A Warlock's Ascent

Dave woke up abruptly, he was lying in a dark room, his body was covered in sweat from top to bottom. He could feel a soft mattress under him, while he could feel any injury on his body. He ran his hands around the mattress to create a mental image of where he was lying and found out that he was lying on a hardwood bed.

The bed that he was lying in was a small rectangular thing, small enough to fit a person. The cover on the mattress felt soft and was of very high quality. The room didn't have any sort of smell nor he could hear anything in the room, there was just pin-drop silence and him.

He sat up straight and then turned around to stand up, and it was then the room was suddenly illuminated. The bright light that suddenly appeared out of nowhere stung his eyes. He covered his eyes with his hands as well as closed his eyes, but still, the intensity of light still stung.

It is only after a few minutes was he finally able to open his eyes. He looked around and saw that he was in a small cube-like room, it had no windows, no furniture except for the bed that he was lying in and there was only one door. No matter how he looked at it, this room gave him the vibes of a prison cell, which alarmed him more.

He started to have bad feelings about this place. Upon further inspection, he saw that he was lying in the clothes he was wearing last night, his pockets have everything that he was carrying last night which included his wallet and keys. It was then he remembered that he had a gun. He unconsciously went towards his back to see whether he had the gun or not. Halfway through, he realized that his kidnappers would have stripped him of his firearm, after all, it was the basic thing to do.

Still, his hands went to his waist and it was then he felt the familiar metal exterior of the gun. As he felt the gun, he immediately grabbed it. Upon taking out the magazine of the gun, he saw all the bullets were inside, which was weird as hell.

'Do these kidnappers not care whether I have a gun?' he thought. Whether it was a mistake or not, he didn't care, he immediately put the magazine back and loaded the gun, and immediately stood up and walked towards the door.

The brown door in front of him had a simple knob, he expected it to be locked. But to his surprise, upon twisting it slightly the knob turned and the door swung open.

He found himself in a brightly lit hallway, this hallway was filled with countless doors identical doors, like the one he came from, it was empty and devoid of any sounds or living being.

Before stepping out, he cocked his gun, he was getting a feeling that at any moment one of these doors could be swung open and his kidnappers would come gun blazing. It was very a frightening thought, but he couldn't stay put, he needed to know where he was and get out of there.

There were two ways in front of him. He could either move towards his right or left. As he had no idea where to go or what to do next, he decided that he should trust his gut, after gulping some saliva, he started going left, after all, he had to start from somewhere.

With a very fast pace he started moving, and only the echoes of his steps reverberated through the hallway, while moving he was tempted to check out other doors, but he didn't dare to take such a risk, after all, it could alert his kidnappers.

He was about to reach the end of the hallway, but it was then he heard a door being opened behind his back. He immediately turned around and pointed his gun in the direction.

A skinny Asian man had walked out of the room, he was wearing a cheap two-piece suit and looked confused. When he spotted Dave pointing his gun, he was instantly alarmed, he immediately put his hands in the air and started yelling in Mandarin. "DON'T SHOOT. DON'T SHOOT."

Dave couldn't understand Chinese so he called him out in English."Who the hell are you? And what is this place?"

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I… beg… don't… I have a family at the house. Please!" The man yelled with a very bad English accent. Before Dave say anything else, the doors around them started opening up one by one, and people started swarming in the hallway.

These people all belonged to different races and gender, some of them were wearing pajamas while some were wearing formal suits. There was even a fat man who was in his underwear.

Some people that came out when saw him holding a gun, were all startled. A few of them immediately went back inside, while the few who were caught in front of his gun's barrel didn't move.

"Who the hell are you people? What is this place?" he yelled.

None of them answered, but all of them did put their hands in the air, While some plopped down to the ground as a sign of submission. Amongst the victims being held at the gunpoint was a middle-aged British woman in her 30s, she was wearing a nightgown and had her hands in the air.

"I don't where we are. Please don't shoot. I have a family to feed, please spare me." Dave then finally put his gun down. He didn't understand where he was, but by looking at these people he understood that they were all victims of kidnapping the same as him. And it was pretty evident that a fat woman in her late 30s could not be a gangster…

"Do any of you guys know what is happening here? Where the hell are we?" People calmed down as he put down his gun, some still didn't trust him and kept looking at him suspiciously.

"I don't know. The last thing I remember is that I was in my room. And then I woke up here." The fat woman replied.

He also then shared how he ended up here. Some people in their group didn't even understand English, but those who did understand him attested to the fact that they came in contact with people from R3T.

Hearing all of their stories, he started to have a very bad feeling. From the looks of it, whichever organization kidnapped them must be very powerful, otherwise kidnapping so many people from different countries and regions is a very hard thing to pull off.

Soon the hallway was flooded with people, some of them were shouting in different languages while a few of them had started crying. Because of the language barrier among most of the people, chaos started spreading in the hallway.

Dave looked at the chaotic atmosphere of the hallway and decided to move away, part of him wanted to move away because of his paranoia, he knew that a chaotic atmosphere like this could soon convert into a very disastrous situation. From the looks of it, there were more than 200 people in this hallway. And that many people combined with the panic in everyone's eyes was a recipe for chaos.

Also, he is the one that has a gun with him, in a chaotic situation, it was very safe to assume that people would come for him because of his gun. And he didn't want that…

As he reached the end of the hallway, he encountered a very small passage towards his right, there were a few people already standing in the path. They were all standing there, trying to get a glimpse of something ahead of them, he got curious as to why they were standing there, so he pushed them aside and went towards the front.

He looked at the yellow color barrier with astonishment, it was located in the middle of the small pathway. There was nothing visible beyond the barrier, when he tried to approach the barrier, one of the men standing in front stopped him.

"What is this?" The man who stopped him was wearing a business suit. He then took out his pocket square, and with a thick Indian accent, he said. "Observe."

Then the man took the pocket square and threw it at the barrier. As soon as the cloth made contact with the barrier, immediately it disintegrated into nothingness. Dave's mouth was left agape as he saw this, he had never seen anything like this before, this looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.

"So we are in some sort of high-tech prison," Dave mumbled.

"Seems like it," Indian replied.

BANG BANG BANG BANG

It was then sounds of shots being fired echoed throughout the hallway. After the shots, there was pin-drop silence for a second or two, then chaos spread, and people started screaming and running here and there.

Hearing the gunshots, Dave's paranoia started kicking in. He wanted to go to his room right about now and lock himself in, but the room was far away, He started brainstorming possible ways that he could do in this scenario. But it was then he saw something that made his skin crawl.

Because of the shots, the people standing by the curve at the edge of the hallways started pouring into the small path. They wanted to avoid getting shot so they wanted to get in cover. But the thing was, the small hallway was not spacious, and people started pushing in to make space.

Dave and some other guys were standing too close to the barrier. And it would only take one more push and their bodies would touch the barrier disintegrating their backs…

They started receiving push, and they tried started pushing people back, but everything was futile. The volume of people pushing in was way more and they were easily overpowered. It only took one big push from the other side which made them fall on his back, through the barrier.

AAAHHH!

Someone yelled as they fell. Dave also closed his eyes to the pain. But the thing was pain never occurred. Curious about what happened, he opened his eyes slightly and saw that his body was perfectly fine. But the same could not be said for clothes, shoes, and his gun. As he went through the barrier, everything vanished.

Now he and a bunch of men and women were lying on the bottom completely naked on the other side of the barrier…

His paranoia then kicked in. He immediately pushed himself up and looked at the people for answers, which they also didn't have.

BANG BANG BANG

Shots were fired once again. But this time, Dave didn't stick around to see what happened next. He turned around and started running. He ran into the small hallway and eventually came to a red color door. He didn't know what to expect if he happens to open it.

Anything is better than that crazy crowd, he thought. So he stepped forward and pushed the door open.