Chapter Twenty Seven
I began to stir, and knew that I was waking up. I remembered my last thought being about Aqua Island, and for several seconds thought that I was there, awakening in my soft, squidgy bed. But I wasn’t.
First of all, I knew that I was standing upright, and secondly, I was tied to something hard and textured: there were sharp screws digging into my back. My neck ached as I pulled my head upwards, stopping it from hanging loosely towards the floor. My head spun. I felt as if I was going to throw up, and I did: the vomit splattered against the steel floor with a sickening smack.
Even though the stomach acid continued to burn my throat and the taste of bile filled my mouth, I somehow felt better. My head didn’t pound as much, and my queasiness seemed to settle down.
I opened my eyes. I was in a fairly small room, one that had various machines and machine parts stored it in, as well as large beams of metal and huge girders that jutted out from the ceiling and walls. The room was painted a dull dark green, and in the background the noise of the engine was fairly soft, but still audible.
I struggled to move, as my hands were tied behind my back, realising that I was strapped to a metal pole that stood in the middle of the room. In front of me, to my left, was Sefarina, who was also bound by the hands and feet, although she was lying on the floor on her back. To my right was Niyol, who had been pinned with his stomach flat against the grimy wall with his arms and legs outstretched. Directly in front of me, attached to another pole, was Aura, also bound in a similar style. I turned my head as far to the right as it would go, and out of the corner of my eye saw Shasa and Madzimoyo, who were tied up back to back, and were sitting upright on the floor. When I did the same to my left side, I saw Gamba, who was also awake, and he was strapped to the wall behind me in a similar fashion to Niyol, with his face pinned against the dark hued surface.
His head lolled about, trying it’s best to turn and see what exactly was going on, but he couldn’t move it from its position. Luckily, his face was pinned so that his left cheek was attached to the steel surface, and he could see my restrained movements.
“You okay?” He asked insipidly.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied sarcastically, “I could do with a cup of coffee though. Could you get me one?”
He sniggered painfully, and then began to sob quietly to himself.
“Don’t cry,” I told him, “It’s not your fault!”
“We’re going to die!” He acknowledged.
“No we’re not. If they wanted to kill us, we’d be dead already.”
“Then what the hell are they doing tying us up like this?”
I wanted to shrug, but was physically unable to. Instead I just said: “I don’t know.”
After a few minutes of waiting, everyone else was conscious. Shasa and Madzimoyo tried their hardest to squirm out of their bonds, but couldn’t. We were all trapped. But why?
Niyol found it hard to talk with his face pinned against the wall, but he still did anyway.
“Why am I stuck like this?” He asked flatly. He then spat something out of his mouth. “Every time I speak I taste the wall…!” he declared, and then spat again.
Aura began kicking the floor and screaming.
“What are you doing?” Gamba enquired.
“I want whoever tied us up to come and face us! I want an explanation!”
“You know what’s funny?” Shasa began, “Up until a moment ago, I was convinced that one of you was working for the Inimicus!”
“One of us?” The Ventus Trio responded simultaneously, all completely surprised at the accusation.
“I guess one of them still could be,” Madz mused, “It could be all a bluff to make us think they aren’t a traitor.”
“How could we tie ourselves up like this?” Niyol made a good point.
“You could have…!”
“Just shut up!” Gamba ordered our brother, “We were wrong okay? Stop it with your wild theories and stupid speculations!”
“You know what, Gamba, why don’t you shut up for once? I’m tired of taking your crap!”
“How about you both shut up?” Aura interjected, and then burst into fits of laughter. Perhaps it was the situation, or maybe it was because we had all just been poisoned, but everyone in the room descended into fits of uncontrollable laughter. We couldn’t seem to stop. The fact that Niyol’s and Gamba’s faces were pressed against a wall of a container ship, and that we were all tied up after almost escaping a gang of Inimicus grunts, seemed to make us become hysterical. And instead of crying, we were laughing.
After the hilarity all died down, we were all left to think about the situation we had been led into.
“What about the blood?” Shasa said out loud, directing it to the Ventus Trio. “It belonged to one of you.”
“How could anyone have our blood?” Niyol wondered, “That doesn’t make sense!”
“Unless…” Madz figured something out, but his thought was put on hold as the deafening noise of a metal latch clicking overpowered the tiny room.
A guard with a rifle stepped in first, followed by a woman wearing one of the special black cat suits. I recognised her immediately.
“Diane?” Shasa called out, “We thought you were dead!”
“No…!” Aura cried out, “It can’t be…!”
As Aura’s mouth dropped open in astonishment, Sefarina immediately burst into loud uncontrollable sobs, and Niyol moaned and groaned, and then said: “It doesn’t make any sense!”
“Hello everyone!” Diane announced in her strange accent, which, now that we had met the Ventus Trio, sounded a lot like theirs.
Aura started to snivel loudly, and Diane walked over to her, placing her hand stiffly against her cheek.
“Hello children,” she added, before walking away from Aura as if she might infect her with a fatal illness.
Aura replied sullenly, in a morose devastation: “Hello Mother.”
Part Four:
Madzimoyo