Escape, but where?
Jason struggled agains the binds of the platform. He could break them at any moment, but didn’t need them to know that. A man hovered over him in his blurred vision. He spoke quickly pointing here and there to some other person that quickly moved around the room. His head throbbed and even if he could escape his binds easily, he really didn’t want to. He needed some rest. Breaking out of the facility had taken much more out of him, he used much more then he thought he had. He wanted to sleep again. His eyes started to slip and a hand gentle slapped his cheek.
“Cmon boy stay with me, you will feel a bit better in a minute. We can’t stay here long and we can’t carry you. The binds are only so you didn’t fall and hurt your self, one moment” the man grabbed something and Jason felt a sharp sting in his arm. He could feel whatever it was cool as ice flow through his veins, swim through his body, and unblock his pain. When it made it up to his head, the pounding stopped, his vision cleared and he let out a sharp outtake of breathe “Good. We have to go lad”
The man was older, grey hair bushed out of his head and a bushy mustache under thick rimmed glasses that sat on a sharp nose. A teenage boy who had a sharp look on his face un did the straps. Immediately Jason put out a signal, his head clear of all noise and nothing blocking his psychic energy he flew in all directions. The boy next to him sensed it and gabbed his wrist hard, pushing back his energy.
“Not now, they will find us easier.”
Jason eyed the older man and he nodded. They both knew then. Jason rolled off of the platform and felt his feet swim then stabilize under him. They were in a garage which had been done up with all sorts of odd machines. He noticed some of the symbols from the facility. The older man pulled up the garage door and light filled the inside. Jason had no idea where he had stumbled off to after demolitioning his way out of the facility or how he had gotten here. But he knew that he had left Todd behind. He had to go back, but he was in no condition. He had searched for him last night, broke every wall, door and window he could get to, but he did not see him, or any of the other children.
Underground.
“We have to move fast. They will be searching quickly. You did great damage last night.” The man shook his head “Terrible, great damage” he opened the door to a large station wagon and cleaned out the back set. “Billy, take the front seat, you in the back”
Jason stood looking out “I don’t know you” he then looked around the suburb. He had never been outside before “I don’t know anyone out here” he whispered.
The man walked over to Jason and took his hand and shook it firmly and looked with sympathetic eyes “I’m professor Marlin, and that is Billy, I used to work in that place, the place you came from. I know the horrors.” Jason responded with his name, but as he connected with the professors eyes great pain surged through him. Regret, anger, mistrust, pain all mixed together. He saw snippets of a past that wasn’t his. Jason gasped and tore his vision away. The professor guided him into the back seat.
“You have a great gift, a terrible great gift” he shook his head again and avoided Jasons gaze at all cost “Sonny, we have a lot to talk about”
Billy and the Professor got in the car and they took off down the road. Jason laid his head down and stared up through the windows at the rolling clouds passing by. He had watched the local news on the television in facility secretly. He knew a bit about the small town he was in, but besides snap shots of images and a few live broadcasts he was lost. An ocean of a world he was now deep in. He closed his eyes and saw Floor 2. The smooth grey walls leading up into a black abyss and then the pit opening up infront of him. The cones rising out of the pit becoming thinner, pointier, savage and unforgiving. The moans and screams of the broken children residing at the bottom, hundreds of feet below those cones. Crying for someone to save them, their mothers and fathers, their friends, the facility staff, someone to take their pain away. To carry them softly back to their beds and tell them it was going to be alright. To remove them from the corpses of those that came from before them and who were abandoned, defective according to the facility. He saw her eyes and smile as the elevator door closed. Mallorie had no idea. She was strong, but would she pass that test? Was she now laying screaming with torn up limbs among the others? What if they put Todd through it.
Jason bolted up. Todd was too young, he wasn’t strong enough. He would fail.
“We have to go back. I can’t leave them” Jason said moving towards the door.
Billy turned around “We can’t. You made so much noise that they shut down the blocks around the facility, and security was flown in from somewhere last night. I doubt we could even get close with out getting killed. They already killed one intruder today. I felt it when searching around.”
“Billy’s right. I know you have friends back there, but the testing will stop for a moment. A security breach of any kind slows everything down, something like what you did? That will take even long to smooth out. I am also guessing they took all the children down to the sub level facility for the time being. They will get them visible as soon as they can. Your friends will be safe a for awhile, but we must act quickly. They like to make up for lost time.”
Jason slid to the center of the seat and leaned forward to be between them.
“You used to work there, were you at the facility before me?” He eyed Billy.
“No, Professor found me before they did. I was in an orphanage as a kid. I’m adopted now” Billy smiled at the Professor who pushed his glasses up from the bridge of his nose and cleared his throat.
“Who trained you?”
“Professor did, less hazardous methods from what I imagine you went through, but I’m no push over. You being gifted or not, don’t try anything stupid.”
“Okay okay, relax, we will test some things later, but we need to get far away form the facility as possible for the time being.”
The car rounded a corner and the sides of the road started to fill with more trees then phone poles. They drove for hours through winding roads through large pines and spruces.
As Jasons strength recovered a bit he could feel the sense of lightness he had sensed when on Floor 2. A limitless to his awareness and power. It was intoxicating. His mind searched, leapt and pulled in all directions. Life teemed around in his senses even the vibration of the car spun tapestries of sensations in his mind. He wasn’t being blocked anymore, his psychic mind was free and it threatened to dissolve his body and become all mind.
“Will you stop that!” Billy snapped back him. “Your driving me nuts, it’s like I’m getting with with waves of your energy.”
The car stopped and the headlights illuminated a small cabin.
“Dammit” Billy burst from the car and stomped towards the cabin.
Jason got out, his feet gave way and he crashed to the ground. He tried to stand, but his legs shook uncontrollably and he panted with sweat
“Here let me help you, gotta control that energy of yours, I could even feel it. It’s going to drain you a lot faster then you think”
Jason heaved air into his lungs “I-I’ve never had the chance, I’ve never felt like this before”
“It is probably quite a shock to have the limiter not suppressing you anymore. How did they not know of your power?”
“I hid it while I was in there, I played them, had to. Had to protect Todd.”
The lights of the cabin illuminated the darkness and Billy swung open the door and helped him in.It was a charming place. A great room with a large fireplace, table and sofa, behind that was a kitchen table, one stove and small sink. Two rooms were in the back and the windows were small circles filled with webs.
They plopped Jason the sofa. Professor pulled chair from the kitchen table and Billy folded his legs and sat on the floor. The fire was already raging and filling the place with * heat.
“Everybody get some good rest, we have to start preparing tomorrow.” The professor said, but Jason was already soaring in his dreams.
He was safe for a moment.
There is a building I always drive past where I live. It looks like an office building form the 70’s, but it is surrounded by barbed wire fences. I never see anyone in or any of the lights on. What could they be doing in there? So (even before stranger things) I came up with a place that ‘adopted’ children that had psychic powers and tried to train them as weapons. At first it seems like a typical special sort of educational place, but underground are levels of harder and more deadly challenges that the kids go through. If they survive they keep going. My main character Jason escapes and begins a journey to retune to save his friends that he left behind after finding out the the true sadistic nature of it all.
This is a small snippet from that story. See you in the next one ~