𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟒: and then i destroy your fleeting sense of security

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The days fell into a mind-numbing rhythm.

The guards would shake them awake at the crack of dawn, and then they'd go to the Training Center, where they'd practice everything from lifting weights to levitation to throwing spears. They'd do that until lunch, where the guards would "escort" them to the Cafeteria. This is where they would eat food that tasted like either:

a) cardboard

b) imp farts

c) poison-filled crystals

Sometimes, it was even a combination of the three. After lunch, they'd have One-On-One training sessions, where they'd practice their abilities in separate rooms while Lunar watched from behind a large, glowing shield high above him. 

After an hour of that, they would be escorted back to their prison where they could do what they wanted before dinner. After dinner, they would be able to go back to doing whatever. At 8:00, it would be lights out. After the guards thundered into the room holding melders the size of cannonballs when Dex had spoken once, they decided not to speak after lights out.

And so, the days blurred into one another, and Keefe got thinner and thinner, quieter and quieter, and wished every day that he was back in the Lost Cities.

One day after about a month, when the door opened, Sophie was standing there.

They'd just woken up, and throughout the tired midst, it was as though somebody had dropped an atomic bomb.

Instantly, everyone started screaming and scrambled back.

"Hello." Sophie said in an even, cool voice.

She didn't sound anything like Sophie. She didn't even sound human.

Keefe flinched, and Biana squeezed his hand. 

"It's nice to see you all." Sophie continued, smiling a creepy smile. "How have you been?"

Fitz snapped first. "HOW HAVE YOU BEEN?!"

Sophie's smile faltered. "Was that tone?"

"You're like my mom!" Fitz cried. "How dare you abandon us!"

"Abandon you?" Sophie asked softly, sounding like the true Sophie. Then her voice got much louder. "ABANDON YOU?! THEY ABANDONED ME!"

Sophie flicked her hand, and Fitz flew out of his bed into the back wall. He crumpled to the floor with a sickening crack. "Tell you what, Fitz," she snarled, storming towards him. "I've been training just as hard as you have! Maybe harder! And I've been training for much longer! So imagine how powerful I am NOW!"

She raised her hands to the sky, and Fitz flopped limply to the top of the ceiling. Then she made an X, and he went crashing down again. This repeated so many times that Keefe tried to block it out, but the constant crack, crack, crack made him want to throw up.

About eight minutes later, when he thought Fitz was unconscious, or worse, Keefe heard him groan. Blood was trickling from his nose. The thought made him nauseous. 

Feeling all of the emotions made him helpless. Terrified. He screamed, "SOPHIE, STOP!"

Sophie turned to him - and for a second, Keefe saw everything. Her face was horrified, terrified, scared of what she'd become. Sophie's voice blared into his mind: Help me. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she crumpled onto the floor. 

𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐈 𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 + sokeefe and horrorWhere stories live. Discover now