Angeline jerked awake, coughing and gasping. Her lungs burned and her head pounded like a hammer. She tried to move, but quickly realized that her entire body was restrained. She tried to look around, but there was only darkness with a thin line of light on the bottom edge of her vision. She was blindfolded. Scrunching up her face, she tried to move the blindfold farther up so she could see a little more.

After managing to do it, the first thing she saw was another pair of bare feet standing in front of her. They took a step closer and then the blindfold was pulled down violently to cover her eyes again.

“Ow.” Angeline cried.

“Quiet.” The voice sounded hollow, like they were wearing a helmet.

Angeline sighed, but did as she was told. Since she couldn’t see anything, she tried to do the next best thing and listened. There wasn’t much noise, except for her ragged breathing. She calmed her breath as much as she could and tried again, but there was still nothing to be heard. If that was the case she figured she was probably in their equivalent of the brig. With nothing else to do, she leaned back against the wall and sat there.

After a long while there was the sound of a metallic click and the soft thud of footsteps. “Leave us. I will speak to her.” It was a man’s voice.

“Sir,” the first voice said. The footsteps receded, but there was no second click. After a few seconds the blindfold was ripped off.

Angeline blinked her eyes against the new light. She was in a small room. It was the same color gold as everything she had seen. A short balding man stood in front of her. He wore a similar white robe as the woman from before, but his was adorned with gold pauldrons. Each one had a yellow glowing crystal embedded inside them. The man sat down and crossed his legs one over the other, like he was getting ready to meditate.

“Do you know who I am?” the man asked.

“The guildmaster,” Angeline guessed. She knew she was wrong.

The man smiled. “The guildmaster has many more important things to worry about, then a little incident like this.”

“So then who are you?”

“The real question is who are you?”

Angeline tried her best to sit up straight. “I am Captain Angeline of the Nightingale.”

The man’s smile faded as he cocked his head. “Captain? You don’t look like a pilot to me. You sure are not dressed for it. In fact, the clothing you wear is strange or at the very least dirty. As for this Nightingale, there are no Aviors that go by that designation.”

“What the hell is Avior?” Angeline asked.

“You are a strange woman. Why were you below the Geyser Line?”

“The what?”

The man’s frown deepened and he placed his hand to his chin in a thinking gesture. “Could this be amnesia? A form of flow sickness? That can’t be right, there’s no documented cases.”

“What…?”

The man put his other hand up to interrupt Angeline. “Tell me. How did you get here?”

“Get where?” Angeline tried to throw her hands up in frustration but the restraints prevented it. “I don’t know anything. I don’t even know who you are.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Clearly. I am Magistrate. That is my title and name.”

“Finally, we’re getting somewhere.”

The man got up and brushed down his robe. “I disagree. We will be landing soon. You will be escorted to a prison and you will be questioned by Inquisitor. She is much better than I at extracting truths.”

“Are you going to blindfold me again?” Angeline chided.

Magistrate walked to the door. “A wise word of advice. Be honest with Inquisitor. It’ll mean less pain for you.” And with that he shut the door.

Some time later, there was a rumble and a jolt from the floor and wall that knocked Angeline to her side. She tried to sit back up but the restraints fought against her. Before she could continue the door opened again and two people entered. They were dressed in identical gold armor with helmets that resembled a bird’s beak. They too were barefoot. Why? She made a mental note to make finding that out a priority, right after finding a way to escape wherever they were taking her.

The two of them grabbed Angeline and hoisted her up onto her feet. They led her out of the room and into a small hallway. Out of the four other doorways that were there, they took one that was on the left side and into a smaller room with a sloped roof and some of the veins similar to the bird on the far wall which surrounded the same bird-like sigil the woman had on her doorway. One of the guards walked over and pressed it. The veins lit up and the wall slid down. Wind swept in from the outside making some of Angeline’s hair blow into her face and mouth. From the taste alone, she knew she needed a bath.

“Walk,” one of the guards said. It sounded like the one from before. They shoved Angeline forward.

She ducked under the low wall and onto an oblong platform in the shape of a bird’s wing. Turning, she saw that she had just walked out of the bird that was chasing her earlier. It now sat on the ground inside of a large dome.

“I have to hand it to you,” Angeline said to the guards as they walked onto the wing. “That’s kind of amazing.” Neither of them stopped to ask what she meant. They just pointed ahead. “So much for conversation.”

The guards led her off the wing which sloped to the ground and down a few more hallways until they came into a large prison room with one cage wall splitting it in half. As one of the guards unlocked the cage and slid it open the other one removed Angeline’s restraints and pushed her in. Before she was even all the way in, the other guard had begun to slide the door shut. Quickly, she moved her hand out of the way to avoid having it get caught in the door. It clicked into place. The guard pulled on it to test it and when he was satisfied, they nodded to their partner and they turned to leave.

“Wait,” Angeline said, grabbing the bars. “When do I get to see this Inquisitor?”

One of the guards turned back. “If you knew what was coming, you wouldn’t be asking that.” And with that, they left.

Angeline stood there for a moment, gripping the cold bars and staring after the guards as their footsteps faded into silence. She shivered, though it wasn’t from the cold. The weight of her situation was starting to settle in her chest, a heavy pressure she couldn’t ignore. Sighing, she let go of the bars and turned to face her cell.

The walls were smooth, metallic, and seamless. There were no cracks and no obvious points of weakness. Her heart sank as she realized there would be no easy way out of this place. She knelt down, and ran her hands over the floor looking for anything—anything—that could help her. A loose tile, a hidden compartment, some sort of structural weakness. But there was nothing. Just cold, unyielding metal.

"Dammit," she said to herself. She sat back, resting her head against the wall, her body aching from the rough treatment and stress. How did she end up here? What the hell was the Geyser Line? Who were these people with their bird-like machines and cryptic questions? Did Scarab end up here as well? What about her crew? Too many questions buzzed around her mind.

What kind of interrogation was waiting for her? The way the guard had spoken, she had no illusions that it would be pleasant. Fear coiled in her stomach like a snake, but she pushed it down. She wasn’t going to give in to panic. Not yet. She had been in tough spots before and survived. She could do it again.

But as time stretched on, the stillness of the cell grew oppressive. Her body slumped, weary from fighting restraints and the unknown. She stared blankly at the smooth walls. There was nothing left to examine, nothing to figure out. She was trapped. Utterly and completely.

For the first time in a long while, Angeline felt a pang of hopelessness. She wasn’t used to being helpless. She was a captain, a fighter, someone who knew how to take control. And yet here she was—alone and waiting for someone else to decide her fate.

With a heavy sigh, Angeline lowered herself to the floor, her back resting against the wall. She drew her knees up to her chest and rested her head against them, closing her eyes for a moment. There was no way out and no clever escape plan she could come up with. All she could do now was wait. Wait for this Inquisitor. Wait for more questions, and wait for whatever came next. She hated waiting.