Kiba hears mumbling on the other side of the speakers, a conversation accidentally leaking in to the booby-trapped room. There’s not much to listen to, but Kiba tries his best anyways. It’s about numbers. Kiba sighs, the room opens in front of him and the normal guards come out and escort Kiba back to his cell. Hours pass.
He sits there, angry with his options, and disappointed that he couldn’t do anything about it. A scowl forms on his face as he thinks of Deluma and her annoying voice telling him what to do and threatening him if he doesn’t. Across from him, when he looks through the glass screen in the door, are the humans that Deluma keeps threatening to kill. Deluma seemed to have gotten two more humans. Obviously there was the first from before, then eventually a man in an older age was brought here, then a young girl who couldn’t have been more than fourteen. A Definite pattern between these people is that none of them were expecting to be here, all of them dressed for different occasions. THe older man had short, gray hair and was dressed for golf, and the girl looks like she was just ready for school, she was just brought here a week ago.
The four of them were startled when the door to the hallway was opened. Kiba gets up and jumps, catching the lip of the glass’ frame to hold himself up. He looks through the small window to see two anthros holding another human. A fifth human. He doesn’t struggle when they lead him down the hallway. The anthros stop between Kiba’s door and the opposite door. They communicate and turn their attention towards Kiba’s door.
With flawless reaction, Kiba lets go and backs up from the door. It opens and they toss in the human. He stumbles a bit but doesn’t fall. He turns around just as the door closes.
“You must be Kiba, right?” The man guesses.
“Yeah, how’d you know?” Kiba responds. He then answers his own question, “Deluma right?”
“Yes. Where are we.” The man says. He turns around again and faces Kiba. Kiba finally gets a good look at the man. He has glasses, and wears a polo that looks like it belongs in a college. He wears normal pants and running shoes. “My name is Niel.”
“For one thing, all I know is that we’re stuck in a cell together. And if you’re in here, it must mean that maybe Deluma decided you were fit for tests.” Kiba explains to the best of his knowledge. “Across from us are the others.”
“The others… yes Deluma said she’d… she’d kill them if we didn’t comply, right?” Niel whispers, he walks over to the door and realizes he’s too short.
“Yes.” Kiba grunts. Niel seems to be inspecting the door, and the whole room in fact. Kiba stares at him while he goes around. “What are you doing?”
“What are you doing?” Niel retorts, “I’m inspecting the room.” Niel explains.
“Why? I’ve checked, there’s nothing here but what you see.” Kiba sighs.
“You sure about that?” Niel responds. Kiba shakes his head.
“You trying to escape? You’ll get them killed.” Kiba repeats. Niel doesn’t respond. After minutes of inspecting the room, Niel pumps his fist as if something good happened. “What’d you do?” Kiba accuses sarcastically.
“I can open the door- pop it off in fact, it would fall anyways.” Niel mumbles.
“Already? I can see why Deluma put you in here with me then…” Kiba exclaims. Niel walks back to Kiba. “You’re really smart.” Niel nods.
“Don’t know if she knows how smart I really am, which is good, we can use that to our advantage…” Niel mumbles to himself. “I’m done looking around, actually.” He says normally. Kiba looks at him with an idle expression. Suddenly Niel looks like he’s about to fall. “I should have just sat down when I got the chance, they chased me for so long…” He wobbles over to the wall and Kiba checks to make sure that Niel won’t fall. He sat down, fidgeting with his glasses. “Why are {i{you in here, Kiba?” He asks.
Caught off-guard by the question, he says “I don’t know. Maybe I was the most fit?” Kiba makes a gesture towards the other humans, “Deluma probably considered that an old man couldn’t run, a young girl wasn’t fully developed, and…” Kiba pauses, “Actually I don’t know why the woman is in there. She looks to be the same age as me. And with these walls I never got to ask her.”
By the time Kiba had done answering Niel’s question, Niel had fallen asleep. He shakes his head. “Not like I’ve been talking to myself for months or anything…” Kiba thinks.
------
Another few hours later and Niel had still been asleep. Kiba, being the strategist that he is, has well learnt the times that the guards came to get him for testing, and knew that they were coming soon. He looks over to Niel who seems to be peacefully unaware of his situation.
“Hey, Niel.” Kiba says. He gets up and walks over to Niel. He stands over him. “Niel.” Kiba says more sternly. He crouches, slightly annoyed. “Niel!” Kiba exclaims. He shakes the heavy sleeper. Niel wakes up startled.
“Where am I?” Niel gasps. Kiba rolls his eyes. Niel looks around, “Sorry.” he apologizes to Kiba. Kiba nods.
“Get ready, they’re about to take us to a test.” Kiba explains.
“A test?” Niel asks. Just then, the door to the concrete room opens and four anthros flood in. Kiba helps Niel up, who looks slightly perturbed. Two anthros grab Kiba, who doesn’t struggle. Niel tries to copy Kiba.
They are taken to the same room Kiba is tested in. They’re forcefully shoved into the room. Deluma’s static voice floods the room again. “You know the drill, Kiba.” She says. Niel looks around the room for something. “However, Niel, you’ve got to find out for yourself.” There is a menacing chuckle on the other side of the microphone.
“Aha!” Niel exclaims. Before Kiba starts walking forward, he turns to Niel, who’s crouched down near the door. Niel places a hand on the wall, obviously inspecting something. “Kiba come here.” He beckons. Reluctantly, Kiba scoots over to him. “Kick right here.”
“What are you doing?” Deluma exclaims with a worried voice. Kiba looks around and smiles. Niel just found something important. Kiba turns to kick the wall with all his might. Unexpectedly, the surface crumples from the force of his kick, in fact, his foot got stuck. Wires and sparks flew everywhere and immediately everything went black. “What is-- no, no, N-!” Deluma’s angry protests were cut short. Kiba yanks his foot out of the wall. Alarms were blaring and echoing through the halls.
“Come on! Let’s get out of here!” Niel exclaims. Kiba couldn’t believe this was happening, he was going to escape! As he exits the testing room, however, he remembers that the other humans would need help.
“Niel wait!” Kiba shouted, Niel was down the left hallway a bit. He turns around. “The others- we have to help them! This way!” Kiba turned and sprinted down the hallway to the right, Niel following. After multiple twists and turns, (and thanks to Kiba’s knowledge), the two finally end up at Kiba’s cell. Luckily, they had not run into any guards. Niel was panting and heaving, clearly he doesn’t run. The door across, the others, was open. Kiba rushes in to see the humans all looking around, anxious and afraid.
The woman looked to Kiba, “You’re- you’re Kiba right?” She exclaims. He nods. “What’s happening?” She asks.
“I can’t explain right now, because I don’t know myself, he knows, but he’s outta breath. We have got to go, now!” Kiba explains. “Come on!” He yells. The three humans rush over to Kiba and Niel.
“Young man,” The old man gets Kiba’s attention, he then looks into Kiba’s eyes with a relieved expression, “Thank you.” He nods. The child stays silent, too scared to say anything. Kiba motions for them to leave.
Niel, the old man, the woman, and the child were all following Kiba through this maze of corridors. Kiba suddenly stops. The rest abruptly stop as well. Kiba turns around. They were just ahead of the exit. There were always guards there, in fact, a whole squad. Kiba looks on at the four with a lost expression, mouth agape. He has lead them into a dead end…
“Kiba?” The young girl whispers. Kiba looks down at her. “I wanna go home.” She says, tears start to form in her eyes, her face turning red. Kiba kneels down and meets her at eye level.
“Don’t worry,” Kiba comforts her, though stuttering. “Just-...” Kiba suddenly gets an idea. It was a big risk. He stands up as the woman hugs the child. He turns to Niel and the old man. “Niel, make sure you all get out.” Kiba commands cryptically. Niel looks puzzled for a moment, but the old man saw through Kiba immediately. The old man was about to protest, but Kiba had already taken off.
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