Ground Two

Cold Metal Floor

7:47 A.M.

Feeling started to return to Lumina's body. Soon, her hands and legs could feel the metal floor sticking to her skin and rubbing it raw as her captors drug her to an unknown place.

Lumina's stomach churned and pain swarmed inside of her skull. It made for a pretty unpleasant and overwhelming feeling. Lumina groaned outwardly.

"Just stop for one moment, Tom," Lumina heard her father say.

The burning feeling suddenly stopped, the back of her T-shirt settled onto the skin of her back, and her head fell, with a thud, to the hard, metal floor. (Of course, that didn't make her headache any better.) Lumina squeezed her eyelids closer together, and her teeth clamped down onto her lip.

Lumina felt the toe of a boot slightly nudge her in the side of the abdomen. She slowly allowed her eyes to open, her pupils contracting, and her vision settling on her father's worn face. Her eyebrows creased, her forehead wrinkling, as heated anger bubbled inside of her.

Lumina's father stretched his hand out to comb a piece of Lumina's hair behind her ear. "Oh, don't start getting angry with me, child. I'm only doing what my boss asks of me."

"Yeah, and I'm following some made-up leader of Ground 2. No. Wait. That's called my mind. I'm following my mind!"

"You're insane."

"No! You are for following that... that... criminal." Lumina gingerly shifted her head to the side. "Never would I have imagined that my own flesh-and-blood would betray me to some psycho whom I once knew to be my friend." A tear slipped from Lumina's eye.

Lumina's father, who still hovered above her, shifted his weight. Then, he quickly took Lumina's left calf into his hand and continued to drag her forward.

There was no outright complaining. There was no sound of scolding. But deep inside of Lumina, there was her inner voice. And instead of complaining...

It was growling.

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Lumina's head would occasionally whack off of the uneven metal floor - her headache growing even more unbearable by the second - while her father and the other guy trailing along after him didn't even care about her well-being.

The moving eventually stopped, the pain subsiding into a throbbing ache that matched the rhythm of her heartbeat. Granted, it was annoying, but it was better than feeling like you were being knocked senseless.

Lumina felt her father's eyes upon her. She let her lips part to ask, "What?"

There was no answer, but her body was lifted from the ground and seemed to hover in the air, fingers digging deep into her shoulder blades and calves.

"In you go," called Lumina's father as she was swung back and let go, flying through the air, nausea punching her hard in the gut after striking the floor. Hard.

Lumina coughed, the air knocked clear from her lungs, as she struggled to breath. Her hands tried to grasp for something that lay across the cold, metal floor, but found nothing.

Air finally caught in her air way. There was relief, but only for a moment.

Lumina turned onto her side, wincing at the pain within her skull and deep within her stomach. Neon green bars raced down from the ceiling, locking her within the little room. Her father, and the red headed, Irish looking man named Tom, looked in at her. Tom's stare was stern, but deep within his hazel eyes, Lumina could pick out a hint of heartfelt concern. In her father's, there seemed to be no sort of sympathy whatsoever, just a cold, hard heart. As cold as the metal floor.

"Have fun getting acquainted with your next-door-neighbor," Lumina's father said, pointing to her right. "He's just as insane as you."

"No, I'm not," A gruff voice barked. "You two are the insane ones."

"Not likely, Trattle," Lumina's father called back, turning his head ever so slightly to look at Lumina and then pass a quick wink her way.

Lumina's expression twisted into confusion at the peculiar gesture, but immediately realized, once her father walked away, that was his plan all along: bring her into the presence of Heinz Trattle.

The second step, Lumina's plan: formulate an escape plan.

Third: stop Soal.