AN ENDLESS GLOOM and darkness was the first thing that greeted her when Devora first regained consciousness. Sadness seemed to seep into the cracks of her bones just by simply being in the room, drenching her with an inexplicable amount of sorrow and discomfort. It was as though she had weights tied to all her joints, yanking her down. Not only that, her head was still pounding, the pain coming in waves as she tried to remember what had happened to her last. She could remember running away before being slammed hard against someone's body, then, nothing.

Despite the suffocating sensation, Devora tried her best to force herself up into a sitting position, her hands placed flat on the cold and slimy floor. Ears perked in attention, she strained them as best as she could, listening for any signs of life in this deserted, god-forsaken room. She dared not breathe, eyes wide in caution and constantly scanning the area. It took a while for them to adjust to the lack of light but when they finally did, Devora didn't feel any safer nor calmer.

The room that she was kept in wasn't pathetically small but it certainly wasn't ideal. Devora could make out a few shivering figures a short distance away from her, all trembling in fright and cuddled together in the far corners of the room while she sat in the center.

"Who's there?" She asked, squinting hard to get a better look, trying her best to keep her voice steady.

The figures didn't offer any answers, simply cowering further back into the shadows, a result of the small sliver of light that filtered through the cracks of the aging brick walls that held them captive.

Noticing their obvious fear, Devora calmed down a little. If they were afraid of her, the least hostile person that could possibly grace the planet, then they shouldn't pose any form of threat. The cogs in her head turned. She could guess that these people were also captives, probably kidnapped and pulled from the streets just like she had been. However, in a room where there were more questions than answers, she couldn't afford to play the guessing game.

She needed solid replies.

Devora's voice softened this time, barely above a whisper in fear of the wrong people hearing her. "I'm not going to hurt you," she tried again. "Who are you?"

At first, it was another few seconds of silence that seemed to drag on much longer than it actually was. However, what soon followed was a faint shuffle, then Devora could hear skin slapping against skin harshly. Two figures moved, one beginning to sit up while the other scrambled to keep the former down.

"Don't, Travis," a harsh voice whispered from the corner. It sounded like a young girl, one that was barely even in her teens, an age too young to be in such a situation. The figure that had sat up taller slumped back down with an 'oof'. "We can't trust anyone here."

"Leah, they dragged her here. We all saw that. She's not one of them."

This time, it was a boy. His voice was much deeper than the previous one — though still a treble — but it spoke in a much softer tone than the girl's that had spoken before. If Devora had to guess, he would be her age or at least close. In spite of all that was happening, this boy sounded oddly fearless.

"Please," Devora begged, swiftly cutting into their hushed conversation. "I just want to know where we are. What is this place? You mentioned that I'm not one of them. Who's them?" Devora asked, growing more and more desperate by the second.

Just as she finished speaking, a set of footsteps echoed from the corridor outside. The shadowed figures immediately slumped closer against the walls, practically pressed into the brick and shrouded by the darkness. Even in the absence of light, three pairs of eyes shone like those of cats, fixated on the door until the footsteps continued down the hallway before disappearing altogether.

Once they were sure that no one else was out there listening in on their conversation, all four bodies simultaneously relaxed.

"Travis, please, no," the girl pleaded, anguish clear in her voice.

"You're going to get us into trouble again, Travis," a new voice piped up, another that was too young for such suffering.

"Better than being a coward," the boy, Travis, spat out in reply.

He shook off two pairs of hands that kept hold of him, wiggling his way out of their grip and away from the shadows. When the light from the outside hit the high points of his face, Devora could begin to make out his features even in the subtle light. He looked no more than 16-years-old, true to her original assumption based on his voice alone. A little on the scrawnier side, he looked like he had seen some rough days for his face was decorated with scratches and bruises that came in more than one color. Those eyes of his had definitely known fear; they were laced with them. However, those weak emotions disappeared as quickly as they came.

"I don't know where we are, exactly. My guess, however, would be somewhere near the border. I'm Travis," he introduced, placing a hand against his chest as he offered his name. "These are my sisters, Leah and Tammy."

A pause followed his words followed by a click of Travis's tongue. He reached back into the dark, tugging at two slim wrists to reveal his younger sisters. Two girls slipped out from the shadows, one maybe fourteen or fifteen-years-old at best and the other most certainly not a day past six-years-old. The three siblings were young and Devora had no doubt that everyone in the room at that moment wasn't too far off in age. They were all still children that were stolen off the streets and brought here unwillingly.

The older girl pulled her hands out of Travis's grip, rubbing at her wrists in frustration. Under the dim light, Devora still caught a faint hint of red. The boy's grip wasn't strong, as far as Devora could tell. Despite that, the young pre-teen's skin still bruised, red as an apple.

"That hurt," she hissed, scowling at her older brother venomously.

It was only then had her brother noticed her scarlet wrist. He bit on his bottom lip sheepishly, rubbing at the back of his head. "Sorry, Leah," he apologized.

Huffing, Leah neither rejected nor accepted Travis's apology. She turned back to glance at Devora, her body slanting away, eyes never focused on the older girl for more than a second at a time.

"They grabbed us off the streets. We were waiting for our parents," she muttered under her breath. She gestured for the youngest of the three siblings to come over, opening her arms to receive the little girl before holding her tightly in her embrace.

'If the older one was Leah, the younger sister must be Tammy,' Devora thought to herself.

"They came out of nowhere. Knocked us all unconscious and brought us here. We weren't the first children to be brought here, though. There were already a few others when we came to," Travis finished, holding onto Tammy's outreached hand.

At his words, a few of the other captives ventured out of the dark. Devora caught sight of faces both battered and bruised, some even bloodied. There were children of all ages, the youngest maybe around four or five-years-old, the oldest sixteen or seventeen, just like herself. With each person she counted, Devora's breath grew more and more ragged. The walls of their cage seemed to be closing in on her, coming closer and closer as the numbers grew from under ten children to over twenty. She stopped counting after that, mainly because all she could see were glowing eyes that stared back at her from within the shadows, like beasts waiting for the right time to pounce on injured prey.

Taking a deep breath, Devora slowly let the air out, repeating the action a few times to regulate her breathing. Once her blood no longer roared, once her heart no longer thundered, once she had gotten herself as calm and tranquil as a spring lake, she looked up at the door that separated them from the world beyond. Through the divider, she could hear footsteps that echoed down the dimly lit hallway, occasionally accompanied by sharp, crude laughter that made Devora's skin crawl.

"What do they want with us?"

Her question lingered in the air, met with silence but no words. Outside the walls, a storm was starting to gather. Harsh wind whipped against the battered old bricks, soon followed by drops of water that came in a torrential shower. Even if someone spoke, Devora might not catch it. After all, they were in the middle of a storm. The cracks in the bricks allowed some of the rainwater in, causing it to drip with echoes that reverberated across every corner of that small, cramped room.

"Sell us as slaves, maybe?" Even at his own words, Travis couldn't help but wince at their pitiful fate. His thumb glided over Tammy's stubby little fingers, almost in apology for speaking such horrid words. "Or at least, that's what some of them talked about whenever they walked by our door. However, what type of slaves would be debatable. Maybe they'll even harvest some body parts and sell them off in the black market—"

"Travis!" Leah cut in sharply, almost screeching if it weren't for her valiant efforts in keeping her own voice down. She hugged Tammy a little tighter, cupping her hands over the young girl's ears. "Don't say that," she chided just as their little sister began to whimper. "Tammy doesn't like that talk and you know it. She's too young."

"Well, it's the truth, Leah. It's the most reasonable train of thought to have when you're not from a prominent family but still kidnapped. We don't have rich family members that care enough to buy us back. So what's the next most plausible reasoning? There are other buyers willing to pay for our body, that's what!" Travis's voice raised a little, almost loud enough to draw attention to their cell if it weren't for the crack of thunder that rang through the heavens at that moment. As the noise receded, his shoulders drooped as well. He spoke again, now a soft murmur, "We can't shield her from everything. It's only a matter of time before they come for us. That's unless we fight back."

"We're all children!" Leah hissed sharply, glaring at her older brother as her grip on Tammy tightened even further. "Even you! You could barely even put up a fight against your classmates in school. They were just bratty little kids that think themselves better just because daddy could earn a pretty penny. What makes you think that you can win against adults? And Tammy! She's ten whole years younger than you. How do you want her to fight?"

Just as Devora had guessed prior to the conversation, their age difference was indeed vast.

Leah had hit the nail right on the head. Travis was much smaller and scrawnier than any other sixteen-year-old boy Devora had ever come across. He wasn't particularly tall, only half a head taller than Devora herself. However, he was a very willowy boy that had thin legs and even thinner arms. There were barely even meat on his bones, simply skin and bruises that made up his entire appearance. He was in no condition to fight off their kidnappers. If they could afford a patrol system and to grab so many kids off the streets without the police on their tails, they must be strong, even in the world of crime.

A kid was simply no match for something like that.

"And you think I like that?" Travis growled, seething. He had let go of Tammy's hand, his hands now clenched at his sides. "You weren't the one that had to put up with both school and two part-time jobs just to keep everything afloat. You weren't the one that had to scrimp and save every penny and dime just to pay for mom's medication. You weren't the one that had to skip meals more than once a day so that the others could tide by to the next day. So stop acting like you know everything. Like your sacrifice is oh so big and you call the shots. You don't. You know nothing of the world outside our house. Who are you to lecture me on how to survive when everything has been handed to you on a silver platter up until now?"

Devora wasn't in the place to butt in as an outsider. After all, it was a family issue that should've been discussed behind closed doors and under different circumstances. She could only watch as the older sibling scowled bitterly, eyes flaring with anger as he spat out vile words no one should hear, words that hit low. Leah winced slightly, eyes brimming with unshed tears as she watched her own brother seethe. However, she also couldn't sit still and watch as the two signed the beginnings of a screaming match. She had to dismiss the tension somehow before the men outside started to sniff around their room.

"This isn't the time to fight," Devora stated, moving closer towards the three siblings. "I know it's not my place to tell you what to do but you're endangering all of us if you catch the attention of the guards outside."

At her words, both siblings glanced down at the floor in opposite directions of each other.

"Please, what else do you know about this place?"

Leah's lips twitched.

"They have more children captured and placed in other rooms, we're assuming. I woke up for a short amount of time when we were being brought in. It wasn't long enough to see the entire layout of this place but enough to catch a glimpse of the situation. Each room is like this one, cramped with an average of thirty to forty children, most of them Tammy's age, some maybe even younger."

She paused, looking down even further. It was almost as if she was bowing her head in a solemn prayer. Her next words allowed Devora to understand why.

"Some of the children were dead."

Devora's blood ran cold. She could see the picture perfectly in her mind's eye. The sight of children that hadn't even reached their teen years yet, lying on the cold stone floor, their eyes wide open and glazed over. Some had blood over their clothing and skin, some had bruises and fingerprints on their necks. All of them shared the common look of pasty skin that lacked life, bodies cold and breath still.

The image seared in the back of Devora's mind. No amount of head-shaking could erase it. For a full minute, it was the only thing she could see.

"It's not a pretty sight but we can't do anything to change it. We're just... kids." Leah sighed, finally looking up from her worn-out ballet flats. "I don't want to end up dead like them just because of a weak glimmer of hope. There's a higher risk of failure than of success. I'm sorry but I just can't bet on my life like that."

"But we can't stay here." Devora shook her head, pressing her palms against the floor to bring herself to her feet. "There must be a way out. There has to be."

"The only way out is through that door." Travis nodded his head slightly at the wooden door, wisps of his brown hair falling over his eyes. "And there are men patrolling it, walking by every few minutes. There's no way we can get out without them spotting us."

Jaw clenched and cogs whirring to life, Devora fixed a determined eye at her only escape. Her fingernails dug into the palms of her hands as they clenched into fists, her knuckles turned white.

"There is always a way."

————

social media:

instagram: twelvewonderingstars (personal: aurorayeo)

twitter: aurorayeo (personal: aurorayyq)

facebook: twelvewonderingstars