Flames soared through the skies of Cincinnati. The night sky was immediately brightened as explosion after explosion lit the skyline, as if the sun had woken early this day and was showing it's fiery illumination on the city. The towering skyscrapers of the city were falling, one by one, as the flames moved from district to district. The destruction was piling more and more as the flames moved and grew, soaring through the skies, like some sort of enflamed dragon, sent by a God of War or Discord, aimed to bring this city down. The war had finally found it's way to Ohio. It was finally time for it to fall, and a lonely boy stared out from the confines of a fallout shelter, seeing his homeland being ripped apart.

People screamed in the streets below, seeing a horizontal flash of fire, traveling across the sky. It passed through buildings, immediately slicing through them, sending rooftops and countless floors of employees, families, and children falling to their deaths. This flame's campaign of rage was never-ending. It left no building, no structure unscathed. This was how all of the attacks had gone, in the past. It was always the same effect. Wherever this wall of flames traveled, death and destruction always followed. There was no place it traveled that wasn't completely decimated.

Such was the nature of this flame, whatever it was. In that year, 2020, the world became the victim of a terrible evil, that flame. No one ever knew where it came from, where it was going, or if it would ever disappear from the world. In the early year, as soon as summer hit, it appeared in the skies above New York, it's first target. The fate of it had been gruesome, making the standards of every attack afterwards. It appeared at the city borders and traveled inside. Passing over at the height of 40 feet, according to reports, it ripped through everything. Although it was a single horizontal wall, no more than 5-10 feet thick, it decimated everything below as well.

The attacks left towns and cities demolished. Anything taller than the flames were immediately severed and sent to the ground. Everything below became the victim of some sort of ash that fell from this 'wall'. Some people suffocated while fleeing from it, and some were afflicted with sickness by radiation from this strange ash. Only those whom were able to reach what few fallout shelters existed in the cities were lucky enough to survive, unscathed. Because of the speed this wall, dubbed the Entity of Flames, or EoT, moved, only those who were already near or in the shelters were able to avoid the attacks.

EoT attacks always followed the same pattern. It appeared out of fog, passed through the surrounding area, and then disappeared into the same fog. For months, the U.S. Government tried to analyze the attacks and figure everything out. There was no pattern to the attacks, though. The attacks weren't limited to the United States. Within two weeks of the fall of New York City, EoT attacks had been reported all over the globe. London, Paris, Kyoto, Hong Kong, and many other major cities of the globe had fallen. The real reason behind them was highly speculated on by the US and the UN for some time. At least, until Washington D.C. Fell.

There were so many theories and speculations, from various leaders. Some thought it was some weapon, developed by terrorists. Some thought it was Russia, some thought it was the apocalypse, the end of days. Some even though it was the vision of Ragnarok, the Nordic apocalypse, which was shown having the EoF compared to the legend of the giant, Surt, engulfing the earth in flames. So many speculation hadn't hit the mark of what had really happened. No one knew the real cause, and only one person in the entire world knew. To everyone's perspective, the best guess was extraterrestrials, and even that was a little out-there. No one had ever confirmed what the cause was. Before long, there weren't enough leaders left to even begin that speculation.

After the fall of D.C., the president of the United States had fallen victim to the attacks. Normally inside the shelters, he was returning home aboard Air Force One, from a meeting with the UN Leaders. The EoF passed over as soon as he'd emerged from his plane. Secret Service tried to shield him as much as they could, but by the time they were halfway to the nearest shelter, they'd all suffocated from the ashes. After this, a string of attacks came through, attacking all of the UN leaders, effectively destroying any and all leadership left to the world. There was no saving or leaving of people, but it had seemed that the apocalypse had, indeed, come.

With no leadership left, the survivors of the attacks ran rampant. There were riots in what was left of the cities of the world. What authority figures were left had trouble in containing these issues. Underground tunnels were made into homes, the surface world completely covered in ash and radiation by November 2020. It wasn't enough to kill, in short time periods, but they couldn't live on most of the surface world. Not without side-effects. The human race was, effectively, forced underground because of this. There was no organization left to the world.

With no control left to the world, crime was as normal an occurrence as people would once expect to see the sun to come up every day. There weren't enough people, in each area of the world, to be able to control their citizens. Very few firearms were kept in the shelters, and those that were contaminated by the ashes of the EoT became completely unusable. Only what they could develop in the shelters could be used. With no artillery, there was no control. The world was heading to ruin, the human race for self-destruction. It was headed there, at least, until she appeared in the world, with all her towering and enticing beauty...

The ruins of Cincinnati held a certain level of brightness during the day. The heaps of turned buildings, torn electric lines, and barren wastelands looked bright and shining. It did compared to the world around the city, at least. The Ohio River was black from contamination and all of the greenery had died out from the attack on the city in years past. The only thing left of the old city, in tact, was a large atomic clock, powered by the sun, one one of the only buildings that remained standing. It stood out, reading “August 02, 2015”. Among all of the quietness of the surface world, the streets were bustling with one little bit of activity. Activity that happened often, but didn't happen often.

Two young people were dashing through the streets of the city, ducking their heads under a fallen telephone pole as they darted through the area. One was a man with short, brown hair. He was dressed in a short-sleeved red T-shirt, a pair of jean shorts, and tennis shoes. The other was a woman with long, black hair. She was dressed similarly, though having a skirt instead of shorts. Both looked to be in their early to mid twenties. Their clothes were torn up from excessive running, and their faces were covered in bruises and dirt. The woman let out a yelp as she fell when they were running past, a loud, buzzing sound directly above them. Her face hit the ground and slid, leaving a cut and a small trail of blood behind.

“M-Ma...ack....Mark!” she cried out, coughing out her lungs in the process. The man immediately stopped, his shoes sliding across the ground. The buzzing was getting louder as he saw the woman on the ground, clearly hurt. “Rachel!” he called out, shuffling his feet back and forth, shuffling over to her. He got on his knees as he started to pull her off the ground, blood slowly dripping from her cheek as her face left the contaminated asphalt. As she was pulled up, her right arm wrapped around his shoulders and clenched onto him. “M-Mark...I think...I think I broke my ankle. I can't...I can't run anymore.”

Mark's head turned to Rachel's. She had a grim, pouty look on her face. He knew that face, just as he knew her. They'd grown up in this area, and together. It was her face of giving up. She looked up, her ruby-colored eyes meeting his sapphire-colored eyes. Her hand reached up and grazed across his cheek. The blood marks on her face were pushed back as she tried to force her lips into a smile. In the background, the buzzing sound was still getting louder, as if something were closing in on the area they were occupying. That, or if something were closing in on them. The two were lost in the moment, both having their minds on something completely different.

Mark immediately pulled himself the rest of the way up, Rachel's arm still over his shoulder. “You may not be able to run, Rachel, but I can. We're almost to the shelter. They won't be able to follow of us anymore, if we can make it there. It's protected from the scanners. Do you think you can make it?” The hand over Mark's shoulder tightened it's grip as Rachel pushed into Mark. “I...I don't know. I hurt...everywhere. I don't know if I can make it there or not. Maybe you should just go witho-” Rachel's miserable statement was immediately cut off as Mark interrupted her, moving forward. “That's not going to happen! I'm not leaving you!”

Mark felt strongly about what he had just said. Whether he had Rachel's permission or not, he moved forward, slowly pulling Rachel with him. “Mark...” said Rachel, feeling the various pains in her body from their continued running. “You left the confines of the shelter to come and find me. You found me, and now we're almost back. I thank you so much for what you would risk for me, but...I'm not sure we can make it. I'm just slowing you down. You need to jus-” Rachel was interrupted again, by Mark's loud voice. “NO! What don't you understand, Rachel? I'm not leaving you. I left the rest of the unit to come up here because I refuse to let you die up here. Please...the Patrol Bots are already after us. We have to move. We can't afford this talking. I'm not leaving you and that's all there is to it!”

Mark could feel Rachel's hand starting to loosen it's grip on his shoulder and he grabbed onto it. This was always like Rachel. She never wanted to be the cause of anyone's problems. That's why she left the shelter, in the first place. She always felt like she could never contribute to anything that anyone was talking about. She spent time, chatting with Mark, but whenever it came to the big meetings about the two sides, she didn't think she could do much. The feeling was thrown out by one of the more assertive members, and she ran off. Coming up to the surface was forbidden by the rest, so no one went after her. No one, except for Mark.

He kept hold of her hand and he started moving faster. “Don't you dare let go of me, Rachel. I'm getting you back to the shelter, where it's safe. You are not giving up now.” He didn't want to see her out of action and gone, but she had a different mindset. “What's the use, Mark? I'm not...useful for anything. I can never contribute to the meetings. Maybe Skyler was right. Maybe I deserve to be up here, where I can't bother you guys. Your plans would be much further along, if it weren't for me. I don't want to bother you...”

Mark immediately stopped and moved Rachel around, holding her right in front of him and looking her in the eyes. His pupils were starting to shake as she gasped when she was moved. She felt his fingers tingling as they held onto her arm. Both their faces were bruised and cut, but they could see the emotion in each other's gazes. “Listen to me, Rachel...” he started, more of his head beginning to shake. “Skyler is a jerk. She just wanted to put you down. You are NOT a bother. Hell, you're the only thing that's keeping me going right now. If it weren't for you, I may not have even been a part of this crazy group of people. I need you with me, Rachel. Why do you think I came up here to get you? I disobeyed direct orders and risked exposure for you. I care about you. I care a lot about you! I...well...I think I love you.”

The buzzing sound was getting incredibly loud, but neither of them realized it, as of yet. They were caught in each other's gaze. Rachel's pupils were starting to shake, too. “M-Mark...” The two of them began to smile at one another when something fell from the sky, and everything went dark...

“RACHEL!” Mark woke with a sharp pain in his body. It was in his...stomach. He felt pain in his stomach, but there was also pain elsewhere. He moved his hands around, grabbing various parts of his body, his eyes shut tight. There was pain everywhere. His arms, hands, feet, stomach, cheeks, neck, ribs. Little by little, small sharp pains were making themselves apparent all over his body. He made a grunting noise as he tried to figure out what was wrong with him and, more importantly, where Rachel was. “Ack...R-Rachel...Rachel...Rachel, are you here? Are you close?!”

“Stick him.” came a deep-toned voice from the side. Mark didn't recognize the voice. It wasn't anything he'd ever heard in the shelter or among people he'd seen above ground. Before he had a chance to ask the voice whom or what it was, he felt something stabbing his left arm. His mouth opened and he let out a terror-stricken scream as he felt a surge of pain entering his body. It went everywhere, pushing him further and further through this agony. He could feel his body quivering and falling to the side. He was on some sort of hard floor, but the pain was putting too much pressure on his body. He hadn't the strength to open his eyes.

His body was going through a lot right now. He didn't even know how to explain all of it. He was clearly being tortured by someone. The question was, by who and for what purpose? Those questions were ringing and ringing through his head, endlessly, behind the pain. He didn't have time to think, though. By the time the pain he felt was subsiding, he felt something stab his other arm, and the pain started again. It was completely agonizing and all he could do was scream out in pain. It felt like there were needles stabbing his every pore, both on the inside and outside. The voice hadn't said a word since this started. Who was doing this to him, and where was Rachel?

By the time the pain subsided from this second “stick”, another one did not come, thankfully. His body felt incredibly sore from all of this pain and, despite still being in a lot of pain, feeling the slightest amount of it leaving him was a blessing. He hadn't grown up, trained to deal with torture. He was just a normal kid, who just happened to get thrown into this sad, decaying world. Now, years later, he was someplace else, most likely due to his heroic efforts to save Rachel from the surface world. He heard footsteps as the pain subsided a little more, finally hearing the voice again, saying more than two words this time.

“He'll live. Take him to Cell Block A-5.” The voice sounded so assertive and lacked compassion, completely. Mark didn't know what was going on, still with a lack of energy in his system. He had some senses available to him, though. Where the pain was still at, he felt hands grabbing onto his arms. Within moments, he felt his body moving backwards. His feet were being dragged against the floor of wherever he was. It was hard to concentrate enough to think, but he was trying as hard as he could. For an entire 20 minutes or so, he thought and tried to figure out where he was.

The answers never came to him, though. Before he could gain back enough energy, he felt a rustle of noise. Mumbling was coming from everywhere, and following that was some loud, electronic sound, almost like a sonic boom. It hurt his ears, but he couldn't move his arms to cover his ears. They rang until he heard another voice, also deep, but not the same as before. “Quiet, all of you! The warden and Her Reverence do not spend the time to visit and maintain this prison so you can mumble to your heart's content. We will have order. You will all back away from the doors while we put this prisoner in his cell, or we will hasten the execution schedule!”

The shuffling of dozens of feet could be heard, where those voices once were. Mark's arms just started to shake at processing what the man dragging him had just said, though. His situation was getting clearer and clearer, as the pain got softer and softer. He was in some sort of prison. Had he and Rachel been caught and taken somewhere? He wasn't sure. His memory seemed fuzzy, at that point. He had blankets of memories. He remembered his life in the shelter, and he remembered trying to bring Rachel back to it. But, when he tried to think about anything else, his mind came up blank. Who was this “Her Reverence”? Where was this prison? Why had he been brought here?

A loud, metallic sound occurred, which he assumed was some sort of door to a prison cell. He was a prisoner, or so he thought, and he felt his body move. Wind pushed against his face and he felt a hard surface hitting his face, along with the rest of his body. The metallic sound happened again, and footsteps seemed to happen and get further away. “Just another runaway, right?” said the voice he'd heard a moment ago. “Pfft, you kidding?” started another. “The new two prisoners are supposedly from the WF. She wants him for questioning. Why else would we torture someone, rather than just killing them? I tell ya, these crazies should...”

The conversation was lost as the voices disappeared. Finally having the energy to open his eyes, Mark wanted to see where he was. He let out a soft, painful moan and opened them up, expecting to find some gloomy, metallic prison. He gasped as soon as he opened his eyes, though. He went from seeing nothing but darkness to seeing more darkness. He couldn't see any light, shadows, shapes, or anything. “W-W-What?! What is this?!” he called out, only to hear small footsteps coming closer to him. He felt something touching his side, a hand, but not nearly as strong as the one before.

“You're blind, hon.” said an older, female voice. The hand moved down his arm and up to his face. “You'll get your sight back when you meet...her. Assuming, of course, she doesn't kill you first.” Whoever this “her” person was, definitely wasn't a nice one. Mark gulped as his arms started to shake again, fearing for what he had now gotten himself into...

“I'm...blind? Someone's going to kill me? What's going on? Who's going to kill me? You're not making any sense!” Mark was absolutely clueless about his current situation. His mind wasn't exactly making sense, either, given the circumstances. As far as he knew, he was just tortured and thrown into a prison cell, somewhere. At least, he was if the voices around him were telling the truth. Their credentials were far from confirmed, unfortunately. He didn't have anything to go on. He was down one sense, and the rest weren't exactly in check yet, other than his hearing.

He couldn't tell anything. He could have been sitting in the middle of a jail cell, or he could be sitting on the sidewalk, out on the surface world. He would have to start relying on his other senses soon, if he wanted to figure out just where he was. According to these people, his sight could be healed by this woman character they spoke of. He had no idea who that might be, but he wanted to find out. He hoped that the voices around him would start telling him what he wanted to know before he went completely insane, out of confusion.

“Yes, darling.” repeated the voice from behind him. He still felt this woman's hands on him, assuming it was even a woman. For all he knew, it could be some sleezy man with a woman-like voice. “That's how they get you people on the surface. All part of her master plan of security measures. First, you blind them and while they are disoriented, you capture them. It's a quite simple procedure, or so they lead us to believe. I, honestly, don't think it's really that simple, but what do I know? I've been rotting in a prison for the past 5 years of my life. I've no recollection of what it's like on the surface.”

“So...I really am in a prison, Miss?” Mark asked, hoping that this person was speaking the truth and confirming where they were. His confusion was still high, not sure what all this woman was talking about. She spoke about some “master plan” of security, this 'her' again having something to do with it. This plan of blinding and capturaing surface-dwellers also made little sense to him. Just who were these people? Why would they be capturing people? His memory was still pretty fuzzy from everything that had been going on. “If only I could think straight, remember...”

“You may call me Isabella, darling” spoke the voice, providing him with a name to go with it. Now he was starting to learn more about his surroundings. Wherever he was, was this woman, named Isabella. Her hands moved and it almost felt like he had these arms wrapping around his chest. His hands moved up to feel around. He touched the arms, feeling what he thought was incredibly thin skin. He could feel the bone almost to the touch of this woman's arm. He gasped as he touched it, immediately getting a response from her. “Yes. That's what prison life gets someone. I may not be much older than you, but this is what I am now. Fragile, frail. That's what you might be like, too, someday. Who knows?”

“Isabella...just...where am I? You said we were in a prison. But...what kind of prison? Where? Why was I brought here? Where is Rachel? I...I don't understand anything that's going on.” Mark's hands left Isabella's hugging arms and held onto his head. He had a massive headache, no doubt a byproduct of what those people had done to him, with all of the pain from before. He had so many questions that he wanted to have answered, though he didn't even know if he could find all the answers he needed. He knew that his blindness could be cured, but he didn't know anything about where he was.

He heard a soft sigh from behind him, something soft and thin brushing across his neck. The heat around his head was heightening. He could only begin to imagine that this woman was getting closer. That feeling could be her clothes. No. It couldn't be her clothes. Her arms were around his chest. His brain started to create a mental image, judging on his feeling. “Your...hair...?” He was guessing, even before Isabella had a chance to answer his questions. His mind was curious, and his senses were trying to figure out some way to tell his brain where he was, and what was around him.

“Impressive” said Isabella, her voice coming from directly behind his ear. “You haven't been coping with your blindness for 10 minutes, even, and you're already starting to rely on your other senses to tell you your surroundings. There may be hope for you yet. No one has ever begun to adjust that quickly.” She sounded so innocent in her congratulations for him. It was as if she was genuinely telling him he was doing well. Why was she doing so? Was she brought in, unjustly, as well? Or was there something else? Did she just have happiness because she now had a cell mate? Mark had no idea, but he just let her speak.

“We, my friend, are in a prison miles underground. We're under the ruins of New York, in the New Order Prison Facility, or NOPF, for short. It is the highest-level prison in the entire world. Or, at least, in the entire new world. According to the guards that gossip as they go by here, this is one of the only prisons in the world, thanks to the decimation of the surface world, by the EoF. As far as why you're here, though, I can't say for certain. If they blinded you, however, she must have been damn desperate to bring you in.”

A prison deep underground? New York? Mark didn't live anywhere near New York. He lived in Ohio, near Cincinnati. He shook his head, feeling the strands of her hair on his cheeks as he did so. “I..wait, what? She? Isabella...who is this...she?” He took deep breaths as he waited for the silence to be broken again, and be told the answer to his next question...

Mark had asked a big question. It was a question that he wanted to know the answer to, no matter what sort of answer he would get. This “She” person that the woman he spoke with kept referring to was constantly in his mind. The people whom he presumed to have brought him to this cell had also mentioned her. Whatever was going on, it seemed like whoever this person was, she had some sort of involvement with where he was, and why he was there. The woman in the cell with him might not hold the answers, but he wanted to see if she had any answers for him. He was still blind about a lot of things, and didn't want to stay that way.

“She...so, you really don't know who I'm talking about?” the woman asked, sounding curious. She was close to Mark. He could feel the little amount of heat that her frail body was producing, as it hit his own body. Her words went through his head and he just stayed silent. He nodded his head, or did an action that he hoped was nodding his head. He still couldn't see, so he couldn't be sure as to what, exactly, he was actually doing. For all he knew, he could have been shaking his head to the sides, despite it feeling right, to him.

“She is nameless, to the masses. No one really knows what her real name is. Some people call her Leader. Some call her Queen. Some simply call her as I did, by saying 'she' and 'her'. I don't know everything there is to know about her, but I will tell you what I know, what I've heard.” Mark could hear Isabella taking a breath. Her breath flowed down his neck, feeling a mixture of warm and cold. He was starting to feel goose bumps as he looked into the nothingness that his sight had been turned into. “She is the one who made everything right again.”

Mark's head went up. That confused him. The one who made everything right again? What went horribly wrong that needed to be righted? What did she mean by 'everything'? “Everything? Isabella...please, go on.” Mark didn't know what she meant. Did she mean when the world was under attack by the EoF? He, at least, remembered that much. The world he lived in was a result of that great entities attacks, decimating the entire world. It was why the surface was unsafe, too toxic to support life on a long scale. He waited for her answer, hoping to hear more.

Mark felt something pushing against him, from behind. It was Isabella. She was getting closer and closer to him, enveloping him in a hug, as tight as her frail arms could muster, as she talked. He would normally feel a little violated by having a stranger this close to him. However, he felt a little lonely and hurt right now. It wasn't Rachel, but that was okay. “After the world was virtually ended after the EoF attacks, all of the world leaders were gone, as you probably know. She came, literally, out of nowhere, and started reforming the world to the way it was before. Well, not exactly, but she came towards other government leaders and began to re-organize how things were.”

“Little is known about her.” she went on. “Many don't even know what she looks like. What we do know is that she was able to single-handedly gain the trust of all of the remaining governmental officials left in the country, and began to re-organize everything. People followed her, almost at a second-glance to her, so say the stories. Anyways, she is basically the leader of this country. The new President of the United States, so to speak, though she wasn't voted in. People basically just appointed her as their new leader. That's about all I know, on a political standpoint. On the point of this facility, however, there's a little more I can say...”

Mark didn't say a word. Isabella was in the middle of a long explanation of who this woman was. He wasn't sure he ever remembered some woman coming into power after the EoF attacks, but for right now, Isabella was all he had to go on. He was also blind, so he might have to rely on this woman for some things, while he was here. He just let her go on. “She makes regular visits to this facility. Some say she created it, specifically, for her high-end prisoners. High-end means, like, prisoners that she holds as more valuable or important than others. I'm not really sure of the specifics. What I do know, however, is that she comes here all the time, but never into this hall of cells.”

“Why not this hall?” asked Mark, finally curious enough to throw out a question. The fact that he was in a prison that the new “leader” of the world visited on a regular basis meant that there had to be a very good reason why he was here. Did this leader person want something, specific, with him? Part of his memory was fuzzy, but he didn't really think he had any information that would be valuable to her, assuming she wanted information from him. For all he knew, he could have committed some crime that he couldn't remember, against this woman. Only time would tell.

“No one knows for sure” said Isabella. “Some claim that she isn't allowed in this hall, for security purposes. You know...not wanting the prisoners to reach out and attack her or anything like that. Not all of the prisoners here are blind, like you are. I'm not. Others think of something else. Others have another theory that no one has been able to prove. They have a theory that she is not like normal people are. They think she is, well...different. They're just rumors, but people think she doesn't ever come into this hall because she can't...fit in this hall. They think she's too tall and big to fit inside this hall, that it's too minuscule for her to fit inside...”

Now Mark was just confused. This person was too big and tall to even fit inside the hallway? What kind of hallway was this? A better question is, why would she be too big to fit inside it? He couldn't see anything, but he wasn't the shortest person in the world. They'd obviously gotten him in there easy enough. It made him start to wonder about this woman. What could possibly make it so that she was too big to fit into a simple hallway, let alone a prison hallway? He could hear echoes from voices and guessed that it was a decently-sized hallway.

“Too big...what? Is she really big and fat or something?” he asked, the first thing coming to his mind being weight. The place was obviously too big to possibly have someone having a height problem with the area. He couldn't see, but the echoes told him all he needed to know. The only explanation he could think of was that she might have been too heavy to fit through the doorway or whatever entrance there is to this hallway. He may or may not have been thinking in the right direction, but that didn't matter. He was trying to think this out, and that's what he had so far.

He heard a cracked chuckle from behind him. He felt Isabella's head resting on the back of his shoulder as she began to respond to what he had said. “Well, to be honest, I'm not sure, sweetie. But according to the rumors, I would think the situation would be a little different than that. A different kind of big. But hey, whatever. I like you're theory. It's a bit funnier. Anyways, that's all I know about the woman, assuming she's actually real.” She ended her statement there. Mark could feel her face against his shoulder, and wasn't sure if he should feel violated or comforted. He wished that he had Rachel nearby, but Isabella was all he had right now, both for information and for comfort in this place.

He took a deep breath before closing his eyes, accepting the fact that he wasn't going to be seeing anything anytime soon. Still, he wanted to keep the conversation going, especially after that 'real' comment. “Real? What do you mean? You don't think she actually exists?” His curiosity had peaked when Isabella said that. Did she, or someone else here think that this woman was non-existent? That she was just some rumor that was spread by the prison? He didn't know, but he was hoping to find out. He still wanted more information, even if she couldn't give it. Even speculation would be good.

The feeling on his shoulder shifted, slightly, no doubt from her moving her head. She was extremely close to him, but he was blind, at the moment. He needed comfort, deep down, and she was offering it to him. “I can't really say. We've heard of her, had guards come in and say they were taking prisoners to this woman, but none of us have ever seen her. All of the ones who have supposedly gone to see her never returned. For all we know, it's just a ruse to make us think that there's someone actually visiting us. Some think it's just some foolish lie to hide behind the possibility of us being executed.”

Mark gulped after hearing that. He didn't want to be executed, that's for sure. He didn't even know what he did to get thrown into this place, let alone being executed. He had to hope that it never came to that. He felt Isabella's hand on his, and he started gripping onto it, for a moment. “N-Now...you don't think they would be coming to execute...me, would you?! I mean...I don't even know what I did to come here, and I can't even see now! I don't even know what they want with me, or she wants with me, or...anything like that.”

He felt a chill on his neck, and he came to a stop. A cold wind blew onto it and it made his quiver. It was Isabella, or so he assumed. “Does it look like you're being dragged into an execution right now?” she asked. The question went into his head and, of course, nothing like that had happened. All they were doing was talking. He shook his head and told her that he wasn't. This made her continue. “Then calm your butt down, already. They've left you alone, for now. Some prisoners are in here for weeks, or months, before they're taken elsewhere. Besides, it sounded like they needed some information out of you. Until they are able to acquire that information, I think it's safe to say that they're not going to execute you.”

It wasn't terribly comforting, what she said. The fact that they needed him for something was nice, because he wouldn't be executed right away, but the fact that it might still happen wasn't very comforting at all. He didn't say anything. He just lowered his head, losing some strength in his body. He sighed and slowly drooped down to the floor. He felt Isabella still with him, as he did so. She was staying close to him, either to comfort him or for her own reasons. He didn't care, at the moment, though. He was shutting down.

She held onto him as best she could, or so it felt. In the back of his head, he could hear her voice, whispering to him. “There, there...now you're all tired out. There will be plenty of time for questions tomorrow. I'll stay here and sleep with you, so you don't feel lonely. You need a companion in this time of crisis for you, I'd wager. I'll stay and be that companion, until everything is figured out, or something else happens. My arms won't leave you until you're ready. Besides, I need a companion around, too. You're just the person for that, for now...”

Mark drifted off to sleep, almost all of the pain out of his body. He dreamed of a lot of things, but he wondered what happened to Rachel, and is this 'big' woman was real or not...