The Terror Within The Walls

This is just an exert from a story-- continues from last chapter where Emma just admitted she liked Jayca, a guy who looks after him who is 19. She is only 14.

Chapter Four

          Terror Within The Walls

When the door finally opens and Kat comes in I don't even want to talk about what happens. She seems completely oblivious to why I am in here. "Oh Emma, I wish you could have gone to training with us!It would have been so much better with you there." For once in my life I don't want to gush with her. Not just her, but anyone really. I don't want to talk at all, I just want to listen to what she has to say and not have to make any kind of statement back. She notices this rather quickly and is at my side in an instant. "What's wrong, Emma?"

She's known me for way to long to know that when I'm not talking, something is wrong. "Em?" She asks. I look over at her and I feel like I want to cry, I don't know why, everything is so new to me. "Em!" She says astonished at my expression. "Hey, tell me!" 

I shake my head then say, "I told him, Kat." she doesn't seem to know what I'm talking about so I say, "I told Jayca I liked him." She stares at me as if I'm insane. "We were kind of on the topic, and it just-- well I just said it." She nods her head in understandably. 

"Tell me everything, Em." She says. So I do. From the minute she left until now. She's a great listener, laughs when it's funny and adds a little commentary when I pause, but when I finish her expression is somber. She waits a second after I'm done then says, "I thought he liked you." I don't know if I agree with that. I'd be too bias on the subject, the facts would be clouded my imagination, so I can't possibly know if he ever did like me. I sigh. 

"I guess not." I say. "This is going to be horrible! We practically live together! I have to do everything with him!" I drop my voice down to an almost inaudible whisper, "What's going to happen?" She 

drops her gaze and I can tell she doesn't know either. "I have to go to the dungeons tonight. With or without him. You're coming with me?" 

She looks up in my eyes and says, "Wouldn't miss it." 

She tried to to convince me to come out for dinner, but I don't want to leave the room. I don't want to face Jayca, especially not in front of the dorm. When she comes back in it's nearly six o' clock. We don't have anywhere else to be tonight so she stays with me in the room. We talk for awhile about how we're going to find our way back down to the kitchens and then to the dungeon. We can remember small parts, and our adjoining memories of last night help us out a little. We have to stop talking about it though around eight because Kes comes in. 

"Why weren't you at dinner?" She asks. "Have you been in here all this time?" Really? Did you see me out there? The main room is not that big! 

"Yeah, she has." Kat snaps at her. 

"Oh, well what are you guys talking about?" She asks suspiciously. 

"Bed. Goodnight." And with that Kes gets into her bed and turns off her light. Following her lead, I crawl into bed and turn mine off as well leaving Kes standing alone in the dimly lit room. I turn over in my bed and realize there is almost no possible way I'm going to be able to get to sleep. For three hours I toss and turn until finally I see the lights go off in the main room. I wait for a minute then get up and quietly dress into dark clothes. As soon as I'm finished I go over to Kat and gently shake her awake. "Kat!" I whisper and she snaps awake and is dressed in seconds. 

We walk out of the bedroom and into the main room. I get a deep feeling of sadness in he pit of my stomach when I see that Jayca isn't out here waiting for us like last night. We walk across the room and out the door. Everything is so much more free when there is only you and your best friend. My nerves are on edge but I try not to think about how much trouble we can get in, but how much it's worth it to directly disobey orders. Amazingly enough we find our way down to the kitchens without no trouble at all, what gets confusing however, is making our way to the dungeons. "Aren't they this way?" I ask her as we walk by a staircase. We stop and she looks at me and says, 

"I don't remember!" This throws us into a quiet fit of giggles and finally we decide to just go her way. As we crouch slash jog through the corridor I feel so free and anxious that I completely forget about what happened with Jayca. We are giggling still as we make our way down a set of stairs and down another passageway. I know it is wrong before I see the light in the chamber. We aren't in the dungeons, we must have made a wrong turn, but the way the light flickers, it draws me closer. "Where are you going?" Kat hisses at me. This must be a rhetorical question since there really only is one way to go. Straight. 

I reach the edge of the chamber and push the door open a crack. I'm sure no one is inside, because nothing is moving. I wait for a minute absolutely frozen, then push the door open a little more. I glimpse inside and see that I was right, no one is inside. I push the door all the way open and I have a complete view of the entire room. It is set up with machines and screens that I don't know what are for, but on the far side, sitting on a table is a small, well, I don't actually know what it is. At first it looks like something is on fire, but I can now see that the fire is inside this object. I edge closer, looking sharply at it. It was inside some kind of spherical object. The thing couldn't be much bigger than a dinner plate, but for some reason it was so intoxicating to watch. 

"Emma!" Kat calls softly from the door. "Come on, Em, we have to go find the dungeons!" She's right. I give the sphere one last lingering look and then turn away from it. She gives me a look like I've lost it but follows me out of the chamber. "What was that-- that thing?" She asks me. 

"I don't know." I say, shaking my head. "It seemed to be on fire." 

After getting lost countless times, we have finally have found the stairs to the dungeons. No less than an hour has gone by since we left the kitchens, so we won't stay very long. My plans, however, turn icy when I hear a voice coming from down the hall. "You kids better start talking or we're going to whip you until you do." Growls a male voice. I recognize it as the guy who whipped Renese and I instantly freeze. If we're caught, we could be killed. Kat seems to realize this too, because she grips my arm, her nails digging into my skin. I hear the swish of the whip and hear one of the girls scream in agony. "Tell me how you got here!" He yells at them. "Tell me!' The swishing of the whip is countless as I can hear all of them crying out in what could only be described as excruciating pain. 

I beckon for Kat to follow me into another chamber so that we can hide in the shadows until they leave but we're halfway into the chamber when I hear another recognizable voice. "We can do this all night, kids. Talk or get whipped." It belong to Laci. I close my eyes and try to go back to my first thoughts of her. Her voice was so sweet and she seemed so relaxed. So when I hear her speak I am surprised that her tone is so cold and hard. Kat's nails are still digging into my skin and I can feel blood starting to slide down my arm. I force my feet to move into the shadows of the chamber and slowly we etch our way into a sitting position. It's so dark in here that I can barely just make out Kat's outline. 

I can just barely make out the sound of Laveir's voice and I am undeniabley sad when I hear him literally seem to choke out the words, "I will never tell you anything." There is a scream, and I am so sure that it is that of Feleax. 

"Well, boy, then you will watch these girls suffer at your stupidity. Your doing this to them, not us." Laci says with almost what sounds like cruel laughter in her voice. I hear another torturous scream and I know it is not the whip anymore, but they are hurting them with something else. With what, I cannot say, but it sounds so much worse than what the whip did. 

For hours we sit there listening to the girls cry and scream with terror. We hear Laveir shouting obscenities and once we can hear him trying to fight them off. We can tell in his voice that he is probably in tears as well. Laci and the man however do not back down in the slightest. Sometimes we hear shrill laughter coming from Laci after a sharp piercing scream from one of the girls. Or we'll hear angry, aggressive yelling from her male counterpart  

For hours Kat and I hold each other tightly, both of us have silent tears running down our faces. Blood on both of us from where the other had gripped to hard. We're shaking and shivering from the pure horror that goes on next to us knowing that there is nothing we can do but wait it out. Soon we start to shiver excessively from a sudden temperature drop. We're both dreadfully tired and hungry, but there's no way we could possibly be able to speak. Not with the nightmare going on so close. Soon my thoughts drift toward Jayca. What would he do if he were down here with us? He'd probably hold Kat and I tightly and whisper to us that they will survive. We'll all survive. I surprise myself with even knowing that that is exactly what he would say. I didn't realize just how well I really did know him after all. We have lived together for a week, with nothing really to talk about, but ourselves. 

A high-pitched screech shakes me out of my revery. "Don't! You! Ever! Do! That! Again!" Shrills Laci. A grunt of pain echoes around the dungeons. "You little brat!" I picture kittens, scrunched up against a corner, terrified out of their wits. Their fur is on edge, backs arched, shaking violently. I can see one lash out with her front paw and I picture a foot kicking her into the others. Anger spikes up inside of me, but I can't do anything. There's nothing I can do. 

I don't know how long we have been down here, but I know it well into the next day. Every time my eyes start to drop I am awaken by another scream. By what seems like nightfall of the second day I finally hear Laci say, "That's enough! I've had enough!" Her voice is shaking with anger and her next sentence is full of so much malice I can almost taste the murder. "On the fifth night of this week, you three will be lynched." I realize I must have stopped breathing because when I go for breath, I come out gasping quietly. I hear her and her partner start to walk in our direction towards the door but just as they past the chamber we're in, someone bangs through the door, gasping. 

"What is it?" Laci snaps at the disturbance.

"Madame, I'm sorry to bother you, but someone told me you were down here so--" The voice is not familiar but it that of a women.

"What?" Laci asks impatiently.

"Emerald Jadeite and her friend Kat Ace, they never showed up for their training today. Neither course. Jayca claims that they both lay ill in bed, but we haven't seen any sign of them, we aren't allowed inside the dorm." My heart begins to pound against my chest. 

I can almost feel the anger from Laci as she turns on the women and yells, "Find them! Look around everywhere, I will personally go up to see Jayca myself." With that they all three rush out of the dungeons. That's it. Are challenge is set before us and it is either wait for them to realize that Jayca way lying or get to our beds faster than the others. Challenge accepted. Kat seems to read my mind because we both take off toward the cell in which holds the three victims. 

"No time to explain!' I say, shoving the food between the bars. I must have startled them. I wonder how we must look to them. Coated in dry and wet blood, hair tangled, tear trails streaking down our faces, but it is nothing compared to what they look like. I can't stay to chat though, so I yell, "We'll come back for you soon!" We take off down the corridor at top speed and but we are careful to make little noise as we travel quickly up the stairs. I open the door at the top and see the three others just disappearing around the corner up ahead. I close the door quietly as we come out and I hear a click in the distance of the door to the other staircase closing. 

I look around violently for another way, but there is none. We race down the hallway and I pull open the doorway gently. They have already exited, so we pound up the stairs. I open the first door we come to and see the others no more than ten yards from us. I shove Kat back into the stairwell and we climb to the next door. Everything becomes familiar as I remember this is the way the man had taken me a few days back. Now knowing where we are, I run at a full sprint with Kat trialing right behind me. I wonder for a split second where everyone is, then realize that if it is the evening of the second day, they are all in the Great Hall for their lecture on some topic that I can't quite remember. 

I throw the door open and Kat and I burst in, breathing hard. Jayca looks up from a chair where he is going over some kind of text book. His expression is somber and he shouts at us, "Wash yourselves off with the towels in your room, change into your night close, and fake being asleep!" We don't even pause to ask anything else. We charge across the main room and plow into our bedroom door. It is only seconds later when we here a knock on the front door. Jayca must have had it all planned out because there are what appears to be half drunken warm cups of milk and a pill bottles on each of our nightstands. There are small damp hand towels lying on both our dressers and we both grab at them simultaneously. We wash off the blood on our arms and wash the tear stained trails off our faces. "Hello, Laci, welcome. What can I do for you?" We hear Jayca's muffled voice from the main room.

I tear off my clothes and bury them in the huge hamper next to the closet as I silently thank whoever didn't do our laundry."I've come to see Emerald and Kat." Laci replies, her voice is once again sweet and relaxed.

"Well, they are both currently asleep in their bedroom," Jayca lies smoothly as I jerk my shirt over my head and hiking up my shorts. 

"May I please check to make sure they are all right?" Laci asks politely.

"Well, I don't want you to catch anything." Jayca replies. I look to Kat who just finished pulling on her clothes. I give her a thumbs up to say she looks fine and she returns it with a wry smile.

"Don't forget to controll your breathing!" She hisses ever so quietly at me as we both dive into our beds. I nod and pull the covers just up to me neck and clothes my eyes just as Laci and Jayca walk into the room. 

"Oh, don't mind me." Laci says. But I can hear her dissapointment in her next words as she turns on the light and sees us both lying in our beds asleep. "I'll be fine." I force myself not to flinch at the closeness of her voice when I think about how long we were down there listening to her mock Laveir and the girls. I hold my breath for about ten seconds then force myself to take just as long to breath out.  "Could you wake them for me?" 

I know exactly why she wants us to wake, she wants to know if our stories match. Well she's just about to find out exactly how good a liar I am. Jayca I know has doubts about waking us, but he goes and pretends to wake Kat first, which is good because she is more of a light sleeper. "Kat? Kat?" He asks softly. "Hey, girl, wake up." I hear her turn over and yawn. 

"Hi there, Kat." She says. She must have stopped Jayca from waking me just yet because he doesn't come. "How are you feeling?" She actually sounds sincere and I realize that's because she  doesn't know anything about Kat disobeying orders. Kat's no threat to her. It's me. 

"Fine." She croaks. This one word apparently makes her cough. She is a pretty good actor. 

"How long have you been in here?" Laci asks soothingly.

"I don't know," she says. I think she must have turned to the clock because she says next, "ever since last night, after dinner?" She says it in the form of a question and I silently have to give her props for this. 

"How long has Emerald been in here?" She then asks, but I can hear she's having difficulty keeping the impatience out of her voice. 

"Um, she was in here before me. I don't know when she came in, I was at a training session." Kat says this so slowly I find if I wasn't so good at spotting liars, I would actually believe this. "Why don't you ask her?"

"Yes," Laci agrees. "Yes, Jayca? Will you wake Emerald for us?" Oh great, I get to be invited into this conversation. 

I can feel his hot breath on me before he even says my name and that just sends those butterflies 

wild. "Emma?" He reaches over and presses his palm to my cheek and turns me toward him and the butterflies seem to take this as an invitation to fly to my head which gives me a head rush as I open my eyes. At first all I see is black, but thanks to the butterflies, that is only because of the head rush. Slowly it starts to clear and my eyes come back into focus. 

"Jayca?" I ask, making my voice thick with sleep. "What.." I start tiredly. "What are you doing in here?" I make my voice trail off quietly towards the end of the sentence. I realize this is the first time I've talked to him since my confession.

"Someone is here to see you," He says gently and moves out of my way so I have a clear view of Laci. I pretend to squint against the light pretending that it's too bright. I blink rapidly as I pretend to adjust. 

"Hey.. " I say to her. I realize that she is smiling down at me but I can see it in her eyes that she is fearful. 

"Hi, Emma." Laci says bending down next to me. "How are you feeling sweetheart?" I hint bitterness in her voice, but I pretend not to notice it. 

"Never been better." I joke and start to fake laugh but wince like it causes me too much pain. I yawn, but it is definitely not fake. 

"How long have you been in here?" I don't answer right away. If I really was sick, then it would have been right after my confession. I look towards the clock and gasp softly. 

"It's already eight?" I ask. "I must have been in here since, well yesterday around three o'clock sometime, maybe?" I'm about to look at Jayca, but the full events of that time come crashing back in full detail and I don't want too. 

"Do you know what you have?" Laci asks gently. I shake my head but wince again in fake pain. Great, now I successfully have stomach pains as well as a headache. 

"No," I whisper.

"She threw up yesterday," Jayca offers and I make a disgusted face and pretend to have something gross in my mouth. "She went rushing into the bathroom around four thirty, just before the others arrived. I guess Kat must have gotten it from her."

"Yeah," Laci confirms. "They must have some kind of virus." She concludes. And I hear in her voice that she actually believes us. She turns to Jayca and says, "They will both be dismissed from class tomorrow, and if it still isn't better, they are to go to see the Healers." 

"Yeah, I'll remember that." Jayca says in relief. "I just don't want them doing anything or infecting the other kids."

"Yes, and the other girl that stays with them will have to sleep in the main room tonight and tomorrow night," I silently cheer about this and finally Laci says, "I have to get going now, watch after them carefully, Jayca." He nods. Accepting this, she walks out of the room and we hear the door shut behind her.

I don't want to look at him, I don't want him to say anything to make my situation worse. Instead, I look up at the roof and search for designs to distract me. But when I hear his voice next, it's worried, "What happened to the both of you?" It's not at all angry and definitely not annoyed.

"We went down to the dungeons." Kat says since I find myself with the unability to form proper words, much less, a sentence. I can't see Jayca's reaction but his voice stays the same. 

"Without me?" He asks. Oh no, please don't, not now. Not with my best friend in the room.

Kat sighs, "We thought you were mad at us," She says, and I notice how she says "we" and "us" when it was clearly just me. I can't honestly say what is going through his mind and right now, I don't think I want to know. "She was down there, she's going to kill them." Kat continued. "All night and day they were torturing all three of them!" 

"How did you get blood all over yourselves?" He asks.

"We-- we were gripping each other, tightly. We were only maybe two chambers down from them. It was horrible, Jayca! You don't know--" Kat stutters and lets her voice die out. I think he does know, more than he's telling us then. 

His voice is urgent now as he presses Kat to continue, "Are they still alive?" I know she nods her head at this question. I can't take it anymore, I get up to go to the bathroom. As I slip on my slippers Jayca grabs me gently by the arm. "Where are you going?" He asks. 

"Out there." I say, gesturing with my head to the open doorway. I start to walk past him, my stomach empty except for the jittery butterflies. 

"No." He says softly but as I go to jerk away he leans in and kisses me. His lips are surprisingly soft against mine and the butterflies in my stomach seem to turn into actual birds in a cage, fighting their way out. My heart pounds in my chest, but this time, not with fear, but with relief. I feel a tingle sensation starting at the tips of my fingers and spreading quickly throughout my entire body. I can't seem to remember anything, my thoughts are fading and everything around me is gone. One of his hands are in my hair, holding my head against him. The other is on the small of my back, supporting me, which is good, because I feel like I'm going to faint. 

Author's Note

I do not want critique. I want something that you would typically find at the front or back cover of a book. Thanks.