of the chains again struck his ears, the old woman's wrinkly eyes looking back at him terrified, then the noise stopped and silence filled the air until the women's cage plummeted, her screams piercing his ears until she could no longer be heard. The noise of the cages began again. Markus' cage began to swing from side to side.

"What is that!" He said looking down at the small little red lights that surrounded him. Spontaneously his cage dropped. He fell through the air, plummeting until it came to a halt as if he were bungee jumping. When the cage stopped moving the door swung open to reveal a pathway lit by red fairy lights. He stepped out of the cage carefully, trying not to make a noise, and began to walk. When the pathway ended, he noticed the old lady who dropped moments before him.

"Are you ok?" Markus ran over to her and turned her lifeless body over. Markus jumped back, trying to get away from her. Her eyes were missing, replaced with dark red holes, and there were scabs and bruises all over her body.

"What the h-" He looked around, the walls were constructed out of skulls.

"Hello again..." it sounded like the unseeable man whom Markus had talked to earlier, but only this time he was visible. The man was tall and slender, his face lopsided, his jaw curving off to the right of his face, and he spoke again.

"What is your name....?" He whispered into the almost pitch-black room. Markus stood quietly. Silent, hoping that the man wouldn't notice him. The door slammed withholding the only exit to the room, the noise making Markus jump around. The door glowed with the same dull red fairy lights, making his surrounding brighter.

"I see you now..." The man said laughing. "I found you!" He laughed narrowing his eyebrows inwards, tilting his head to the side, his gaze never leaving Markus.

"Who are you, and leave me alone!" Markus screamed and tried to sound as manly and brave as he could in this circumstance.

"But it's so fun..." the man stopped laughing sounding almost hurt by what Markus had said.

"Where am I?"

Suddenly the room began to fill with a bright blue gassy substance.

"What is this stuff?" Markus said, fear washing over his face.

"Goodbye," the man said, and then once again he was gone.

Markus ripped off a piece of his t-shirt and tied it tightly around his face until there were no gaps exposing his mouth and nose to the mysterious substance.

Markus searched the room for an escape or any light that indicated the outside world. He searched for five minutes until he began to feel dazed and confused, and then he sat down accepting his fate. He felt the heat of the gas masking his face and his eyes trying to roll back and forcing him to go to sleep.

"Hey, over here!"

Markus looked up from the ground and notice a slim girl, around the same age as he was, eighteen, sitting in the corner of the room with a triangular cloth over her nose and mouth.

"I must be hallucinating..." he thought to himself looking back at the ground covering his ears with both of his hands.

"Hey idiot, don't you want to live?"

"Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" Markus' mind was pounding, the gas playing with his thoughts and words. "Leave me alone!"

"Sorry, but I can't do that" Then the girl started walking towards him. Markus still in the same spot rocking back and forth, he looked up at the girl, with long black hair and bright green eyes, and faded into the darkness of his trapped mind.

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"Ouch," Markus said holding his hands up to his head, that was pounding like an earthquake.

"Hello to you too."

"What, who are you!?" He looked up at the girl towering over him, she wasn't wearing the cloth over her face, but instead showing a thin scar that made its way down past her nose and across her mouth.

"What are you looking at?" she said defensively

"Your face, the scar, what happened...?"

She got up and stormed off, slamming the door behind her as she left the room.

"She doesn't like talking about it." A random stranger just appeared on the other side of Markus looking down at him, he was short, thin and had scruffy black hair.

"I'm getting so tired of asking who people are," Markus said in annoyance.

"Well, I am Jayme, nice to meet you too, I have never seen Caroline act that way around anyone before."

"Caroline?"

"The one that saved your life, idiot," Jayme said slapping the palm of his hand against his forehead.

"Well, what happened to her?" Markus said curiously.

"I think you should ask her yourself." he got up and started walking towards the door, "Oh, and she will probably be in the forest somewhere, good luck... You'll need it... nice meeting you"

Markus kindly smiled at him and got up and started walking towards the door to go and find Caroline and get some answers. As he walked out of the door, he felt coldness rush all over his body and a soft sensation of small dots falling over him. He looked up into the sky, it was night time and little white specks were falling through the air and blowing along with the wind, snow. To his right was a forest filled with tall dark trees layered with white snow, and to his left, a long field lay completely covered by snow. Small huts filled the area around them light shining from each of them. "Jayme suggested looking in the forest," he thought as he made his way into the dark forest enclosed by snow, without hesitation.