Snippet #1802298

Poke -

The jab on the arm - very soft and unsure - was enough to bring Ryan charging out of his stupor. It wasn't just the touch - that hadn't been strong enough to knock over a card tower, but the combination of the poke - a motion that Ryan considered idiotic and unnecessary - and the hesitancy behind the emotion. Hesitation - what a useless thing to have. It would just get in the way and crush one's goals and accomplishments if it got the chance. Those who hesitated were morons.

In a flash, Ryan sat bolt upright. "Never poke me, bitch!" The last word came out a bit delayed as he took a look at the idiot to determine gender. A girl.

Disgusting.

His head spun, and he felt his dinner coming back up, but he swallowed it down hard, refusing to allow the nausea overcome him. This was his second rude awakening in less than two hours - his first had been in the car, when he'd hit his head on the metal of the seat belt strap, a blow that probably added to his concussion but also had the effect of stirring him from his unconsciousness. While Ryan had been knocked unconscious before with his fair share of head trauma, it normally didn't happen quite so quickly - maybe, once every six hours at the most - and normally, when Ryan woke up, he was lying in the streets or in a back alley.

This time, he was in a castle.

Or at least, that's what it seemed like to Ryan.

The room he was in was enormous. The floor was made of some odd, shiny marble, mottled gray, with a very soft look about it. In two straight lines from the entrance of the the foyer - two great doors, carved with gold - to the mantelpiece were pillar after pillar. They were gold and had built on gray blocks, edged with gold and were so thick that two Ryan arm-lengths might not have stretched their length. In between the pillars was a long, wide path that stretched from end to end and over the path, in line with the pillars were dozens of chandeliers, all of them holding burning candles and made of pure gold. The chains that held the chandeliers to the ceiling were so well-made that they almost blended with the background, giving the impression that the chandeliers were actually floating in mid-air instead of suspended from the top of the room.

In front of the pillars were rows of chairs - comfortable white oak classics that had probably been handmade.

Everything should have been very comforting - the warm glow of the candles, the soft reflections on the gold and the marble floor, the soft cushions of the chairs -

But that was were the comfort ended.

Above the mantelpiece, where one would normally expect a depiction of a Biblical scene was instead a painting of a forest. The trees that were in front were in full-bloom, leaves dark but everywhere on the tree, signaling health. They were very sparse - only three of them at the front, so they allowed one to see past the facade of the forest into the actual forest. As one traveled deeper into the painting, the trees began to lose their leaves and the colors slowly faded completely, turning sienna, brown, red. It was possible to see a tree in the very back that was bending over, its branches bare of any greenery at all.

And it wasn't just above the mantelpiece - the image was repeated in the carvings on the pillars and in the chandeliers as well as in the embroideries of the cushions of the armchairs.

What the hell? Ryan stared at everything, his mind racing - or trying to - nausea didn't really help the process. What was going on?

He'd gone to sleep in his room the night before - something very unusual - and had woken up in a car driving about thirty miles over the speed limit before being knocked out again by some tall, buff man.

Did I just get kidnapped? What the fuck? Anger was starting to build now as he got to his feet. Who the hell had managed to do something like this to him? And what were they gonna do with him - ransom him? Sell him? A precursory glance told him there were four other teens in the pretty little hall with him - So probably some illegal selling, He concluded. His eyes flashed. Well I sure as hell am not gonna sit around waiting for some pathetic police officer to rescue me.

In several swift steps, Ryan had made it to the double doors, which, he noticed now, also had the disturbing forest carved into it. He took the briefest moment to absorb this and then started to pound on the door.

"HEY, BASTARDS. YOU BETTER LET ME OUT IF YOU WANNA FUCKING LIVE."