25: Serenity

I woke up slowly and tried to sit up, only for it to be completely impossible on my own.

"Woah, hold on, Serenity. I'll come help you up," a voice echoed into the darkness of my room. I felt hands lift me and set me against the headboard as I groaned at the pain.

Axton had a slight look of worry appear on his face in front of me as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. I felt something wet and cold pressed against my lips before I registered the glass in Axton's hand.

"That's it, drink up. You've been out for a while now."

The water burnt its way down my throat. Even with the pain, I drank it greedily. I couldn't remember the last time I was awake enough to drink water. To be completely honest, I couldn't remember the last time I was this awake either.

"Serenity, pace yourself, you don't want to make yourself sick with an empty stomach."

I froze for a second, only then recognizing the slight nausea creeping up on me. I attempted to slow down, but that only lasted a short while before I downed the rest and felt the glass pull away, gagging as it left.

"Naya?" my voice rasped out.

I saw a small smile appear on his face. "She's outside the door, she had to go to the bathroom and needed a run. She's waiting for me to come let her in so she can pounce on you and check for any excess dark energy invading your bloodstream."

"Dark?"

"You used a portion of your life force, my little warrior. You got away, but you didn't let it all back in properly, so it went into your bloodstream. That's why you hurt so bad. Raziel and I have been slowly purging it from your system." I nodded at him and noticed the blackout curtains that kept any kind of light from entering the room.

"Lights? Kelsie?"

He smiled at me and I felt one of his hands push back a loose strand of hair. "If we let light touch you right now, it's possible it could damage you more than you were. You can talk to Kelsie once you're better. I'll deliver messages to you as she texts you, okay?"

After that, I could tell Axton was just rambling on at this point.

And he kept going on.

And on.

AND ON.

So much so that I wasn't sure I could keep up.

My mind kept spacing out and I struggled after a while to keep my eyes open and to push to stay awake. The next thing I remember is the feeling of the pillow under my head as Axton moved me back down and tucked me under the covers. I felt lips press against my temple before I let myself succumb to sleep.

~~~~

Raziel didn't know what to do from here. His invisibility had only managed to spare his life, but not the lives of his parents and little brother. He had watched the mutilation happen, but was powerless to stop it. His parents had always taught himself and his brother, Marin, to hide themselves and not interfere in anything that should happen to them. When his brother ran at them, Raziel had tried to stop him, only to give away his original position and have to move.

He had watched the men mutilate his family.

And yet he couldn't bring himself to help them.

~~~~

Axton was born into this underground service. Women who were stolen and forced into sexual servitude for anyone with enough to pay. He was only two when he learned that the tunnels that lead to the giant metal door that was always locked and too heavy to move on his own was how they were kept in their little handcrafted underground village.

He was terrified of what his mother did and worried about her. She would always lovingly pat his head and tell him that everything would be alright. That they were safe, for now.

It was unsurprising to him after learning that of the number of children running around as they played with one another. He was a quiet child, always with his mother and the other women.

Later, he would wish that they didn't notice how close he had become with all the women.

~~

Age twelve was the first time that they forced him to do any of the things the women did. It was horrible. Words could barely describe how disgusting and contaminated he felt after that. He remembers his mother holding him that night and crying as much as he wished he could. But he felt numb, for the first time in his life, Axton felt numb.

He didn't know about the world beyond the metal doors that contained him and his entire world. He didn't understand why he and all these people had been chosen for this, all he knew was that this was going to be his life until he died.

What a miserable existence.

~~

He was drained. So drained that the exhaustion began seeping into his bones. For two years, it had been nonstop being forced into a room with different women who were paying to take advantage of him.

Disgusting.

He was the only boy left in the village, the others allowed to help the handlers. All of the girls had already been forced into their servitude and the light he used to see in their eyes had faded. Their bodies had shaped into forms that their captors had wanted. Their bodies curved out that tended to make clientele come requesting the girls.

~~

His mother was home, her hair had dulled and her eyes were even duller. She had been in this since she had been stolen from her home at sixteen, having Axton at seventeen had taken a major toll on her mental health. She loved her son and loved how he still tried to find the light in every situation, but she was tired of seeing his light go out. She was just tired.

The creaking of her rocking chair underneath her was the only sound left in the house. Axton had been taken to do more of those heinous acts, and she could do nothing to save her baby.

Well, there was only one thing she could do.

She stood up and looked around her tiny hut for one of the books that she had taught her son to read and some paper to write a note.

Once she finished and was satisfied with what she had left, she shut it into the storybook and hit it on the shelf. None of the regulators would be able to find it until after Axton did.

She smiled in mock bliss as she took the rope and chair back to her rocking chair and began to tie the noose as she sat down, humming a small tune to herself. She stood silently and tied it around a water pipe that ran across the top of her roof and let her hands fall to her sides.

She giggled for a second before the laughter bubbled up into something more sinister escaping her. For one moment, she would hold all the power. All the cards.

Her shaking hands reached up and pulled her loop towards her and let it fall around her neck. She hoped that she wouldn't suffer long, but she knew it was something she wouldn't be able to control.

She stepped off and her neck broke instantly at the fall. She died only seconds later.

Donna had been sixteen when she had been abducted. After fifteen years in the sex trafficking ring, she had finally given up her hope that her family would find her. Her family, however, would continue to search for her until they would find her body the following month. The men who had forced her into the life she had lived had thrown her into a ditch. Her body was found heavily burned and her death was ruled a homicide. They would continue searching for her abductors and presumed murderers for the next nine years.

Donna had two younger siblings when she died, two sisters who were age seven when she went missing. Her mother at the time was pregnant with her brother who had never gotten the chance to meet his sister, who was described to him by his family as a girl of light and joy. She had loved animals and nature while also taking care of her sisters when her parents had to work late nights at the family restaurant and even helping there from time to time.

She didn't want her son to be tied to this horrible place because he wanted to stay with his mom. Her hope for him was to find his grandparents after he escaped and tell them what had happened to her.

She was from Nashville, Tennessee. She was found in Fox Lake, Illinois. Her son would later escape out of his captivity into Chicago, Illinois, almost five hundred thirty miles away from the rest of his mother's family.

Not even she could have predicted the following events.

~~

Axton wanted to cry when he finally got thrown back into the giant room that was like a prison to him.

He only let himself lay on the ground for a few moments before he stood up and dusted himself off. He hated the fact this was slowly becoming daily as his mother sat at home and stared blankly out the window and at the doors until he walked inside. He hated that she was alone all the time. As she got older, she was wanted less and less, leaving her to die in here as she slowly lost her mind as she started slowly losing more and more time with her son.

When he finally reached the house, it was pitch black inside. It was off to him, his mother never went to bed before he got home. He stepped inside quietly in the pitch darkness and felt his way to his mother's bedroom.

"Mom?"

No response.

He was very confused now. She had never left the house.

He found a candle and tried to light it. The dim light was enough to show him the empty bed and room. His mother wasn't here.

He turned around, he was panicking a bit now.

"Mom!"

No response.

When he reached the living room is when his worst fears were realized. She was there, swinging gently back and forth. Her eyes were devoid of the life that once lit them up.

He collapsed to the floor as a scream ripped through him. He heard the other people running in, only to be pushed out by handlers as they made their way into the house.

Anger, all he felt was anger. She had given up because of them.

They all deserved to burn in hell.

The ground began to shake beneath them and women and children rushed to take shelter against the falling debris. Regulators took his mother off the makeshift rope and took her body and it with her.

Inside, his world was crumbling. The one constant in his life had been taken away, and for what? All these men wanted power. To feel powerful.

He felt his eyes burn as he stood. The burn was almost enough to make him shut his eyes, but he refused.

They needed to pay.

~~

It was forty eight hours later when he would get his chance. They only gave him forty eight hours to grieve (he would know, he stared at the clock on the wall and counted every second that he was alone in here) before wanting him to work again.

When the regulators entered his house, he was ready. His black, dusty shirt and his loose jeans they had given him to wear felt restrictive as he prepared his next move.

He threw a punch at the face of the first one, it didn't take them long to restrain him after that. He struggled against the ground as the earth shook around them again.

"Nice try, but you aren't getting out of this. You will die down here just like your mother did."

Anger filled him again. He wanted to prove them wrong.

He wanted to be the one to escape.

The earth trembled again, but this time, debris fell right on top of his restrainers. He jumped up and ran, ran like he had never run before.

He got to the first open metal door and felt the hands grab him again, but the earth chose that moment of his anger to start opening beneath them.

When Axton escaped, he had never known he was a metahuman before his escape. It took him a year to understand what he was and try to figure out what he was going to do with himself. He had never been outside the dark confides of the underground town he was raised in.

When he met Raziel, the two broken teens began to plan. To train to become something more than they were.

And then Raziel brought up wanting to take down the Underground.

~~~~

Violence. It was bright, but nothing hurt her. Her shadows were like growing waves and she could feel their connection to her very being. It was like the shadows and her soul were humming.

She heard her name but the faces were unrecognizable to her now. It was like she was high on the power that thumped in her veins like a poison. But she didn't feel the pain anymore, like her body had become accustomed to the feeling. She could feel her skin burning, but it felt so light that it didn't bother her anymore.

She felt the pointed light and felt the pain again, but pushed on.

Whatever her master needed.

She would do.

No matter if she lost her own life or not.

For who would ever be able to defeat the Demon Lord?

~~

I woke up feeling ravenous. Weeks had gone by with no light around in the house, and I knew today would be the first time it would be possible to go out for food.

And so I got dressed. My night vision had grown increasingly better as time had gone on like this. I missed the days outside, I missed hanging out with Kelsie, I missed home

I missed my home. The house where I grew up. The one with the paintings on the walls from nights where my mom would bring new paints home and painting with her stories that my mind created. The smell of books and leather as my father kept every old book imaginable because he wanted me to know all the secrets of the world without having to leave the comforts of our home. The chill in the air during every movie night when my parents would sit on either side of me with a fluffy blanket and snacks, snuggling up to me and keeping me warm. The love that shined in their eyes every time they looked at either other or me, even without being their own child.

I threw on a t-shirt and a pair of jeans as I tried to remember their faces and they started to come blurry. Their voices were becoming harder and harder to imagine. It was like they were fading again.

I shook my head and patted my cheeks. I wouldn't ponder it now. Today was the first day I could go back outside freely. And I would.

I wanted to get a sandwich. Not just any dang sandwich, the best dang sandwich money could buy.

I walked out and noticed Naya and Axton's absence immediately, but I shrugged before grabbing a piece of paper and scribbling a note, telling him where I was going and when I would be back home. I smiled as I signed my name and placed it on the counter where I knew he would see it before grabbing my keys and walking out to my old grey Four-Runner and hopping inside, bouncing a little as I landed on the seat.

I drove across town with my navigation on, I called her Debbie. It took me up to a small shop with the words "Dave's Cosmic Subs" written across the top. Perfect, I needed my sandwich and this sounded like the best place for now.

I walked inside and carefully explained that I wanted a few slices of every meat, every cheese, and some of every type of sauce on my sandwich with lettuce added eventually.

When I received it and paid, I found a seat next to the window and stared out at the rainy day. It was nice and the sound of slight taps as the rain hit the roof above me was comforting in a strange way. I missed going out like this. I wondered how Kelsie was as I took the first bite of my giant sandwich.

Was she doing okay? Did she think I was ghosting her? Had she been busy which was why she hadn't tried to call or leave messages? Did she ghost me?

The questions ran through my mind over and over as I took a sip of my sweet tea and winced a bit. I had forgotten how sweet the south made their tea. I definitely preferred my normal unsweet with a few packs of sugar to this liquified sugar with a splash of tea.

I shook my head and took another bite as another person entered the small place. The green eyes gave him away as he plopped down in front of me, soaked and splashed some water onto me as I sat dry.

"Hey!" I said, my mouth full, as I tried to express my irritation with getting soaked again.

"Hey yourself, I tried calling you and you didn't answer! Your phone was on the counter in case you needed to leave or needed anything while I went to get food!" he said, placing the device on the counter. "I just walked here in the freezing rain to make sure you were still where you said you were."

I stopped for a second and gave him a small smile. He was worried I'd disappeared again without him knowing. I reached out and placed my hand over his and gave it a light squeeze. Then my dream came to the front of my mind.

"Hey, I need to tell you something," I started. Axton's eyes locked with mine as the dream slowly faded away.

Instead, his future invaded my mind. I saw him crying over a grave, but there was no writing visible to me as he placed a bouquet of flowers there. Next was a letter that he pulled out of the rubble of a place I had never seen before. The final flash was him protecting a group of people who had similar features to his own, fighting against what looked to be a shadow soldier.

I blinked back into reality and took another bite of my food as I tried to process what I had seen.

"Never mind, let's just go home," I said, wrapping my sandwich back up and taking it with me to the car.

Neither of us spoke the rest of the way home.