Welcome to Gaia! ::

Amelia laid on her back in the small prison cell that had been her new home for the last week. Each breath brought a sharp pain on her left side, she suspected at least one broken rib, and her face still stung where her questions had slapped her but a small smile still curved her lips. Frustrated that after a week of being tortured by their simulation machine she still hadn't given up who she had been passing the information to he had resorted to physically beating her. She had made him lose control, a small victory where few were to be had. Amelia would enjoy tonight for tomorrow would likely be worse than anything she had experienced so far. The fear, the pain, everything in the simulation felt so real despite her best efforts to tell herself it wasn't. She wasn't sure how much longer she would endure.

The alarms in the building started blaring, the pitch black of her cell replaced with red glowing lights. Maybe she wouldn't have to endure any longer after all. She had managed to send a last ditch message that she had been compromised, but she had never allowed herself the hope of being rescued. At least until now she hasn't.

"Yes!" She called out at the sound of her name, sitting up. A sharp cry of pain followed as she clutched a hand to her left side. In her excitement she had forgotten about the injury. After all one of her captors wouldn't be questioning if she was inside. Unless it was another simulation. She remembered being pulled out, waking up in the chair she had come to hate sweating and shaking. She remembered spitting in the man's face as he offered her freedom in exchange for information. They both knew that was a lie. The only thing left for after she gave them what they wanted was death. She remembered him slapping her across the face and punching her until one of the others in the room pulled him away. She remembered being dragged back to her cell and left to lay in the dark once more. It all seemed so real. So normal compared to what they had been showing her in the simulations, but maybe they had decided to go with a different tactic this time. Try to trick her into revealing her contacts instead of torturing it out of her. Or maybe some monster would be waiting on the other side of the door. "Are you real? What's your name?"

Oddly she found his sarcastic comment comforting. Surely if this was not real they would be trying to convince her it was. Even if it was another simulation what choice did she have but to go along with it? Amelia had noted that he hadn't given her a name and she would be sure not to give up any information until she was sure of his identity. Gritting her teeth she made the painful effort to stand, her right hand pressed against her side. Sliding the door open she got her first look at her savoir. The eerie red light did nothing to help with her contemplation of reality, but she had already committed to the idea of escaping. “Lead the way, though if you expect me to run you will have to help me. I am fairly certain some of my ribs are broken.”

She couldn't help but snort at his comment about falling into the sewer, something that earned her another jab of pain. Obediently she followed him down the walkway beside the river of sludge becoming more and more convinced this was really happening. Still the combination of darkness and the openness of the sewer made her nervous. A dread in the pit of her stomach she tried her best to ignore, though she found herself sticking as close as possible to her rescuer. This is reality, she tried to tell herself, and there were no monsters in reality. His question didn't surprise her, not was she offended by it. If she had, they would need to know. “Nothing, they don't break your ribs for co-operating.” She would be lying if she didn't admit it had been getting tempting though. "I hadn't expected a rescue."

“Perhaps.” She answered absentmindedly. If you co-operated you turned up dead as soon as you gave them everything they wanted. Amelia looked up at the ladder he had stopped in front of. Climbing it would be a difficult prospect at best. Instead of climbing though he turned to her revealing her contact was gone. She couldn't help but feel a stab of guilt. Had it been her last desperate message that had compromised him or had they already been after him? Maybe he had been the one to compromise her? “Gone? They weren't kept alive and questioned like myself?” She avoided the use of the pronoun on purpose. Maybe he was here with the rebels to rescue her or maybe he was fishing for information.

Why hadn't he sent his own message? It clearly wasn't the time to discuss it further, but something seemed wrong about the whole situation. “I'll manage.” After all what choice did she have, other than to wait in the sewer for the guards to come collect her again. As he left her side to climb the ladder she felt the anxiety claw it's way deeper. Where there just his footsteps or was something else coming down the sewer? They way the sound echoed it was impossible to tell. A ring of light fell around her as the manhole cover was pushed away, but that only made things worse. A shining beacon broadcasting her location for whatever was coming from the darkness. She placed her right hand on the ladder to begin her own climb to the surface. If she hurried then it wouldn't catch her. Amelia took one last glance over her shoulder before letting out a scream. It was too late, the creature was already right beside her. Twisted and bloody with barbed wire wrapped around it's grotesque form, it raised a large meat cleaver at her. Back peddling as quickly as she could, she tripped over her own feet and fell to the ground sending blinding pain through her side. Still the creature persisted and she issued another scream as she tried to crawl backwards away from it.

“Where did it go? It was right there.” She insisted looking frantically around the sewer clearly terrified. It had collapsed as her rescuer had jumped back down leaving only the barbed wire behind. Even that seemed different, relatively clean compared to the rusted blood stained wire that had wrapped around the creature. Amelia scrambled back up to her feet ignoring the burning down her side as the creature would be back any second. She quickly ran the few steps to his side before turning her back to him peering into the darkness. “Didn't you see it?”