CHAPTER 8.

Not long after the vampire walked out of the room, I looked around, trying to figure out where I was and if there were alternate exits other than the door the vampiress used. The room was lowly lit, but there was enough light to see the entire space. It was then I noticed I was not alone. There were six others in the room with me, I must not have noticed them when I stepped through the portal because I was trying to survive breathing whatever this strange place had for air, plus its painfully distracting being flung like a feather pillow into a wall. I assumed, based on their different states of disarray, that they had also been forcibly removed from Earth. If the vampire was to be believed, we were now on another world. I tried getting a better look at them but the low illumination coming for the bright rock strategically placed around made the task challenging.

There was an itch in the back of my mind, like a thought was trying to get my attention, but I ignored it as I was more interested in my new location.

I looked behind me to see the arch-shaped portal that was my gateway into this world. It was no longer lit with the swirling energies that I saw when I first came through. The stone arches, covered in strange symbols, looked cold and ordinary like the rest of the room. How was any of this possible, quantum physics, dark matter, wormholes or if you're not a skeptic like me, maybe magic.

Again, how was any of this possible and how the hell was I supposed to escape. There had to be a way to use the device and return home, but I could see no dials or switches, not even a discernible power source. I had no idea how to use the device or if it actually was a "device".

"Ahem," someone cleared their throat to my left and I turned towards the direction the sound came from, not too far from me. One of the other captives tried to get my attention. By the look of exasperation on his grizzled and aged face, he'd been at it a while.

I turned my thoughts back to my fellow captives. It seemed that they had also been left unbound by their captors like I was. Were they not afraid of us escaping?

Then my mind flashed back to the vampire's casual display of strength. I had a feeling that whoever "they" were, they weren't really worried about us being a threat. Plus where was here? Where would we even go?

The others stared at each other; myself included with something akin to mistrust and fear in their eyes and nobody spoke for a few minutes, just staring at each other.

The old man that tried to get my attention was resting on the wall to my left. In the low light, all I could see was that he had slavic features, close cut white hair, deep blue eyes, bushy brows and a liberal sprinkling of wrinkles on his aged face. He wore a friendly grandfather smile on his face and his eyes crinkled through his thick but damaged prescription glasses, his white lab coat covered in dirt. He squinted a bit; clearly the damaged lens was affecting his vision.

Next to him was a larger white man in what looked to me like a janitors uniform. He had dirty blond hair and a full beard that looked the same colour on his face. In the poor lightning, I was unable to determine his eye colour or any more features. Like the old man, he was also staring at me, but unlike the old man, I felt like his stare was challenging.

There was a woman opposite the two men in what I assumed was once a simple office suit with pants, but due to obvious rough handling by our captors, her suit had been torn in different places and a large bruise was purpling her right cheek. She looked Irish or of Irish descent, and seemed as tough as nails. Despite looking like she’d have been comfortable on a runway or movie screen, with her clear alabaster looking skin, with sharp angular features and long red hair wrapped in an improvised ponytail behind her back, I immediately got the impression that her actual vocation was something else entirely. She had that cop stare I knew too, the one that was tailored to make you spill your guts. My instincts told me she was some kind of law enforcement. My distaste for her vocation notwithstanding, there was a competence about her that gave me the feeling she would be the best person among my fellow captives to discuss an escape plan with.

Next to her was a very small girl or woman in a leotard and tights that had her arms wrapped around her legs and her face buried in her thighs. She was quietly bawling her eyes out looking at nobody, completely unaware of the rest of us.

Closer to the door was a man with a cowboy hat on his face, resting at an angle on the wall. The half-hazard way he rested on the wall suggested that he was unconscious. From the little I could see of him, he was dressed in an odd uniform, maybe he was military.

The last two people in the room were next to the old man/janitor duo (I assumed they were a duo, because we're comfortable sitting next to each other). There were two women that were holding on to each other, one in her late 30s, wearing a dirty t-shirt and white shorts and the other having the look of a young teenager wearing a small white top and small blue short-shorts. The older woman tried to console the younger girl and wrapped her in her arms, looking warily, but fiercely at the rest of us as if she could protect her from everything, despite our current situation.

The old man spoke first. He cleared his throat, adjusted his glasses and said in heavily accented but perfect english. "It seems we've been left alone by our captors. It would be prudent to ascertain if escape is possible." He sounded Russian or Polish, to be honest, I couldn't really tell the difference

"Shut up you old bastard, who put you in charge." The man next to him said in a thick accent and I immediately got the impression that he was angling for the position of alpha in our little group.

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The old man ignored him, it seemed to me that these two did not like each other. But they stayed together, so clearly, it was for reasons other than camaraderie.

"My name is Dr Zubyr Andrezej, I am a scientist with CERN and the foul-mouthed young Swede is called Lukas." He pointed to the man next to him.

"What did I tell you about shutting up?" Lukas said, raising his fists threateningly at the old man.

I was about to give him a piece of my mind. When the lady in the pantsuit spoke up.

"Can it asshole, we're all in this together, if we are going to get out of here, we'll need to work together." She glared in disgust at the blonde asshole. He glared back at her, trying to get her to back down, but in the end, he was forced to look away.

She turned to the old man and smiled "Mr Zubyr, thank you for introducing yourself, I'm Agent Melody Price, I'm American, working with the FBI's missing persons task-force in washington."

Everyone in the room had turned from staring at me to looking at Melody. Zubyr smiled back at her, "please call me Zubyr'' She then turned to me and I noticed her smile dropped a bit and so did Zubyr's

"And who might you be Mr___?" She said in an offhand manner that belied the curiosity in her voice.

For a second, I considered not answering. I was pissed off by the judgemental nature of her question.

But sighing, I decided that there was no point being difficult, at least for now. "My name is William, and like you, I'm also American. Did you see your captors do anything weird or strange when they took you?"

I looked around hoping to get confirmation from several sources regarding the whole magic mystery.

"Why didn't you ask the one that took you, you guys looked friendly with one another." Melody said in another offhanded way that didn’t completely hide her suspicions regarding me.

So that was it, the way the vampire spoke to me made it seem like I was in league with our jailers. Everybody kept looking at me weird because they thought I was a plant.

"I guess you missed the part where she slammed me into the wall like a dusty rug," I replied, my voice laced with snark and a bit of anger.

"Until last night, I had never met that lady. I'm just a simple mechanic, just minding my business when I was kidnapped and tortured by some wackos. The vampire attacked their facility and "liberated" me into her custody." I said that last part with a sarcastic grin on my face, trying to keep the horrors of the previous night from overwhelming me and the embarrassing tears that were almost likely to follow.

Melody stared fixedly at me with that cop stare, clearly trying to figure out whether I was lying or telling the truth. "Simple mechanics don't get kidnapped and tortured like you claim, and if you were actually tortured by this mysterious group, where are your bruises, you look fine to me."

Everyone except the uniformed man who was still passed out turned back to stare at me.

I sighed, getting tired of the blatant distrust in the room. If I did not think that they had some valid reasons for distrusting me, I'd think this was about something else.

"She gave me something to drink that fixed most of my injuries, but I still hurt like hell." I raised my shirt to show her the scars from my now almost healed injuries.

"Those scars look old, are you telling me that they came from injuries only a few hours old?" She asked, clearly skeptical of my story.

"Believe what you will, all I've told you is the truth," I replied in a frustrated tone, finally giving rein to my anger.

She stared at me for a few seconds; another cop trick, before turning to the girl next to her"

In their need to figure me out, everyone had clearly forgotten the crying girl in the room.

Melody shuffled closer to the girl, and wrapped her arms around the ballerina, "Honey, I know it feels hopeless, but we're going to get out of here I promise."

God save me from these hero types! How could she make such a promise, when it was far from unlikely that she could keep it. I was beginning to reassess my opinion of Melody, and not for the better. Optimism is good and all, but blind optimism can lead to a world of hurt.

Melody said soothing nonsense to the girl, while stroking her long hair in an attempt to calm her down.

"They're all dead, they killed everybody, they killed my papa. Why did they kill my papa?" She raised her head up from Melody’s shoulder, looking to someone, anyone for answers and unsatisfied, increased the volume of her mournful wailing.

That must have been rough losing her father in such an attack. I felt bad for the girl, because I also knew what it felt like to lose a father.

She was quite pretty if you could look past, the tears and dried up snot on her face. My conscience pricked me, calling me an insensitive jerk, if only in my head.

Melody pulled her closer, ignoring the snot and using her right sleeve to clear most of the tears and the snot. Cop attitude aside, she went up again several notches in my estimation.

"Let it out, let it all out," Melody continued to sooth the girl, whose cute leotard made her look even smaller.

After a while, the crying girl got a hold of herself and turned to the rest of us.

"My name is Minnie, Minnie Azcevedo, I'm American, but I immigrated with my mom as a child. I'm a ballerina with the metropolitan opera house on broadway. I was visiting my father at his military base in Brazil as a birthday surprise, when we were attacked." She said in a slightly shaky voice.

Zubyr cleared his throat and spoke to Minnie in a soothing sympathetic voice, "I'm very sorry dear, your father must have really loved you. My kids barely remember my birthday, much less take out time to come and see me. In fact, it's because the idea of staying at home alone on Christmas Eve was so terrible, that I decided to go to the lab to focus on my work to take my mind off my loneliness."

I froze at the old man's statement, clearly he was wrong, he must have had the time mixed up, being old and all that. We were clearly taken in July.

I turned to Melody who was also looking at the old man strangely.

"Mr Zubyr, what are you talking about, today is April, April 16th 2004"