25: Breakout

Kyle Carter was making his move today.

“Wake up, kid,” said a guard. This one had a green rose similar to what every other guard wore. Were rankings symbolized by rose colors? The part of Kyle’s mind that was interested by random, unimportant things wondered what other colors there were.

Kyle sat up on the cot and yawned. He was wearing a dark grey long-sleeve shirt and jeans. These weren’t bloodstained, which is a plus.

The girl flashed through his mind. He racked his brain trying to remember where and when.

The guard opened the door.

“Feel like solid food yet, Carter?” He said.

“Yeah,” Kyle groaned. He was a morning person, but it’s hard to tell what time it is when the room’s lights are remote controlled by your eyelids, so he decided to be his constantly annoyed self.

The man brought in a cart.

“Bacon and eggs for you, with toast and apple juice,” the guard said.

Kyle dug in while the guard did his job in the corner of the room.

“So how’re the wife and kids?” he asked.

The guard made a confused face. “What are you talki-”

Kyle closed his eyes, making the man shout. Then he barreled himself against the door, slamming it shut. The guard was lost in the sudden darkness. Kyle took the advantage and grabbed the underside of the cart, flipping it. The metal crashed against the man, knocking him against the sleek white walls. Silence. No alarms were raised. Making sure to keep his eyes closed until he was safe, Kyle fumbled for the door and slipped out.

The hallway was empty. He knew left was the way to the interviewing room after being escorted to and from it seven times already. He decided to go that way, but after a moment, he heard voices, so he went right.

An elevator stood at the other end of a long, straight hall.

An exit. Kyle ran toward it and wrenched it open. No one came out, thankfully. Inside the carriage, there were five things: three buttons marked 1, 2, B, a door, and an overhead light. The 2 button was glowing green. Kyle hit the 1 and watched the door close, feeling nervous.

For a moment, he heard the sound of rushing water. Then the doors opened.

He was in the bottom point of a large cone-shaped room. The flat, circular ceiling had a small round skylight in the center, and rain poured in, splashing him. Other than the pale bluish shaft of the skylight,  and the dim ones on the steps of a staircase that spiraled upward along the wall, there was no light. It was mostly dark, the light tinted pale blue, and quiet except for the distant thundering of the ocean’s waves.

It was almost peaceful. Kyle sprinted upward for the first step of the stairs, but suddenly went sprawling. Something was tangled around his ankle: a tripwire. The lights went from white to a menacing dark blue as he started to get back to his feet. His sneakers squeaked against the inclined white surface of the floor, without traction. An alarm bellowed all around him, low and menacing, which he felt rather than heard. It screamed through his bones, and threw him to the floor. The tripwire was red hot, cast purple in the blue light of the room. It was burning into his skin, agitated by the vibration-alarm. The wire traveled up his leg and across his stomach, encasing both his wrists and ankles in a heated mesh.

Footsteps. A hand grabbed Kyle by the hair and lifted him up off of his stomach. The man who’d been interrogating Kyle stared deep into his eyes with his own, filled with malice. They were black. An all-consuming black that filled his entire eye socket. Kyle understood the reason they wore sunglasses now.

“Don’t. Ever. Try. This. Again,” the man said. Hot, sticky breath with the essence of burning grass and rotten eggs washed over Kyle.

The man dropped the boy on his face and walked away. Everything faded to black.

Kyle woke up on lying on something soft, in lots of pain. Something next to his bed clicked.

When he opened his eyes, he noticed his clothes were burned and torn to ribbons. His skin was covered in black and white stripes all over. Some places had even been seeping blood. He was on the bed in his room, which had a few new additions. From the top corner of the wall, facing him, rotating slowly, was a security camera.  Next to his bed were some medical instruments, including a stand from which hung a baggie half full of what looked like ginger ale, which was being dripped into his arm through an IV.

Kyle stood up and walked over to the door – or would’ve. His ankle had buckled under his weight, causing him to stumble and fall to the ground. It had yanked the stand, which fell over on top of him. He screamed in pain from the ankle, and tried to crawl back to the bed, but couldn’t reach the handle, and slumped over. The stand clattered.

Everything had gone wrong. He tried to remember the last thing that had happened before waking up here.

Kyle was alone in a vast, pitch-dark room.

He pulled out the marble from his pocket, and fingered with the flat part. Suddenly, it clicked, and lit up.

The next moment, Kyle was in space.

The room had lit up green with a holographic Milky Way galaxy, swirling slowly and majestically. He watched in wonder. The black ball floated up into the air and stayed hovering in one spot, becoming a planet.

Kyle realized what it was. He walked through the fluffy neon green mass of the galaxy and touched the ball. It lit up white for a moment at his touch, then sent out little red dots that enveloped other planets, almost to the point that it looked like a red haze covering up almost half of the map. Targets.

Kyle studied them: Lightsyphon, Europa, Earth, and many, many others.

And then, it all went black. The sudden darkness blinded Kyle for a moment. The black marble died and fell to the ground with a clunk.