“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...