What Doesn't Kill You...

The doors opened to the van, blinding John with the sudden light. Then, he was pulled out by someone and **** to his feet. His eyes slowly adjusted to the change with some rapid blinking, allowing John to look at his surroundings.

The two captors were muttering to one another just behind him, close enough to grab him and Velvet if they were to try running. Although, John suspected the manacles had something to stop them from running away regardless. Around them was… absolutely nothing notable, actually. It seemed to just be your everyday small warehouse. It had seen much better days, paint peeling, bare concrete construction showing here and there, the doors ragged and hanging crooked on their hinges.

In the distance, some trees were visible standing tall, meaning this was probably on the outskirts of the city, near where the old woodland began. It was a good place to do things without notice, John thought with a sinking feeling as he finished his rudimentary analysis. There were no visible residentials, and most of the buildings around were either other warehouses or condemned buildings.

So… why were they here? Because that warehouse was very clearly abandoned and unused recently, with no clear purpose. And kidnappings usually had a reason, as far as he knew.

He was just about to pipe up and say something, or maybe mutter to Velvet, when Bob did the gesture from before again. This time, John wasn’t distracted and watched carefully. Far too carefully, he realised, since all the man did was raise his clenched hand to the sky and release it. The result was similar to last time, with a simple notification appearing.

Bronze Facility Barrier entered. Defeat or subdue all stronger hostiles to gain control of the barrier.

The effect it had was significantly more noticeable, however.

There was a moment where reality seemed to fracture, explaining the shattering noise John had heard before in the van. It was as if there was a painted window that had shattered, the light between the gaps pouring through, then it restructured itself and he lost the glimpse through the cracks.

In place of the quiet, calm Springfield outskirt with its derelict warehouses and cracked sidewalks was an imposing, ramshackle cube adorned with ugly wooden spikes, and lit with harsh white floodlights irregularly placed to face the doors, casting sharp shadows. The pair of double front doors were crudely reinforced with hammered steel sheets, and lacked handles, while all the windows were either boarded up or sported charming thick metal bars, embedded into the concrete facing. Upon a closer look, John could clearly see the poor craftsmanship showing at the points that the adaptations had been attached.
Underneath it all, the bones of the small warehouse present outside the barrier were barely visible, but there was none of the quiet or calm that one typically found in abandoned places. Instead, jagged edges and dimly lit corners filled the air with anxiety and panic, adding to the air of brutal desperation that lingered around the building.

There was a sudden yank on his wrists as the manacles pulled to each other, followed by a pair of loud clicks as they connected. He glanced over to see Velvet’s manacles inexplicably join together as well, then Toby shoved him forward roughly, forcing John to stumble out of surprise. “C’mon, kiddo, take a look around. I’ll give you the grand tour of your new home.”

Each of the criminals grabbed a teen and began to push them along, Toby with regular shoves and a shit-eating grin on his face, while Bob had a firm hand that regularly pushed Velvet’s shoulder forward and an expression that said this was just a part of the job, unlike Toby’s glee.

The group went through the heavily reinforced doors after they were opened by a pair of guards stationed on the other side. Once inside, the ‘tour’ began. They went by a small break room right by the exit, assumedly for the door guards, and then entered the main warehouse room itself.

It was chaotic, in a word. No clear sense of organisation or order, just a haphazard layout that vaguely reminded John of his bedroom after he forgot to clean it for too long. There were a couple of areas that were clearly for certain purposes, but the lines between areas were extremely hazy. Immediately closest to them was what seemed to be a storage section of metal boxes, varying in size with the largest around the size of John’s full computer tower and the smallest only the size of a shoe box. All of them were stacked on top of each other, or piled and stacked randomly, and he had absolutely no idea what they actually were, so he cast Observe on one of them.

Oh, well, that was interesting. Mana could be harvested somehow and stored, which was new to him. You’d think they’d be more careful with the things, though. But, as far as he knew, the only thing that could generate mana naturally was…

John’s stomach dropped like a stone as the realisation hit him. This was a facility for gathering mana, and they were the livestock that created that mana. Toby was staring at him with sudden vicious glee, seeing the expression on John’s face. “Ahhh, getting it now, aren’t you?” He chuckled, and a chill travelled down John’s spine, like a ghostly touch. “The boss is a massive cheapskate as well, so you’re not going for a nice nap in here.”

He **** them onwards as John started inwardly spiralling, no longer able to pay attention to the nature of his ghastly surroundings. He’d thought himself in mortal danger earlier when fighting, and been frightened; now he had to face the thought he’d be here for who knows how long, and it was beyond terrifying. His breath was speeding up in panic, coming in shorter and shorter bursts as his imagination ran wild with the possibilities. His chest started to feel constricted. The damned manacles on his wrists suddenly felt like he was dragging steel chains. He could almost hear them clinking as he walked onwards. He-

A noise of soft pain intruded into his panic attack, and he glanced over in time to catch Velvet before she fell after Bob had pushed her just a bit too hard and her foot had caught on an uneven, cracked floor tile. Everything came crashing back down to earth as he caught her awkwardly and looked into her snowy eyes and saw the fear of the unknown - and more than that, the unseen - that she was trying to mask. He couldn’t collapse right now. Not if it meant leaving her alone to her fate. It was a ridiculous thought and overly dramatic, he knew that. John was no damn hero, and this unfairly cute blind girl was likely much more powerful than he was ever going to be, but… no matter what reasoning he could give, there was only the intense feeling that he couldn’t fail her without hating himself that mattered right then. He’d love to curse his mother for that old-school mentality, but he didn’t like to think how he might be without it, honestly.

John took a deep shuddering breath to try and calm himself and caught the subtle scent of some kind of wild berry as he did so, assumedly her perfume, but it was the most soothing incense in the world at that moment. He restored her to standing, ignoring Toby’s sniggers and Bob’s raised eyebrow, muttering under his breath into her ear, “You can do this,” and then returning to where he was before. Sure, it was vague and what ‘this’ was might be entirely unclear, but it conveyed his support and belief in her, right?

He started walking forward again, almost leaving Toby behind. He was paying attention again, now that the downward spiral into terror had been averted. They’d walked into a different section of the facility, and there was some kind of machinery around. There were four of the things, each with around half a dozen wires, or maybe some kind of tubing, that led into the machine, which had a socket in it for different sizes of the mana batteries. Other than that, it was impossible to see what it did. He was about to cast his only skill to find out more when Toby spoke up again.

“No dawdling now. We’ve gotta get you to your nice new home.” The lanky thug that John was now firmly convinced was a sadist shoved him again, and they continued moving. Still, he’d gotten some information, and that was all he needed to understand what this place was - a cheaply built, understaffed, and badly maintained criminal **** sweatshop that gathered mana. There was half a chance that he’d be able to get his way out of here at some point if he could free Velvet, or even if there were other strong captives. It was slim, but it was a chance.

As John had a feeling they might, the two thugs led them down the stairs next, into a basement which sported some visible conversions. All but the essential pillar supports had been removed, creating a large open room. On the far side, another entrance was visible. Both of them, however, had been fitted with a crude but effective wood and metal bar door and frame to prevent escape. In one corner was a simple collection of toilets, which were likely a small employee bathroom, once upon a time. The rest of the space was filled with more machines, different to the condensers. These reminded John more of an electro-therapy setup.

A chair, with a simple restraint around the waist which looked suspiciously like a tattered old seatbelt, a pair of metal bands that didn’t quite join together, and a cable or tube of some kind running loose across the ground to one of the pillars. There, it joined many others like it and went into the ceiling, making it likely that they were transporting the raw mana somehow from the chairs to the condensers. The only oddity compared to anything else he had seen before was the boxes attached where the hands would rest. In most of the chairs sat a person, slouched over or back in seeming exhaustion. Like the rest of this building, it looked crude but effective.

“Toby, go get the **** from J. I’ll put ‘em in the juicers,” Bob ordered in a tone that brokered no argument. Clearly, the bigger man had some kind of seniority over the other thug, since he wandered over to the other end of the room and went through the door while muttering under his breath.

Without another word, he moved the two of them to a pair of the empty things, beside each other. One large hand went onto John’s shoulder to **** him down into the chair and hold him there while the other pulled the waist restraint into place. Then he placed each hand into the odd boxes, pulled the head pieces around to circle John’s head, and then moved to repeat the process with Velvet. Toby came back over as he was placing Velvet in it and spoke to Bob, “Bad news. They’ve run out. Next delivery isn’t for a day or two, so we’re gonna have to stick around until these two can be dosed.”

Bob grunted in response, “We’ll ‘ave to keep a closer eye on ‘em til then,” and then jutted his head to the exit and walked over, Toby trailing behind him. He lifted some kind of panel on the wall outside the gate, and flipped a couple of switches.

The effect was immediately made clear in the few seconds it took the pair of thugs to walk up the stairs out of sight. The chairs began to hum slightly, and John felt a strange new sensation, similar to the crash he got sometimes after drinking too much coffee trying to stay awake, but it took place in under half a minute. If he didn’t have the context of the rest of the building, he would probably think he was dying, but as it was, both that and his mana bar told him that this feeling was that of his mana being slowly drained, point by point, while he was strapped into the chair.

Trapped and helpless. Again.

It had been hours. He couldn’t be certain how many hours, but certainly enough that school had ended. Night might even have fallen. Or it could just be midafternoon, no way he could tell with no windows and no clocks beside his internal and often inaccurate one. All he knew was that he’d been taken to the bathroom twice so far, and the rest of the time had been a painful and exhausting procedure of his mana being drained down to zero, then the machine would try to drain what’s not there and, even if there wasn’t any damage taken, he’d feel like something was trying to pull the blood from his veins. Then a mana point would restore, and the cycle would repeat.

Honestly, he was mainly just so damn relieved that he got toilet access. It would have been beyond disgusting if he’d had to sit there as his bodily functions made themselves known. And embarrassing, since Velvet was in the chair right next to him, and… yeah, this was possibly the worst situation one could ever hope to feel hopeful for that kind of thing, but she was really cute, and John would much prefer not to soil himself next to the cute girl. The only reason he hadn’t been speaking with her so far was that the pain was too distracting. All he could do was brace for the next draining tick and the feeling that his blood was being pulled from his veins.

He’d fallen asleep at some point during it, from exhaustion. They’d turned the machine off for the two of them and one or two others, and fed them. Well, they’d given them some kind of grey cube that had the texture of sand and the taste of disappointment, but it had satisfied his stomach somewhat.

Significant time must have passed since then because he could think straight, his health bar had refilled, and he even had just over half a bar of mana. John assumed they cycled through the prisoners to allow them to regain some mana and recover slightly before starting the process again. John was slightly disgusted with himself for the sudden train of thought he had on how the process could be improved and made more efficient and shook his head to clear it away, then grunted slightly as he smacked his head into one of the metal prongs resting by his temples.

“Mornin’ John. Hope you had a nice nap.” He looked over to see Velvet in the chair to his left grinning in his general direction, and was struck again by how impressive it was that she was so calm considering she couldn’t even see exactly what was happening to her.

“I… er, yeah, I guess? Could have had better room service though.” She giggled slightly, then winced with a sharp inhale. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Did one of them do something while I was asleep?”

“No! No, this is normal. It’s called ‘Mana Fatigue’. I’ve essentially used too much mana, or had it used for me in this case, and been on empty for too long. Normally, it wouldn’t last too long, but…” She trailed off and John couldn’t blame her. Since this whole situation had started, it felt like some kind of taboo to actually speak about the fact that they were either going to waste away in here or escape. The former was too depressing to think about for long and keep high spirits, and the latter was such an unlikely thought at the moment that thinking about it felt almost like false hope.

“I’m actually surprised you aren’t feeling it, since you’re a late bloomer and all,” she continued, moving on.

“Yeah, I… Oh, it’s probably because of one of my skills. I’ve got one where my injuries and such reset to normal after a short time. Still take the damage, but I don’t have the physical injury anymore.”

“Wait, really? That’s… so unfair! B-but cool!”

John chuckled slightly at her attempt to be nice when she realised her tone. “Thanks, I guess? Not like it’s doing me much good other than that, though.”

Quiet took over the air between them again. A consistent drip of water in the corner with the toilets and the muffled groans of the other prisoners were the only sounds, until Velvet quietly said, “Why isn’t anyone else speaking?”

John hummed slightly in thought and then said, “I think they’re all **** up. One of our kidnappers mentioned they didn’t have any more for us until the next shipment. Must be something that makes it so you don’t care about what’s happening. Or maybe something that makes it so you can’t do anything, even if you do care? I don’t know, but… I’m just glad they couldn’t do it to us yet. I’d be going insane if I couldn’t speak to you right now, I think. Almost did earlier. Or yesterday, even, when we were in the main room upstairs. You being there…” He didn’t finish his sentence and trailed off.

The two of them didn’t speak again for a while, and Velvet succumbed to the siren’s call of sleep. He knew it was kinda creepy, but with her asleep and nothing else going on, John spent the time looking at her. She was really interesting. And cute. And sexy.

With the surroundings, John found it a little difficult to be ‘excited’, so he was more interested than aroused. There was a certain softness around her that somehow carried over even into sleeping while bound in a chair like they both were. John could see slightly better in this lighting than he had in the van, and could tell that her hair actually had some very dark red mixed into it, the deep colour reminiscent of blackberries, and that same scent of berries occasionally drifted through the air from her.