A few hours late but today’s challenge.

Day 4

Spin a globe, where your finger lands is where the story takes place. Then, open the dictionary to a random word; incorporate this word into your story.

The place my finger landed on was China, Chengdu, and the word appalling.

 Image: https://www.google.com/imghp

I’m inside something, it’s cold; relatively cramped…I hear…I hear something. I can’t quite identify it. Oh God…my head it hurts. I touch the back of it, it’s wet, am I bleeding? What’s going on? The sound, it’s getting louder, bang! Bang! It sounds like metal hitting another piece of metal. It’s getting closer each time. Oh God this awful. The sound hits right in front of me. Oh God! My ears are ringing. I cover my ears as the banging continues. “Wake” someone, screams with a strange accent, a man. It suddenly becomes bright. I open my eyes painfully; they feel so tired. What’s wrong with me? Where am I am? The man starts talking to a…soldier? What the hell is going on? I can’t understand the language they’re speaking. They both look back and start laughing, more men appear; all with guns. My vision is finally settling in…I’m in a cage and there are others around me, we’re in the most appalling place, wherever that may be. I don’t even understand, how does a teacher end up in a place like this? What did I even freaking do? I hear crying nearby, it’s a child, she’s extremely dirty. “Hey, hey you” I scream at the guard or whatever he is. He turns around, clearly mad. But that child needs help. “Hey, you need to clean her up, she’s extremely dirty.” He talks to me in the same language I didn’t understand before, what the fuck is he saying. He turns around murmuring, “Hey, she needs to be cleaned, probably treated…she doesn’t look good” I scream louder. He turns around, walks to me and hits me with the back of his rifle. I don’t know what happened next. I wake up and the girl is gone. Days go by and she doesn’t come back. It’s horrible here, they barely give me any food or water, the nights are extremely cold and the days are very hot. I have no idea how long it’s been since I’ve taken a shower.

One day the guards come running and pull me out by my hair, they’re screaming at me and at each other. We walk for a few minutes and I see her body; it’s starting to rot. I start to panic. Are they going to kill me? They man who’s holding my hair throws me to the floor. “Kneel! Kneel!” he yells, in an accent clearly foreign to my own. I kneel down and look up at him and then and the sky. Lord, I don’t know what’s going on…Now would be a good time to help me. “Where is it? Where?” the man is screaming at me. “ Where…where is what?” I’m so confused and terrified. “Whereeee? He screams again. “I don’t know.” I feel the pain stabbing through my leg, right after the gun fired. “Where?” he screams again. I start crying instantly, this man is going to kill me. “ I don’t know… I don’t know what you want. Pain goes through my other leg and I cry out. “Why? Why are you doing this to me? I start crying even more as I speak. “Where?” He says as he lifts the gun to my head. I guess this is the end, Lord forgive me for the wrong I have done, let the good be remembered.I brace myself for what comes next. A loud sound goes off, then I can’t hear anything at all. I feel someone pick me up, but I can’t see anything there’s too much smoke. I’m put somewhere and then I’m elevating, it actually feels quite peaceful. It starts going black, everything, the darkness is so inviting, wait what was that? I hear it again it’s very soft, then louder, that voice…it’s beautiful, “stay with me,”it calls out but…who are you? And I go back it darkness. I wake up in a hospital room; there’s a man with his hand in between his hands. “Where am I?” He looks up suddenly and ruches to my side, “you gave me quite a scare.” I look at him confused, “Who are you?”

“Special Agent Rogers with the CIA” I don’t understand, this means nothing to me. “Why am I here?”

“ One of your students parents is part of our team, he was tasked with a guarding a flash drive containing classified nuclear information. He was compromised. So he hid it in the gift his child gave you the last day of class. The Chinese gang that abducted you took you to Chengdu, China. They believed that you had it; they searched all your belongings but couldn’t find it so they took you, with hopes of torturing the information out of you. Of course you weren’t aware of this at the time. I need to know Rebecca, where is the gift? That flash drive is of extreme importance.”

“It’s at my mom’s house…I left it there because she loved it so much. I don’t remember much after that.”

“ I believe that’s when they took you. I was tasked with bringing you back safely and discovering the location of the flash drive. I must go retrieve it.”

“Wait…we’re you calling to me?  When you saved me?”

“ I was trying to keep you alive.” I can’t help but smile, his demeanor is so rough. “Thank you.” He starts walking out of the room“ it was nothing.”

“Will you come back?” I can see him smile, faintly. “ I’ll do my best.”

-M.A. Fernández

Copyright © 2016 Marlin Alicea Fernández, Soul to Ink. All Rights Reserved