07-06-2015, 08:44 PM
A booming crash shook Gadge awake. The boy genius’s eyes flickered open, his vision met with a room altogether unlike Seb’s garage. The cramped space aroused a little bit of underlying claustrophobia inside the boy, the ensuing anxiety quickening his breathing. He tried to stand, but the clinking of chains and the new sensation of metal clamped around one of his scrawny wrists made short work of that idea. Without warning, the tiny room lurched. Gadge’s stomach didn’t agree with the movement; seconds later, he found himself sitting in a puddle of his own vomit.
Another clap of thunder shook the room’s flimsy metal walls. Gadge huddled in one of the corners and tried his best to hold back the rest of his dinner, though he expected this would be a losing battle, in the end. His stomach rocked with the motion of the room; he had felt this sensation before, during his few weeks cooped up in Costa del Sol. He had no way of knowing for sure—whoever constructed his little cage hadn’t been kind enough to include windows—but something told him he was on a boat.
The hours before—had it been hours? How long had he been trapped here?—flooded back into his brain. His excursion with Paige on the boardwalk, their rendezvous in Seb’s garage, and then… his boss’s blood, everywhere. A snap of a neck. A violent smash on the back of his skull. He remembered growing immediately dizzy, and then everything going black. Then the next thing he recalled was this room. Rocking back and forth with the waves, shaken ever so slightly by powerful bursts of thunder. Whoever the men who had killed Paige were, they had kidnapped him. They abducted him and shoved him into this tiny little room.
A light draft flowed in from underneath the room’s only door. As the cold air tickled his skin, Gadge became acutely aware of his distinct lack of clothing. Somewhere along the way, his kidnappers had stripped him of everything but his briefs. He blushed at the thought, although he did not know why; nobody was here to see him in his skivvies. Besides, he never possessed a low self-image, not for as long as he could remember; hell, he ran around shirtless most days. His hands reached for his abdomen; the bandages still remained. They had not removed those, thank goodness.
But who did these motherfuckers think they were, anyway? The boy’s temper flared. How did these guys get off, anyway, just showing up at Seb’s garage, murdering two people and kidnapping another? Even as he stewed in his own anger, though, Gadge’s mind told him he had bigger issues to worry about. How they got away with the crime had become irrelevant at this point—their success ensured that; rather, he knew he should be wondering why in the world they wanted to kidnap someone in the first place. Had their target specifically been him?
“They only want the boy. Get rid of her,” the man in the navy-colored suit said. The words rushed back to Gadge’s memory as he realized: yes, he must have been their target. Seb and Paige had merely gotten in the way—been in the wrong place at the wrong time—and had paid for it with their lives. But why in the world would they want a boy like him? “Special” and “worth kidnapping” didn’t describe him at all. He had lived in this Omniverse, in Costa del Sol, for just a few short weeks, and during that time all he’d done was tinker on a few broken Empire speeder-bikes and other various vehicles. Who the fuck were these guys to take such a vested interest in a fucking second-rate mechanic’s assistant like him?
Someone’s shadow appeared, blocking the little bit of light that slipped in through the crack between the door and the floor. Gadge lunged to his knees, his chains keeping him from getting too close to his only means of escape. The clicking of locks reawakened the anxiety that bubbled beneath the surface of the boy genius’ mind; he swallowed nervously.
The door swung open with a loud creak. The navy-suited man from the garage leaned in the frame, his sunglasses sitting precariously on the tip of his long, pointy nose. Above the darkened spectacles, a pair of beady little eyes stared down at the boy genius with intense interest. Fear consumed the mechanic as his gaze met the wiry man’s. For a few brief, tantalizing moments, silence filled the little makeshift cell. The blue-suited man cleared his throat. “Good evening, boy,” he murmured, “I do hope you’re not too upset with your lodgings.”
Gadge’s lips contorted into a scowl. As if his words didn’t do enough damage, he struggled to listen to the man’s voice without boiling with fury. Its sound resembled something between a snake’s hiss and a vulture’s piercing caw.
“Unfortunately, it’s the best we can offer you,” his captor shrugged, interpreting the boy’s resounding silence as permission to continue. The man reached one of his long, thin fingers into the pocket of his double-breasted coat—a little too large for his slim frame—and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it and placing it in his mouth in one swift motion. He blew a bit of smoke into the confines of the tiny cell. “You see, this type of guerilla mission requires a little bit of… improvisation. The broom closet of this little vessel had to work. Constraints, you know.”
“Fuck you,” Gadge spoke up for the first time in this conversation, his voice a deep, throaty growl. His obscenities did not phase the man—in fact, they seemed to only please him more, as his gross looking mouth, cigarette hanging lazily out of it, shifted from a neutral expression to a smile. The boy resolved to keep his mouth the fuck shut for the rest of his time on this boat if it meant that he didn’t have to look at his captor’s yellowing teeth again.
Cigarette smoke began to collect inside the four walls of the room. Gadge coughed a little bit, the nausea from earlier returning as his throat began to spasm. Vomit erupted from his lips, spilling over onto the navy-suited man’s nice dress shoes. His captor let out a tiny chuckle, kicking a few chunks of the boy genius’ dinner off his feet and then looking back into the adjacent room. He snapped his fingers, and the burlier, brown-suited man appeared behind him in the doorway. The tiny man slithered out of sight, and his large companion reached down and jerked Gadge up, ripping his chain off the wall. A shooting pain shot through his wrist—certainly it had broken—and he felt himself being shoved into a much more well-lit section of the schooner.
The boy lifted his head and looked out the boat’s front window. Dark, tumbling waves crashed into the front of the vessel, egged on by a powerful-looking storm. Lightning danced on the horizon; a foreboding shade of grey colored the whole sky. Off in the distance, a lighthouse rose out of the violent waters. Though everything else around it seemed dramatically overcast in darkness, the structure shone like a beacon of hope amidst the shadows of the storm. White marbled protected whatever lay inside. Judging from the fact that their ship’s course seemed set directly for it, Gadge assumed its contents included more than just an old lantern.
The navy-suited man slinked up behind him. “That’s where you’re headed, boy,” he hissed, “Someone down there really wants to talk to you.” Gadge’s scowl deepened.
“Why,” he sputtered, trying to regain the strength to speak, “…why are you doing this to me?” His captor scoffed, slightly, straightening his posture and walking up to the window. Another silence filled the room, except this time, Gadge found himself on the losing end of it. Now he needed the response—he wanted answers. These men didn’t seem intent on giving him any, however; they seemed content to let him wallow in uncertainty. The lighthouse crept up slowly, getting closer and closer with each passing wave.
Gadge shivered. The air current flowing through the boat’s cabin chilled his half-naked body; he wrapped his arms around himself, trying to keep warm. Ahead of him, the navy-suited man placed a hand on the captain’s wheel and began to steer the vessel into a small, stone dock that looked innocent enough. In fact, the whole lighthouse looked—to the untrained eye—like something out of a happy film; pristine and white, it didn’t seem like the place evil rested. But Gadge had seen the face of evil back in his home realm—he knew better than that. Devils always lurked where angels seemed most present.
The ship docked next to the lighthouse. The mystery of what lay inside that tower plagued at Jonas’ mind; it scared him absolutely to death. He had to remain strong, though. He could not let these men see his fear. So, the boy genius’ face remained firmly defiant; but Gadge did not know if he had ever been more afraid in his entire life.
Another clap of thunder shook the room’s flimsy metal walls. Gadge huddled in one of the corners and tried his best to hold back the rest of his dinner, though he expected this would be a losing battle, in the end. His stomach rocked with the motion of the room; he had felt this sensation before, during his few weeks cooped up in Costa del Sol. He had no way of knowing for sure—whoever constructed his little cage hadn’t been kind enough to include windows—but something told him he was on a boat.
The hours before—had it been hours? How long had he been trapped here?—flooded back into his brain. His excursion with Paige on the boardwalk, their rendezvous in Seb’s garage, and then… his boss’s blood, everywhere. A snap of a neck. A violent smash on the back of his skull. He remembered growing immediately dizzy, and then everything going black. Then the next thing he recalled was this room. Rocking back and forth with the waves, shaken ever so slightly by powerful bursts of thunder. Whoever the men who had killed Paige were, they had kidnapped him. They abducted him and shoved him into this tiny little room.
A light draft flowed in from underneath the room’s only door. As the cold air tickled his skin, Gadge became acutely aware of his distinct lack of clothing. Somewhere along the way, his kidnappers had stripped him of everything but his briefs. He blushed at the thought, although he did not know why; nobody was here to see him in his skivvies. Besides, he never possessed a low self-image, not for as long as he could remember; hell, he ran around shirtless most days. His hands reached for his abdomen; the bandages still remained. They had not removed those, thank goodness.
But who did these motherfuckers think they were, anyway? The boy’s temper flared. How did these guys get off, anyway, just showing up at Seb’s garage, murdering two people and kidnapping another? Even as he stewed in his own anger, though, Gadge’s mind told him he had bigger issues to worry about. How they got away with the crime had become irrelevant at this point—their success ensured that; rather, he knew he should be wondering why in the world they wanted to kidnap someone in the first place. Had their target specifically been him?
“They only want the boy. Get rid of her,” the man in the navy-colored suit said. The words rushed back to Gadge’s memory as he realized: yes, he must have been their target. Seb and Paige had merely gotten in the way—been in the wrong place at the wrong time—and had paid for it with their lives. But why in the world would they want a boy like him? “Special” and “worth kidnapping” didn’t describe him at all. He had lived in this Omniverse, in Costa del Sol, for just a few short weeks, and during that time all he’d done was tinker on a few broken Empire speeder-bikes and other various vehicles. Who the fuck were these guys to take such a vested interest in a fucking second-rate mechanic’s assistant like him?
Someone’s shadow appeared, blocking the little bit of light that slipped in through the crack between the door and the floor. Gadge lunged to his knees, his chains keeping him from getting too close to his only means of escape. The clicking of locks reawakened the anxiety that bubbled beneath the surface of the boy genius’ mind; he swallowed nervously.
The door swung open with a loud creak. The navy-suited man from the garage leaned in the frame, his sunglasses sitting precariously on the tip of his long, pointy nose. Above the darkened spectacles, a pair of beady little eyes stared down at the boy genius with intense interest. Fear consumed the mechanic as his gaze met the wiry man’s. For a few brief, tantalizing moments, silence filled the little makeshift cell. The blue-suited man cleared his throat. “Good evening, boy,” he murmured, “I do hope you’re not too upset with your lodgings.”
Gadge’s lips contorted into a scowl. As if his words didn’t do enough damage, he struggled to listen to the man’s voice without boiling with fury. Its sound resembled something between a snake’s hiss and a vulture’s piercing caw.
“Unfortunately, it’s the best we can offer you,” his captor shrugged, interpreting the boy’s resounding silence as permission to continue. The man reached one of his long, thin fingers into the pocket of his double-breasted coat—a little too large for his slim frame—and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it and placing it in his mouth in one swift motion. He blew a bit of smoke into the confines of the tiny cell. “You see, this type of guerilla mission requires a little bit of… improvisation. The broom closet of this little vessel had to work. Constraints, you know.”
“Fuck you,” Gadge spoke up for the first time in this conversation, his voice a deep, throaty growl. His obscenities did not phase the man—in fact, they seemed to only please him more, as his gross looking mouth, cigarette hanging lazily out of it, shifted from a neutral expression to a smile. The boy resolved to keep his mouth the fuck shut for the rest of his time on this boat if it meant that he didn’t have to look at his captor’s yellowing teeth again.
Cigarette smoke began to collect inside the four walls of the room. Gadge coughed a little bit, the nausea from earlier returning as his throat began to spasm. Vomit erupted from his lips, spilling over onto the navy-suited man’s nice dress shoes. His captor let out a tiny chuckle, kicking a few chunks of the boy genius’ dinner off his feet and then looking back into the adjacent room. He snapped his fingers, and the burlier, brown-suited man appeared behind him in the doorway. The tiny man slithered out of sight, and his large companion reached down and jerked Gadge up, ripping his chain off the wall. A shooting pain shot through his wrist—certainly it had broken—and he felt himself being shoved into a much more well-lit section of the schooner.
The boy lifted his head and looked out the boat’s front window. Dark, tumbling waves crashed into the front of the vessel, egged on by a powerful-looking storm. Lightning danced on the horizon; a foreboding shade of grey colored the whole sky. Off in the distance, a lighthouse rose out of the violent waters. Though everything else around it seemed dramatically overcast in darkness, the structure shone like a beacon of hope amidst the shadows of the storm. White marbled protected whatever lay inside. Judging from the fact that their ship’s course seemed set directly for it, Gadge assumed its contents included more than just an old lantern.
The navy-suited man slinked up behind him. “That’s where you’re headed, boy,” he hissed, “Someone down there really wants to talk to you.” Gadge’s scowl deepened.
“Why,” he sputtered, trying to regain the strength to speak, “…why are you doing this to me?” His captor scoffed, slightly, straightening his posture and walking up to the window. Another silence filled the room, except this time, Gadge found himself on the losing end of it. Now he needed the response—he wanted answers. These men didn’t seem intent on giving him any, however; they seemed content to let him wallow in uncertainty. The lighthouse crept up slowly, getting closer and closer with each passing wave.
Gadge shivered. The air current flowing through the boat’s cabin chilled his half-naked body; he wrapped his arms around himself, trying to keep warm. Ahead of him, the navy-suited man placed a hand on the captain’s wheel and began to steer the vessel into a small, stone dock that looked innocent enough. In fact, the whole lighthouse looked—to the untrained eye—like something out of a happy film; pristine and white, it didn’t seem like the place evil rested. But Gadge had seen the face of evil back in his home realm—he knew better than that. Devils always lurked where angels seemed most present.
The ship docked next to the lighthouse. The mystery of what lay inside that tower plagued at Jonas’ mind; it scared him absolutely to death. He had to remain strong, though. He could not let these men see his fear. So, the boy genius’ face remained firmly defiant; but Gadge did not know if he had ever been more afraid in his entire life.