A tall figure emerged from the end of the dark abyss-like corridor.
As he approached us, my stomach sank, an intense pressure like nothing I had ever felt before, bore down on me. It made my breath quicken, and my chest tighten. It felt like a noose was slowly coiling around my neck, just how a snake would.
Eventually the figure stood in front of a cage.
The kid inside let out a quiet yelp as he looked at the figure looming in front of him, the kid tried to scurry to the other side of the cage, as if he could just disappear himself into the bars. Yet, it was too late. The figure had already opened the cage and was reaching for him; the kid tried their best to not be dragged away, as he kicked, and clawed at the figure, the kid eventually held onto the bars like his life depended on it, and maybe it just did. But alas his attempt was futile as the figure paid it no mind, as he dragged the kid by their hair. We could hear the loud wailings from the corridor as the kid was pulled into the dark. He screamed, as if he knew what would be coming next.
Shortly after, a noise of cutting flesh resounded from the dark corridor quickly followed by a deafening scream. I flinched at the loud cry, finding it similar to the one I had heard previously.
Yet again after a few minutes of agonizing shouts, it suddenly went quiet.
No more screams, no more cries, just an all-encompassing silence.
Shortly after, we heard footsteps echoing from the end of the dark corridor once more.
The figure was coming back.
At the sound of those footsteps drawing nearer, panic started to ripple throughout the remaining cages. Several of the children began to shiver in fear, pressing themselves against the backs of their cells, tucking in their knees to their chests as if they were an armadillo. One kid near the end of the row had stopped moving entirely, just staring forward with empty eyes like he had already decided something I didn't want to think about.
I gripped the bars of my own cage and tried to steady my breathing. I tried to calm my thoughts, but it didn't work particularly well as I could now make out the frame of the figure coming out of the corridor.
Once again, the figure stopped at another cage, and the same sequences of events played out again. With mechanical familiarity that made it clear this was nothing new to the figure. Just a task being worked through from one end to the other. The kid in that cage screamed all the way down the corridor until the dark gobbled them both up.
This sequence kept occurring,
The footsteps.
The shivering.
The screams and cries.
It happened again, and again, and again, until… I lost count.
At some point the number stopped mattering and all I was left with was this feeling, a low constant dread sitting at the bottom of my stomach.
As I stared at the abyss-like corridor once more, an unprecedented thought started to form in my head.
How many kids has he taken? How many more will he take? Will I be next?
Quickly my thoughts became more panicked.
Am I really going to die? No, I'm too young to die? What will he do to me? What even sits at the end of the terrifyingly dark corridor?
As I was still suffering from a panic attack another kid was dragged away and the footsteps faded once more into the dark, the boy in the cage beside mine shifted closer to the bars between us and dropped his voice down to a whisper.
"Noah. I think it's time now."
I turned back to look at him. "Time for what?"
His expression tightened to one of pure irritation. "Now is not the time to be playing around, Noah."
I felt a small bead of cold sweat run down my spine. I had no idea what he was talking about. Not even a clue. Whatever this boy expected me to know, whatever shared understanding he thought he had with himself and this Noah person, I was coming up completely empty.
Before I could figure out how to say that without making things worse, he reached through the bars between our cages and held out his hand.
In his palm was a small wooden twig.
"Stop playing around, and use your power to open the cage and get us out of here."
I stared at the twig.
Power?
Did this guy really think I had a power?
I mean. I had just been in my room, Playing a game with my friends. And then I passed out and woke up here, in a cage, in a corridor that smelled like rusted bars and straight fear, in what was apparently someone else's body. So honestly, at this point, having a super-power didn't even crack the top five of the strangest things I was currently dealing with. In a way it was sort of expected.
I reached through the bars and took the twig.
"So how do you use this quote-on-quote power?" I asked.
He stared at me in utter disbelief, the type someone gives when they had just seen a mythical creature.
"Did you get amnesia from your trauma or something?"
I looked back at him without changing my expression.
His eyes went wide. Really wide. The impatience drained out of his face entirely and what replaced it was something much quieter and more unsettling.
"You— did you really forget?"
I stayed silent as I awkwardly looked back at him. He took that as a confirmation.
"Do you at least remember my name?"
I held his gaze and shook my head.
He looked down. I watched him press his hands flat against his knees and hold them there, knuckles gripped tightly, jaw clenched. After a moment he let out a sigh as he shortly calmed down
"Alright." He said quietly.
"Do you at least remember your name?"
I slowly shook my head as his expression fell once more.
"Your name is Noah Wilson."
Our village was attacked a few days ago. The adults were killed and the children were captured. Now we're here, getting picked off one-by-one until there's no one left."
I absorbed the information in silence. Not knowing what answer I could have genuinely given him, I stayed silent.
"Oh, and my name is John. John Reed, and we were neighbors." He added, like that was just an afterthought. "Now that we have that out of the way, all you have to do is make that twig work as a key."
I looked at the twig in my hand. Then at the lock on my cage door. Then back at the twig.
"Yeah, but that's the thing." I whispered quietly. "How exactly am I supposed to do that?"
John exhaled through his teeth. "Ever since you got your power you've been able to make things have minor inconsistencies. Small stuff. Like once when a kid threw a rock at you, you used it to slightly change the rock's trajectory, so it hit your shoulder instead of your face." He paused. "I'm not sure if it'll work on the lock but it's the best option we have right now."
I started rotating the twig in my hands as if it had a secret compartment hidden inside.
'Minor inconsistencies, huh?'
I didn't fully understand what that meant in practice, but I pressed the twig into the keyhole anyway and started wiggling it carefully, trying to feel for something, some give, some response from the lock. But still, nothing happened. The twig kept scraping uselessly against the inside of the lock. I kept at it for a few more seconds, but the lock just wouldn't budge.
"Noah, hurry up." John's voice had gone tight again. "Before he comes back."
"I'm trying my best, it just won't open."
"You told me before that to make your power work you just had to will it." He said. "So stop trying to force it and just will it."
I paused and looked at him flatly. "Gee. Thanks a lot for the very clear instructions."
I turned back to the lock anyway.
Will it.
I held the twig still against the keyhole and stopped wiggling it. Stopped trying to force anything mechanical. I just looked at the lock and pushed something from somewhere in the back of my thoughts toward it. Something quiet. Not a command. More like a statement. It was unreasonable, I had been trying for almost a full minute now and it didn't budge why would it now?
As I started to lose hope, I heard a quiet yet reverberating sound come from the lock.
Click
As the sudden click sound played out, my brain was still trying to process what had just happened.
But one thing was for sure.
It had worked.