Might As Well Start......Now Or Never

We meet Adri.

"This one." the tall, emaciated woman in a scientist coat and big glasses extended a pale, skeletal finger in my direction. A figure in a black shroud emerged from the shadows and began advancing towards me. It said nothing, only held out its covered arms to grab me. Slowly, slowly, he approached, but I could not move.

"No." I murmured, petrified. Run! my mind screamed, but my legs refused to obey. The phantom came closer and closer, the only thing showing from under his hood two glowing red eyes, filled with evil. A large, awful smile spread across his face revealing disgusting, craggy teeth, and behind him, the lady looked at me with her empty, vapid eyes.

The black sleeves of the shroud slid back a little, revealing no flesh, just bones for fingers. They reached out to me, closer, closer, closer.........

I jolted up, drenched in sweat and breathing heavily. It was a dream, I thought, relieved. Just a dream. Flopping back on the white-as-paper bed, I laid there until my breathing steadied, and my nerves had settled.

As much as they could steady, anyway, considering the circumstances.

I'd been in this room for five days.

It's been two months since I've seen her.

Since they took her away.

I got up, stumbling to the smooth, white sink in the corner. Splashing water on my face made me a tad more alert, and I wiped off my face with the white towel on the rack.

Did I mention I lived in a white box?

White walls, white floor, white bed, white shower, white toilet, and the most awesome part of my room; my pearl colored toothbrush.

White door, with a state-of-the-art, high-tech security system, locked from the outside, and a tiny barred window at the top.

I do not lead a normal life.

Wait........I'm getting ahead of myself, so I'd better start over.

My name is Adriana, but way back when I still lived in public, people called me Adri. Back then, I had two loving parents, George and Carol, a house, a real bed, a room to myself, and a puppy named Fluffy (I wanted to name him Fang, but my mom told me it was too "unique").

My parents wanted two girls; an Adriana and an Auriela. But despite their hopes, I was an only child for eleven years.

Then she was born.

From the moment I saw her, I loved Auriela. Impossibly huge and gorgeous dark, dark, brown eyes seemed to say she was more than the eye could see, and brown hair curled around her perfect face. Not muddy, ugly, brown, but chocolate brown, the kind of hair that makes you envious. She was perfect.

Five years later, and two months ago, the family was gathered in the living room, around a cozy, crackling fire. I'll remember the scene forever, until the day I die. It's been branded in my mind, like accidentally seeing your grandma in her underpants.

Shudder.

Where was I? Oh, yeah.

My mom was sewing the buttons back on my dad's shirt, slowly rocking in her chair. My dad was reading the newspaper, his gun within reach.

Why?

Oh, I didn't mention I was telepathic? Sorry, slips my mind sometimes.

When I was seven, I started to hear voices inside of my head. I told my mom, and she made me write them down on paper while she watched. Turned out, it was my mom's thought processes. I quickly figured out to control my 'gift', so I wasn't getting thoughts from people all the time....that could be awkward.

My parents have to take extra precautions to ensure my safety, like the gun.

Anyway, back to the memory. At the coffee table, I played Uno with Auriela, her usually winning.

She began to show telepathic skills at age three, and has alway been a much more advanced telepath, compared to me. Unfortunately, at her age and with her unique skills, cheating at a card game was all too tempting.

Yes, yes, I know, this all sounds picturesque and corny, but it's my freaking memory, so shut up and read.

Anyway, as we sat there, there was a sudden knock at the door, so my father put down his paper and answered it.

A single man stood there, dressed in a black suit.

He smiled at my father.

That was all.

My dad lunged for his gun, but a single shot from somewhere rang out, and my father died before he hit the ground, blood staining the carpet under his head. Auriela screamed, and I snatched her up and held her close, trying to hide the horror from her. My mother stood, two more shots were fired, and two dots of crimson on her yellow blouse blossomed and grew rapidly in size as she thudded to the ground. Auriela was crying loudly, her face buried in my shirt, her tiny fists curled in a death grip around my shoulders.

More soldiers swarmed in from every opening, and surrounded us.

"Only the elder girl is gifted." the man in the suit said calmly, as if he had not just murdered two innocent people. "Shoot the younger." A gun was pointed at Auriela's head, and cocked. Without even looking up, or pausing in her sobbing, Auriela's small hand extended, and formed a fist in the air.

The gun crumpled like paper, wrapping around the hand of the man holding the gun. He dropped like a stone, screaming like a banshee and clutching his crushed hand.

"Extraordinary." the black suit man stared at his injured comrade as two people hurried to help the guy. He watched the whole thing with his demented indifference, as if it didn't affect him in the slightest.

"Take them both." came the command, and someone tore Auriela from my grasp. I screamed as they separated us, then I tried to angrily stab at the evil suited man's mind, but discovered it was like pounding against a rock, completely shut off to mind probes. As if amused by my efforts, he chuckled.

"You think we would come here without protection?" he mocked me. I charged at him, but someone yanked my hair, keeping me from going forward. Tears ran down my face, and I heard Auriela's sobbing, but I couldn't see her.

"Auriela!" I shrieked, as my captor dragged me through the door, kicking and biting.

They threw me in the back of a car, and three men held me down as the car backed out of the driveway.

They ran over Fluffy in the process.

I screamed, bit, kicked, swore, hit, and basically became a hellcat.....my mother would be proud.

"Sedate her." someone said, and a needle was jabbed in my arm. My vision grew fuzzy, and I stumbled. The last thing I saw was the hated face of the man in the suit, examining me intently.

"Extraordinary." he commented, and my vision went black.

The smell of waste, sickness, filth, and death greeted me as I awakened.

I woke up in a cage; no, it was not an expression.

It was a cage.

Not enough room to stand, only to sit; not even enough room to stretch out your legs. Looking through the bars, the cage was in a long, narrow room, too long for me to see the end, with flickering and weak lightbulbs on the ceiling, threatening to go out at any second. The floor wasn't even visible; at least two layers of disgusting filth caked it.

Cages like mine lined on the sides, and I shrieked as I glimpsed their contents.

Kids, with horrible deformities and defects, crouched inside of them, dirty, scared, and looking like they had been tossed in a blender.

One kid was scrunched up in the corner of his cage, his face hidden. He doesn't look so bad. I thought, until he looked up. His eyes were just two glowing red balls of fire in his eye sockets, and his nose was just two slits in the center of his face.

He had no mouth.

One girl sat in the back of her cage, a vapid look in her eyes, repeatedly stretching her arm out, and it lengthened like stretched out putty. Every time her arm reached the bars, some sort of force field stopped her, until she finally gave up, squishing herself into a round sphere.

Another boy was gasping as if he couldn't breathe, his sides heaving. Looking closer, I saw gills on the side of his neck.

A small boy (small enough to stand up in the cage) wouldn't stop moving; his legs moving up and down, fiddling with the bars, untucking and re-tucking his hair behind his ears. 

There was even a girl with a wolf head, and was gnawing on the bars of her cage.

Terrified, I withdrew myself to the farthest corner in the cage and sat there, hiding from everything and everyone, occasionally whimpering, until all of the already dim lights were shut off. Then I was alone with my thoughts. My parents crossed my mind, bringing tears to my eyes, but I forced them away.

As the darkness wore on, I tried to resist, but sleep overcame me.

My last thought was me wondering if this was Hell.

With a start, I snapped back into consciousness as mean looking men walked along the cages, laughing and jeering at the occupants, and banging clubs on the bars. More guys followed behind with buckets in their hands. Using ladles, they slopped something from the bucket into dirty bowls in the cages. Behind them were even more guards, with big guns and surly faces. One of the lead guys gave me look, and grinned an awful smile with yellow teeth.
"Well, well, well, look at the newbie." he chuckled. "Hey there, baby." he stuck his hand through bars and caressed my cheek. I shuddered, and pulled away. "Hard to get, huh?" he laughed again. "I say we get to know each other more, okay?" he started to stick a key in my cage's lock.
"Frankie!" another guy trotted up. "Don't do it, dude. Remember what happened to the last one?"
"Oh, yeah." Frankie grinned his horrid grin again. "That was one wild night."
"No, after that."
"Right." Frankie frowned. "Shame 'bout that."
"You might get fired, man. You know the boss gets pissy when you screw with her experiments." the second watchman reminded him. Frankie scowled, but re-locked my cage. I sighed with relief, and watched as they walked away, distributing the 'food'.

I examined my bowl of foul smelling, greenish-yellow liquid with brown chunks, and decided I wasn't hungry. Pulling my knees up to my chest, I started to wonder where Auriela was. I tried calling her telepathically, but couldn't seem to locate her consciousness.

I finally decided to call out. After checking, and finding no guards in sight, I risked it.
"Auriela?" I said softly. No reply. "Auriela?" I called again, a little louder.
"Shhhh." a voice shushed me. A little shocked, I stopped talking for a while.
"Hello?" I said tentatively.
"You can't be too loud." the voice told me. I could tell it was a guy now, just not who.
"Where are you?" I asked curiously.
"Right next to you." There was a scratching sound to my right, and I quickly scooted away from that wall and watched as a softball sized piece of the wall was removed, revealing a guy with icy blue eyes, longish blonde curls, and a rather handsome face.
"Hi." he grinned, and I couldn't help grinning back. His smile suddenly vanished, and he hastily replaced the covering.
"Hey! What are you-"
"Shhhh!" he hissed, and I fell silent. Frankie came strutting up, and surveyed all the cages.
"Hey, guys!" he said in a falsely chipper voice. "I thought I heard talking! I'm pretty sure that the rules clearly stated that any talking is not allowed." His big smile made him look even scarier. "Come on, guys, who did it? It's that or everyone gets punished, and we don't want that, do we?" his smile morphed into a terrible glower. "Was it.......you?!" he stopped at the putty girl's cage. "WAS IT!?!?!" he rattled the bars, and the girl whimpered and withdrew as far as she could.
"It was me!" I screamed out, rushing to the front of my cage.
"What? No, it wa-" the boy next to me started to say, but I interrupted him. Shut up, I said angrily in his brain, and he was shocked into silence.
"Ah, it's you again." Frankie said nastily, slouching up to my prison, his repulsive smile  back. He jammed his key in the lock and opened the door. "Come on out, don't be shy." he sneered, and pulled me out by my hair. I swallowed my tears. 

"Hey! Don't hurt her! I talked, not her!" the boy cried out. From outside the cage, I got a good look at him. He had wavy blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and a muscled body. Chained to the sides of his cage with about ten thick metal links, and bars as thick as rolling pins lined his door, he looked absolutely furious. He started to bend the steel bars of his cage into a hole big enough to let him out, handling the thick steel like it was Play-Dough.
"Watch it, freak!" Frankie shouted, and whipped out a small device with a big red button on it. He pressed the button, and the boy's body began to convulse and shake. Then Frankie pulled out a gun, and promptly shot the boy in the forehead. Blood gushed out, and I screamed.
"Calm down, sweetheart." Frankie said in his terrible voice, with a ghastly smile. "I'm much better looking." His lips smashed against mine, and he forced his tongue into my mouth. I bit down as hard as I could, and Frankie shrieked, pulling away. I kneed him in his soft spot, and he fell to the ground, screaming and swearing at me. More guards came running up as Frankie forced himself to stand.
"Wrong move, mutant." Frankie spat, and started to hit me with his club.
I fell to the ground, and tried to protect myself as blows rained down all over my body. The other guards simply stared, not helping me, most laughing, a couple joining Frankie. I hurt all over, and I think I was bleeding, too. Frankie finally got bored, and he yanked me up by my hair, picked me up, and literally threw me in my cage. I crashed against the wall, hitting my head, hard. Jeering, Frankie and the others locked me up again.
"Yo, Clyde, replace the bars on that cage." One guard said, pointing to the boy's cage, where he lay motionless. I tried not to think about it, as Clyde removed the door and replaced it with another one with even thicker bars. When he left, he didn't take the corpse with him. No! I said fiercely to myself, You mustn't think about it! I attempted to not think about it, but I couldn't help it. It's practically impossible to not think about something that you're thinking about in order to stop thinking about it.

Um.....

Never mind.

It was my fault that someone had gotten shot in the head.
My fault for his death.
Someone moaned, and I hid my face in my hands and began to weep softly, but even if it had been loud, no one would've heard me except the guards, and they'd already had their fun with me. The cries would just blend in with the other sounds of pain that echoed the dismal hall. Auriela was gone, my parents were dead, and I had just caused the murder of a kid I didn't even know that well. 

I was definitely having a bad day.

Author's Note

This is where the story really begins....

Reviews

[CrimsonBlaze]

This chapter blew me off my top bunk, smack down on the floor, creatig this booming noise that woke up my sister on the bottom bunk. Gee thanks. Lol just joking.. I have to say, NICE DEBUT! I LOVE IT! EEEEEEP! CANT YOU SEE?! -tears of joy stream from my eyes- THID IS AMAZING I WILL CONTINUE IT AND AICBKAIQUSKXHDODNSIAHXK -literally falls off of bed, causing noise -

[Evelyn Storm]

Excellent hook at the beginning. This story makes me think about the movies Firestarter and X-men. You have a no nonsense writing style that immediately draws the reader in and keeps the anticpation levels consistent throughout. Great job!

[AK]

The story's really going nice. It may really help, if you increase the font size a tad bit more. That'll make it easier to read. Xd!

[A. L. Allen]

o.O Holy cow. Things spun out of control insanely fast! These people, whoever they are, are so heartlessly brutal, it just makes me mad. D:< I hope that Adri gets back together with Auriala.

That's so sad that they killed that boy right in front of her face!! Although, I'm curious as to why they just left the body there and reinforced the bars... I have a feeling that he may come back. :)

Amazing chapter, and an absolutely wonderful start to a new book! I'm completely invested in this plot, and I hope you publish the other chapters so that I can read them!!!!!! :D