Rebellion

"Yes, we do. Why wouldn't we? Why would we just wait to see what happens to us?"

"You need to stop talking. They might hear you."

"What, like they've got superhuman hearing?" Juri asked sarcastically.

Sarcasm wasn't something she normally resorted to; it was mean and lacking in imagination. She was afraid, though, more afraid than she had ever been in her life, and she figured a little sarcasm was the least she could give herself.

"It's not funny. You shouldn't joke. You have no idea, Juri. You don't know anything."

Juri was fully prepared to challenge what exactly it was that Selene knew that Juri didn't, but she never got the chance.

From somewhere in the glowing gloom, the sound of clanging metal reached Juri, Selene, and whoever else might be stuck in this strange dungeon with them. Selene's head snapped up immediately, her whole body trembling with horrified anticipation.

"Wha -?" Juri started, not sure what it was she wanted to ask.

"Be quiet," Selene hissed, "if you know what's good for you, you'll stop talking right this instant. Just keep your mouth shut and try not to make eye contact."

"Okay," Juri whispered, dazed enough to be momentarily subdued, "if you say so."

"And just one more thing. Whatever you're thinking about escaping, stop it. We can't. Not ever. And don't ever try to take off the chain looped around your neck," Selene warned, her voice harsh and like that of a stranger's.

If anything, it only made Juri want to say more. She had about a thousand questions she wanted to demand answers to, not the least of which was who had brainwashed Selene and how it had been done in such a short amount of time.

Then there was the matter of the neck chain, something Juri hadn't even noticed before Selene's mention of the thing. She guessed a chain was the best way of describing the thing, but it was unlike any chain Juri had ever seen.

The links were small and delicate, but at the same time, they felt strange. There was something ominous about the thing, too, like it held a power Juri could only begin to guess at. She fingered it thoughtlessly and then recoiled at the feel of those links.

Touching them was like being bitten by a snake, and this snake was full of poison. Her eyes welled with tears she was desperate not to allow to spill over. She felt very, very small. She felt like the smallest thing in the universe.

"At attention!" A voice rang out, reverberating off of the walls violently.

There was nothing but wood and metal for the sound to bounce off of and it made it sound as if a giant was approaching Juri and her brainwashed friend. When she saw what it was, Juri longed for a giant instead. The man or creature one can assume was male in gender due to its masculine features, was infinitely more terrifying.

"Do not attempt anything when your chains are removed. Do not forget the consequence," the man-thing roared.

He sounded almost bored, and Juri wondered wildly what a person had to go through to get to the point where handling hostages was considered boring. She was also desperate to know more about the consequence mentioned, although not quite desperate enough to attract that kind of attention.

As it happened, she didn't have to. The jailor stood in the middle of the room, flexing his muscles and looking over his prisoners with disdain. He was incredibly large, undoubtedly close to seven feet tall, with thick black dreadlocks hanging down the back of his head.

He looked to have about a thousand piercings, including several on his lips and a massive one hooked through his septum. His thick biceps were covered with raised markings that looked more like brands than tattoos.

All of these things were unquestionably noticeable, but not enough to present as terrifying. What was terrifying was that he was not strictly human. It was his skin that gave him away. Instead of one of the shades associated with the human race, it was green. It wasn't light green, either.

It was vibrant and pulsing like it was radioactive. When he nodded in the direction of the dark hallway behind him, several other men-things hurried into the cell. Some of them looked like the man clearly in charge, and some of them looked like...other things.

Things Juri didn't want to think about. They set about the task of unlocking the shackles of one prisoner after the other, never making eye contact as they did so. Everything went smoothly until they got to the third prisoner. If this one had heard Selene's warning, he wasn't interested in heeding it.

There was a loud commotion as the figure shoved the one who had just freed him out of the way. He took off running down the hallway, ready to do the thing Selene had convinced Juri could never be done.

When Juri saw it, she was filled with a white-hot rage, rage that her friend could have dulled her sense of survival so completely. She prepared herself to follow the runner as soon as her cuffs were undone, provided that she was still given the opportunity.

Juri tensed her body, ready to take advantage of every chance afforded to her; then she got a taste of Selene's warning and everything inside of her stopped working. If she were a computer, she could easily be described as offline.

"Bring that prisoner to me!" The head jailor bellowed.

The anger in his voice was his first real sign of interest. Juri watched, her breath caught in her throat. She rooted for the potential escapee, rooting for him in the same ways she had rooted for countless underdogs in the movies.

That he almost made it out of the dark dungeon-like room before being taken down was a cruel blow. It wasn't anything close to the feeling that washed over Juri when she saw who the prisoner was, however. That was a feeling deserving of a category all its own.

"You can't do this! We're Americans, god damn it. You can't treat us this way!" Adam's voice broke on the word "way," and it made Juri's heart want to break.

He sounded like a teenager being tormented by the jocks in the locker room. The soldier lucky enough to nab him put a knee in his back and he went sprawling forward. His face smashed into the hard stone floor, and Juri heard a sickening sound that could only be bone breaking.

When he lifted his face to the monster towering over him, his face was covered in blood. The only part of him that looked clean was the thin pathways created by the tears streaming down his face.

So much for the once pristine Ken doll, Juri thought miserably. Her tears were a very real threat, waiting in a lump in the back of her throat.

"You're not American anymore, prisoner. You're not anything. You belong to the sea," the monster answered his voice back to boredom.

Juri's jaw clenched tightly. If her hands weren't tied to the roof above her, she would have wrapped them around herself protectively. You belong to the sea. She had no idea what the statement meant. It was far too cryptic for anything as mundane as understanding.

That didn't make it any less effective, though. Far from it. Without knowing why, she glanced up at the low ceiling, through the grate, and into the strange glow. It seemed suddenly important, imperative, even, to know where exactly she was in relation to the sea. It felt like knowledge her life might even depend on.

"I will always be an American," Adam spat, "and there is nothing you can do to take that away. There's nothing -"

A low, shocking punch to the gut shut him up, and quickly. Adam pitched forward, his face dangerously close to smashing into the floor again. There was no chance for recuperation and any shot at redemption had come and gone.

The malicious jailor hit him again and again, walked around, and drove his knee into Adam's spine, making him cry out like a wounded animal. She wanted to shut her eyes, to shut herself off from the world and will herself to a place where none of this was real.

By the time the beating stopped, Adam Haynes looked half-dead. His face was unrecognizable and whatever spirit of rebellion lived within his heart was snuffed out for good. His attacker grabbed Adam by the hair and pulled his face up roughly, displaying his brutality with child-like glee.

"Look on this, you lot," she growled, "look on this and despair. There is no way out. No way except for what your masters see fit to provide. And that's all left to luck, isn't it?"

He laughed, and the rest of his army of enslavers followed suit. Juri's skin crawled at the sound of it and made her want to scream her objections to the heavens, but she held her body still. She forced her mind to go somewhere far away, somewhere where these brutes or their evil plans could not touch her.

Because of this, she hardly registered her body's relief when her hands were freed, and her arms fell limply by her sides. She did not look at the others as they were herded into a line and made to walk single file over puddles of stagnant water and the filth of all of the unfortunate souls that had come before them to this vile place.

Juri was hardly present inside of herself at all until the doors to the dungeon opened wide and she and all of the rest of the captives were thrust onto a makeshift stage. When she saw what waited for her there, she opened her mouth to scream. It was only blind luck that no sound came out.