Part 18
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It took a while longer before I could muster enough strength to force myself back to my feet. By that time, Cranston was back on his seat, quietly reading through the books on his table. Sophia was still resting by the door, her arms crossed and her neutral gaze remaining on me as I struggled back to my feet. 

I stared at him as sweat dripped down my face from the effort of the task. Cranston glanced up for a brief second before returning to his books. 

“Take him down to the gym. Best to see what kind of asset we have,” Cranston said, casually waving me out of the door. 

My mouth opened for a moment as a protest formed in my mind. I felt a hand grab my arm and I turned to see Sophia tilting her head towards the door. She acted twice more before I reluctantly turned and followed her out of the room. 

The door slammed behind me and I hung my head low as I trailed behind her down the corridor. As we walked, I couldn’t help but wonder how everything in my life had played until now. I couldn’t help but feel like I was in a dream. A weird, strange dream with actions outside of my control. 

It was almost like ‘Life’ was calling me a pansy and taking complete control of all of the aspects of my reality. 

“Don’t focus too much on it,” Sophia said, rousing me from my thoughts. 

I scoffed at her. 

“Easy for you to say. You brought me here,” I said. I didn’t bother hiding the bitterness in my voice. 

“I saved your life,” she replied. 

“Did you? Did you really just save my life or sell me into slavery?”

“Oh, come off it. You would have been killed and you know it!” she retorted, stopping in her tracks and turning on me. 

“You were in danger. We stepped in and stopped it, informing you and saving you in the process!” 

“You keep saying this. How was I in danger?” I spat out the question. “I was perfectly fine. The… the fucking monster cosplaying as my mother was fine. This…” 

My anger was beginning to boil and I knew my voice was rising. 

“All of this past… fucking days… began when Mark decided to capture my fake mother. She had chances to kill me before then. They had chances to erase me from existence but they didn’t. What’s to say they were never going to, huh?!” 

Sophia stared at me for a long while before closing her eyes. She rubbed her face for a moment before sighing deeply. 

“I’m sorry. I don’t think we quite explained everything as we should have,” she said in a low voice. 

I wasn’t sure if it was the tone of her voice or the way she looked at me but the anger subsided a little bit. I was still livid but the rage had reduced. 

“Why did you all save me?” I asked. 

“When a skin-changer takes over a form, it takes a while before they get hungry again. For some, it takes years. For others, it happens in days or weeks,” she explained. 

“We never can tell how long it gets but sometimes, we can determine when they are close to feeding. To be honest, that’s usually how we can tell who’s a skin-changer or not.”

“So, my mother…?”

“From what Blake saw, she was close,” she said. 

I blinked then. Blinked again as tears began to roll down my face. Emotions bubble underneath the surface and nothing I did worked at suppressing the pain. My life was in pieces and I knew things would never be the same anymore. My breath was shaky, words failed me and my knees trembled, threatening to fail. 

Sophia walked to me and wrapped me into a hug. I sobbed into her small frame and she rubbed my back affectionately. It took a few minutes more before I felt somewhat okay and she drew away from me naturally. I took in a deep breath before nodding at her and wiping my eyes. She nodded at me and continued down the corridor. I fell into step next to her silently. 

Like when we originally left the room they had placed me in, the corridor seemed to stretch forever until it didn’t. A junction seemed to appear in front of us and Sophia took a turning to the left. I followed quietly, turning to face an elevator. 

We entered it and I took notice of the lack of numbers or symbols on the buttons. There were seven buttons in total, all blank but coloured like marble white tiles. Sophia pressed the middle button, the fourth, and the elevator doors closed with a ding. A second later and another ding, the doors opened to another long corridor. 

Unlike the others I’ve been in so far, this had numerous doors to both sides of the corridor and as soon as she stepped out of the elevator, Sophia walked to the first door to the right and opened it, tilting her head for me to follow. 

I sighed and took a step forward before the elevator doors began to close. I tried to rush forward as Sophia’s eyes widened in either surprise and then, terror. My outstretched hand was past the doors and I had to retreat it just as the doors snapped shut. 

The light in the elevator flickered and I tried to calm my breathing even as my heartbeat sounded like distant drums in my ears. The elevator didn’t move. I mean, it didn’t move after Sophia pushed on the button either but nothing happened. 

I took a step forward and repeated the same action that Sophia did, pushing the fourth button. The elevator dinged and after a few seconds, the elevator opened up to… outside. 

Which is impossible. I mean, literally outside which is literally impossible. I took tentative steps to the edge of the elevator and peered out and up. There was nothing attached to the elevator or linked to the elevator that I could see. Instead, the elevator calmly rested on the green grass. 

I knelt on the floor of the elevator and cautiously stretched to touch the grass. It felt incredibly soft to touch and warm in a weird way. I allowed myself to feel it a bit more before returning to my feet. 

It made no sense. It made no sense. I walked backwards until my back touched the back of the elevator. It made no sense. Outside of the elevator was a meadow that shined with the glow of the sun. 

The green grass bent gently to an unseen wind. Hedges and flowers moved and flowed as if beckoning towards me to leave the elevator. A sweet scent filled my nostrils and an old memory flashed in my mind. 

It was an argument between my father and my mother. Or rather, the thing masquerading as my mother. My dad was shouting at the top of his lungs while the thing just stared at him with a blank expression. My dad got angry and raised his hand, slapping her across the face. My mum glanced at me and then back at him with a scowl. He stopped shouting. 

That was the last time I saw my father. 

I shook my head and covered my nostrils with my hand. Whatever it was I was smelling had caused that. The scent had become sickly sweet now and it got stronger with each passing second. The luscious meadow didn’t quite feel the same anymore. The grass wasn’t as green and the flowers looked slightly wilted. 

Reaching out towards the elevator buttons, I began pressing everything, wishing for the doors to close and for the elevator to take me somewhere else. But nothing happened. I kept trying and muttering to myself until the scent took a turn began to smell rotten. And then I heard a voice. 

The voice came across like a loud whisper and the meadow seemed to tremble from it. The scene in front of me, outside the elevator, turned darker and it felt meaner than it initially looked. The smell was rotten now. Like fruits gone wrong. 

“Come, come, William. Come. I wish to talk to you,” the strange voice said and I shivered as a response. 

“Come, William. Come so that you may know your fate!”

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