“Is she... Is she 'olding 'er breath?” Grant asked.

“No... Surely not. She couldn’t possibly be awake yet, right?”

“I told you, I ‘eard her sigh earlier!”

“Not possible. She’s probably just not a deep breather.”

“You saw ‘er earlier, right? You do ‘ave eyes, don’t you? Unless you’re completely blind, or stupid, or both, surely you noticed that she---”

Astrid started running. From the sounds behind her, it seemed that those two individuals known as Grant and Gerald had looked away in the moment she chose to bolt. They had kept talking for a few more moments.

*I always did have a good sense of timing!* She thought to herself. *Wait, I did? How did I know that? Ahhhh, so frustrating. Did they drug me? Where the hell are we? What kind of sick twisted murder castle is this? Weren’t there four of us? Was I not supposed to be here? Why were they confused about it being four instead of three? Where is the light coming from? All these torches are dark, but the hallway is as bright as can be. Are they following me? Maybe I should look back. Don’t people say not to look back? Is that because looking back slows you down, or is that because it’s better to focus? Well I’m not exactly focused right now anyway. Although it is probably a good idea to be careful not to trip.*

Astrid had a torrent of thoughts. Amidst it all, she decided to look behind her. A short but stout man with a brown beard was right behind her. She let out a scream.

“Please stop running ma’am. I really don’t want to hurt you, but where you're going is dangerous” Gerald explained as he began running next to Astrid.

Astrid tried to speed up, “Why would I listen to you? You’re the one who dragged me around---”

“I will have you know, it was Grant who did the dragging. I carried you at a respectable height.”

“Thank you for kidnapping me so THOUGHTFULLY!” she shouted as she kicked at the short man’s kneecap.

Gerald yelped and tumbled.

Grant, another equally short man but with a purple beard and a bald head, was walking slowly and was still quite a distance down the hall. He shouted something, but Astrid couldn’t hear him.

*Not like I’m gonna listen to you two* she thought to herself. *They looked like dwarves!*

Gerald called out as well, still standing up after his face-first fall. “Watch out for the ________”

Astrid looked back, “watch out for the what?!” Then she ran into something. It was a hard and flat surface, but it was also very cold. She looked up and saw a wall of ice.

“Wahh?”

Of everything that Astrid had gone through in the last twenty minutes, running full speed into a wall of ice was the most painful. She may have broken a few things. Still, she scrambled to her fee---- PAIN!

She scrambled to her foot. She leaned against the ice wall, supporting herself as she tried to figure out what was wrong with her right leg. Probably something broken in there... or a few things. Hard to figure out exactly what was hurting the worst when putting any pressure on the leg caused pain to surge from her hip to her toes.

Astrid put her back to the ice wall, balancing herself on her left leg and any surfaces in reach.

“It’s not kidnapping!” Gerald said, while both he and Grant were about 15 feet away. They had stopped approaching when Astrid pulled off her belt, folded it in half, and wielded it like a weapon.

“What kind of argument is---”

“Well, kidnapping is for kids. You’re not a kid. It’s abduction.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Grant immediately retorted, “It ain’t abduction neither! Acting like we went out into the middle of the night and dragged ‘er from ‘er ‘ome!”

“Whoever brought me here is most certainly guilty of abduction! At the very least, you’re accomplices!”

“Well, Grant’s actually right. For once. We’re actually trying to help.”

“Fat chance! Let me go home!”

Gerald sighed. “Tell me, where is home?”

“I--- Don’t know... Did you drug me? Why can’t I remember?”

“Drugs, no. Never heard of a drug that could erase a life. Magic, on the other hand, now that I’ve heard of.”

“Magic? Like this ice wall? You said something about healing earlier too.”

“Yep. It’s my specialty. Grant’s is ice. I’m actually a pretty good healer, but I’m glad you turned your head. Grant’s ice walls are quick, and while a broken nose doesn’t sound that bad, it can cause more brain damage than you’d expect. That can take a bit to heal, and we haven’t even gotten to your suite yet!”

“My suite? So you knew I was coming! And you still say this isn’t an abduction?!”

“What my colleague is trying to say is that we aren’t responsible for your abduction. You aren’t the first, won’t be the last. All we can do is try to make the most of the ‘orrible circumstances.”

They stood there for a bit, Astrid feeling trapped with an ice wall on one side and these two... what were they?

“Are you dwarves?”

“what the ‘ell is a dwarve?”

“The singular is actually dwarf,” Astrid said. She then began to wonder something. “Wait, that’s another thing, how can we understand each other?”

“Magic. Same that took your memories.”

“Well that’s... helpful? I guess.”

“Should we be telling ‘er all of this Gerald?”

“Well, we’re pretty far off script at this point. I don’t think anyone is gonna blame us, as long as we get her there in one piece.”

“On that note, why don’t you let Gerald ‘ere earn his pay? Miss...?”

“Astrid. And, yeah. But!” Astrid clarified, holding up her belt at Gerald halfway through his first step. “I’m watching you, and I will use this if I think I need to!”

“Miss Astrid,” Gerald sighed, “I’d prefer you hit me than get hit yourself. I’m gonna do my job, I’m gonna do it well, and I’ll be damned if there’s a scratch on you by the time you get to whoever it is I am handing you off to.”

A neon green light glowed gently from Gerald’s hands.

“Do I need to hold still or...?”

Gerald laughed, “You could start running right into another ice wall and I could still get ya!”

“And when I ran right into this thing? You were?”

“Recovering from getting my blasted kneecap back into place! Good hit by the way. Bad idea on my part to run with my weak knee towards you, but it was also the side with my good ear and I wasn’t exactly expecting for you to attack me.”

The neon green light seemed to be drawn towards Astrid’s cuts, bruises, and broken bones. Within moments everything felt better, and she put weight on her right leg again. Her ankle gave out almost immediately, and she shifted back onto her left leg.

“Magic might be magic, but it isn’t magic” Gerald said with a grin. “Nothing’s broken, but there are limits. Your bones feel fine but it’s usually best to let muscles mostly heal on their own...” he trailed off towards the end.

“Is that why someone with literal healing magic has a bad knee?”

Gerald looked at Astrid and sighed. “Healing magic can be used wrong.”

Gerald and Grant led Astrid through the corridors. They tried to stand on either side of her, but she shut that down quickly. Grant was in front, and she had Gerald walk with his bad knee and good ear facing her yet again. He tried to help her walk, but she preferred to use the wall on her right to brace herself.

Astrid was still looking for an opportunity to run. These two very short and apparently magical people weren’t the sort that she felt she could trust, especially given the circumstances. She chose to pretend to be cooperating, but it wasn’t as though she could trust their words. They were brutish people.

As they continued walking, Astrid noticed that it was becoming darker in the hallway, though Grant and Gerald seemed to be unbothered and still know where they were headed.

“I’m surprised you can still see, considering how dark it is in here.”

Grant and Gerald stopped instantly and stared at her with looks of horror. Gerald threw a ball of green light ahead of them. After it landed it continued to roll. He then did the same behind them.

The balls of light both slowed to a stop.

Gerald looked at Astrid again, with Grant staring all around, even at the walls and doors. That was when Astrid noticed a door was open behind them, though Grant seemed to pay it no attention after giving it a quick glance.

“Tell me what you see Astrid.”

“I don’t know, the corridor?”

“Yes, but you said it was getting darker. It isn’t. That’s not a good sign when someone sees something the rest can’t.”

“What does that mean?” Astrid asked, becoming increasingly worried.

“I don’t know yet. Are any of the torches lit?”

“no.”

“Good. Do you see any figures on the walls? Even paintings of figures?”

“no.”

“Thank every god I ever cursed. How about doors? Any of them open?”

“Only the---” She said while pointing backwards

“RUN!!!!!” Gerald exclaimed, grabbing her by the waist to support her limping ankle.

Astrid could hear more doors opening and closing behind them, but whenever she looked back she noticed that it was so dark behind them that she couldn’t see. When she looked at the ground, she noticed that the darkness was getting closer.

An ice wall formed behind them, which shattered in a second. That second gave them a little more breathing room, but the darkness began catching up once more.