Secrets Are For Keeping

Chapter Twenty-Three

My body resurrected on the ground of a dark chamber, a hard metal floor cooling my overheated skin. My eyes flew open, and I once again saw black. Black everywhere. So black I almost questioned whether or not my eyes had actually opened.

My fingers began to feel the ground beneath me, trying to understand.

Except before I could, a sharp pain erupted from my chest. I cried out in surprise, and then brought my hand to my chest in surprise, wondering what had happened.

It had been a simulation. I'd been in a simulation where I'd been shot.

But now my chest was screaming with pain that radiated throughout my entire body. I shouted out again, my voice hoarse and broken.

Immediately light exploded from a point behind me, and hands grabbed my arms and legs. I jerked away, afraid of the people holding onto me. I couldn't see any of their faces, and my body bucked against their hold. Still, the pain was exploding in my chest. Like I'd actually been shot. But that was impossible. Because it'd only been a simulation. It hadn't been real. That was the point of the simulation.

Something sharp jabbed into my thigh, and I began trying to fight off the people holding onto me with even more force. But it didn't last long. I told myself to move, to fight, to get away, but my body was no longer listening to me. It was no longer obeying what my brain was trying to tell it to do. For the millionth time that day, my vision began clouding over, and my eyelids were forced shut by some foreign idea. No. No I couldn't let go. I had to keep my eyes open. I had to keep myself awake.

If I didn't the people who were holding me would win. They would take me away. Who were they?

But I was unintentionally letting go. My body was working against me. It was betraying myself, my heart and my mind. It'd only be seconds before I was completely gone. Before I was completely vulnerable.

But I was wrong. It was faster than that.

Because then I lost consciousness.