The Light

How long had she been here? Days? A week? The time seemed to run together in the room with stone walls and only torch light to see by. No windows meant she couldn't see what time of day it was. The Master had come to visit her several more times. Each time he dug deeper into her life and psyche he wore down every last feeling she had ever felt. She couldn't even cry anymore. Her tears had run out long ago. She lay there, helpless. He fed her stale bread and gave her water to keep her alive, but her will was breaking. She didn't know how much longer she could continue this without going completely crazy.

She had tried just about everything. Retrieving weapons from her inventory, but with her wrists where they were, the only thing she could have done with those, was shoot herself. The Master had made sure that her wrists angled her hands toward herself. She had even gotten desperate enough at one point to try to send the table to her inventory like Derek had with the handcuffs. But she just got a message saying it was too big.

Once, she'd taken a grenade from her inventory and tried to throw it at The Master while he was talking to her. It had gone off, but the blast had turned the table over and protected both him and her from the worst of the damage. This had truly set him off and he beat her after the attempt.

Now, she just lay there. One eye was nearly swollen shut and her lips cracked and scabbed over. Her jaw hurt every time she tried to speak, so she had just remained silent the last few times he had come to visit. She just lay there with a vacant stare and tried to be somewhere else when he came in.

She couldn't refute what he said. It made sense. She wasn't worth their effort. Who was she to feel special enough to be loved by anyone and included as family? They weren't really even friends. They were acquaintances working to stay alive. She wouldn't fault them for picking the option of their lives. Hell, she would have done the same before meeting them.

"Before meeting them," Kiera thought to herself.

She relived the moments they had together. How she had tried to act tough so they would include her. Put up with the banter because she wanted desperately to belong. And she had felt like she had. They took her with them, treated her the same as everyone else, and never asked about her past or anything other than who she was right then. She had finally thought she understood acceptance, love even. But now?

There was a rustling outside the door, and Kiera tensed as she waited for The Master to enter the room. For the mental torment to begin again as it had every other time. She tried to erect a mental barrier to keep her innermost self safe again, but she felt it crumbling. It was like a wall that had been hit by stones from a catapult for weeks on end, cracked and ready to crumble at any moment. She knew she would be lost then.

The door began to open when it suddenly shut again, and she could hear a muffled exchange of words outside the door. The voices sounded angry. Then she heard shouting. Still muffled, but definitely louder as they continued.

Suddenly the sound of gunfire rang out. Shot after shot after shot rang out in the hallway. Was he going to kill her now too? Panic began to rise in her chest as she felt a surge of adrenaline at the thought of dying in this shithole.

"Not here, not like this!" Kiera thought to herself.

The least she could do was try to go out fighting. She strained against the restraints again. Her wrists and ankles were already bruised from her previous attempts, but she had to try.

The door was suddenly kicked in and Tom came rushing into the room. Her eyes went wide as he looked around the room. Time seemed to move in slow motion as his panicked face saw her on the table, still alive and moving. She could see the relief on his face as he rushed to her.

"Kiera!" He said, emotion flowing through the word.

He looked at the restraints and then back to her.

"I need you to look away," he said to her in a soft but firm voice.

She nodded and turned her face away. Tom pulled a hammer out of his inventory and smashed the lock on the first one. Then he moved to the other and had her turn her head again. He freed her legs as she was rubbing her wrists. He grabbed her and picked her up in a princess carry and she turned to look at him.

His head covered the torch behind her, and a halo-like glow came from behind him as he said something to her. She didn't hear his words as she looked at him. Feeling like she was really seeing him for the first time.

"Little sis!" Came Jay's voice from the doorway as he entered. "What the fuck did they do to you?"

"It's okay. She's still alive. But we need Derek to help heal her." Tom said.

"Was that The Master?" Jay asked looking down at something in the hall Kiera couldn't see.

"No. It was a Changeling. It took on the form of whatever it needed to in order to try to break us down." Tom said. "It was clever but Identify showed what it really was. You can't Identify people remember?"

Kiera immediately felt so stupid. She knew you couldn't Identify people, so she hadn't even tried it on that bastard.

"Water..." Kiera whispered in a cracked voice.

Jay rushed over, pulled a bottle of water from his inventory, and gently tipped it up for her to drink from.

"Slowly. Not too much at once. You'll just throw it up." Jay spoke softly to her.

"Thank you," Kiera whispered after the drink.

"We'd never leave you here, Kiera. I know what that thing was trying to do. It tried it on all of us. But you're safe now. And we're not going anywhere. You're family." Tom said to her.

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Kiera suddenly felt so tired. Relief had washed through every fiber of her being at his words. She wasn't wrong. They did feel the same way about her that she had about them.

"The Changeling needed to break down mental walls to be able to feed on your brain waves. It used psychological warfare to try to break through. Sick son of a bitch." Tom explained. "Fucking dungeon. Doesn't even give us a quest to try to finish. Just tosses us in here and hopes for the best."

"The dungeon! That's right! I'm still in that damn dungeon of chance." Kiera thought to herself.

"Derek! Get in here!" Tom called.

Derek came into the room and saw her. He rushed over to her and looked her over. He extended his hands and began to cast a healing spell as Tom lowered her to a sitting position against a wall. Relief flooded her as the feeling of warmth filled her for the first time since that creature had thrown a bucket of cold water on her.

Feeling the pain ease, she let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Jay handed her the water bottle again and she began to feel better.

"Thank you," she said after she took a long draw of water.

"For what?" Tom asked her, genuine curiosity on his face.

"For not leaving me," Kiera replied.

"Kiera, I'm a little hurt you'd even think that was a possibility," Tom chuckled as he smiled at her. "You're family now. We'd have to be dead not to come for you."

Kiera felt tears well in her eyes again. Tears she didn't think she still had left to shed. Her heart felt so full in that moment. In a dark dingy dungeon room, she felt more love than she had ever felt in her life. That these people she met by chance through a devastating, world-altering event would treat her in a way that her own parents hadn't left her speechless.

"Come on, let's get you out of here. Do you think you can stand?" Tom asked her softly.

Kiera nodded and took the hand he offered to her. She stood shakily at first, but Jay gave her a piece of beef Jerky and she took it and began to gnaw on it eagerly.

"Jay, you stay right by her while we try to figure out the point of this dungeon," Tom ordered as he moved to the door.

Jay helped Kiera to follow as well, Derek taking up the rear. Michael, Kevin, Kirsten, and James were all waiting in the hall for them. Not seeing Jerky or Squirrel she assumed they must not be a part of this dungeon as they hadn't in the undersea dungeon.

"Any thoughts on how to beat this place?" James asked. "Place gives me the creeps."

"Maybe escape? We killed the Changeling. There must be something else here or we'd be done already." Tom replied.

"Okay, then let's go. Head down the hall and let's see what's here." Derek said from behind them. "This is the end of the hall, so it must be that way."

They began to walk down the hall. Kiera noticed there were doors on both sides of the hall that had rooms identical to hers. She got flashbacks of her time on the table and the mental abuse she had endured. She flinched.

"You okay, sis?" Jay asked as he felt her jolt.

"I'll be fine," Kiera said in a raspy voice, still not recovered from the dehydration and yelling.

At the opposite end of the hall was a set of stone stairs leading up. Tom went first, greatsword at the ready. the stairs led up and up and up. They curved around in a circular pattern until they finally ended in a wooden door.

Putting his ear to the door, Tom couldn't make out any sounds on the other side. Trying the handle, it was locked. He took a step back and thrust kicked the door open. It banged against the wall behind it as Tom rushed in.

"Clear," Tom called back to them and the others followed.

The room they entered was some sort of kitchen. Counters with cutting boards and a basket of fruit sat on them, a wood fire oven in one corner. It appeared as though the door they came through was disguised to look like some kind of pantry.

Down the hall, a set of voices could be heard. They began to get closer as the team moved to hide. A man walked into the room and Tom cut his head clean off with one swipe, not giving him a chance to cry out. Shouts came from further down the hall as the body had fallen in view of the doorway.

"Get ready," Tom said in a hushed tone to the others as footsteps began to be heard coming faster.

More men rushed into the room and James opened fire at the first one. Headshot after headshot, they died as they entered the room. Kevin bellowed out a roar as he activated his rage. Jumping into the doorway as he couldn't control his bloodlust, James had to stop shooting to avoid hitting him.

Kevin grabbed a man and tossed him against a wall behind him where Kirsten began punching his face in, blood spattering everywhere as she screamed in rage at them as well. One man grabbed onto Kevin in an attempt to stop him, but his eyes went wide when he was unable to move the muscled man and Kevin grabbed him by the throat and began to squeeze.

He slammed the man's head against the wall again and again and again leaving a blood-stained indention in the wooden wall. He let the body fall limply to the floor as he charged down the hall in search of his next opponent. A man came out of a room further down the hall and Kevin roared again as he sprinted at him. A second man came from a room Kevin had already passed, trying to see what was happening.

James shot him in the back of the head, and he fell to the floor in a heap. Michael pushed past James and ran down the hall too.

"Leave some for me, Kevin!" Michael called after him.

Turning into the room that Kevin had passed, Michael rushed in, axes in both hands.

"Found you!" He called as he began his attack.

Screams came from the halls as the men inside died at their hands. Soon all was quiet again and the team gathered back in the kitchen.

"There's a door that looks like it leads outside up ahead a ways. Let's go." Michael said as he took the lead this time.

When they reached the door, Michael pulled it open. All that was behind it was a bright white nothingness that made them all squint. Stepping into the light, the team exited the room into the next unknown.