Chapter 5:

This place has seen Trouble

Trouble In Paradise


All I can see is black. The operatives at the school shoved a bag over my head before taking me away, and I’ve been stuck in darkness ever since.

I remember the deafening roar of the hovercrafts engines whilst they dragged me outside, as well as the acrid smell of smoke as the school was set ablaze upon my departure.

I think back to the feeling of rough hands pinning me down and the sharp stinging sensation of a syringe plunging into my neck.

I don’t remember much after that.

Afterwards time didn’t seem to pass in its usual linear fashion. All of my memories flow through my mind in a mismatched blur, I see vague flashes of what happened yet I’m unable to shake the feeling that I’m missing the bigger picture somehow.

I’m drawn to one memory more than the others however, the person in the mask. I recall lying down whilst their immense shadow loomed over me. No, that’s not right, I wasn’t lying down.

I was strapped to the table.

Multiple individuals dressed in medical attire entered the room after that. They hooked me up to machines, inserting tubes down my throat and into my sides. Scalpels dripped red with blood as they sliced into skin. The pain was excruciating, yet I remained conscious.

Once they had finished I was left alone in my white walled prison. I am unsure how much time passed as I stared at the ceiling, hours, days maybe? Unfortunately my memory becomes hazy again after that, I can’t seem to clearly remember details.

I do know for certain however, that my body feels different, everything feels foreign to the point where Its like I’m a stranger in my own skin. I’m constantly plagued by an overbearing sense of anxiety as I don’t feel in control of myself.

At some point the plain white walls of my cell were painted red in waves of blood and fire. The medical personnel who attended to me lay sprawled at my feet; scalpels lodged firmly in their necks.

I opposed the person in the mask, but when they spoke a cold wave of paralysing fear washed over me. Talking with a voice that lacerated my soul, I couldn’t help but submit to the will of their words. Even now despite their absence, I cannot help but feel a longing for servitude.

After blacking out I remember my surroundings changing once again. I stood atop a mountain of corpses within a cavernous room, looking down on those who dared to oppose me.

Climbing down from my monument of death, I came face to face with three others.

There was a ginger woman on a hovercraft, a dark-haired girl sat at her feet, and there was a bear with them also, but who were these people?

A quiet voice in the back of my mind tells me they are my friends, although I don’t think that’s right. They didn’t look at me like a friend, they looked afraid.

I am unsure what all of this means. Is what I’m seeing figments of dreams, memories or visions? Whatever the case I need to try and piece together exactly what happened, I need to wake up.

I begin to return to consciousness. Sitting up and opening my eyes I can see the air is full of thick fog which obscures my vision past a few metres. My hearing is impaired by a high-pitched ringing, my fingers feel grass beneath which vibrates at irregular intervals.

As the ringing begins to fade I start becoming more aware of my body, and the pain coursing through it. My entire body is singed, as if I’ve been exposed to an intense heat.

My left hand holds a pair of metallic silver eyes, they seem familiar, yet I can’t quite determine why. I turn to look at my other hand, to my horror its not there.

The lower half of my arm is missing, leaving me with a scorched stump at the elbow.

As the patch of fog ahead of me clears slightly, the giant frame of a Grizzly bear comes into view. Its hunched over, appearing to be feasting on something below it on the ground.

Luckily, it seems completely uninterested in me. As I squint my eyes to see more clearly, I see that its munching on a severed arm.

Wait a minute. That’s my arm.

I shove the silver eyes into my trouser pocket and use my remaining hand to help prop myself back up onto my feet. Keeping my eyes fixed on the bear, I start to back away.

After a few steps I nearly trip over something on the ground. Looking down I see that It’s a purple hoverboard, streaked with blood.

Everything about my predicament fills me with an ambiguous sense of dread, this place has definitely seen some trouble.

“I’m getting a really bad feeling about this” I mutter, “I need somebody to tell me what’s going on.”

A hand suddenly grabs my shoulder from behind.

I spin round to face a bald woman staring straight through me, holding a dark-haired wig in her hand. She turns away from me to reveal two silver eyelids on the back of her head.

The eyelids open to reveal black empty sockets.

“Tell you? Why don’t I show you.”

Then the world went black again.

Trouble In Paradise