Chapter 5 – Chap 5

All the prison cells were filled with at least one kid, but there were some that had two, three or even four children inside. It was clear those boys and girls weren’t in there by choice, and they weren’t happy. Some were crying, one of them was sleeping (or at least I think he was sleeping), others were carving the walls with rocks and some were even playing rock-paper-siccors, I guess they must have decided if they were going to die soon, then they’d spend their last moments having fun, or at least having the closest thing to fun you can have in that situation. Once they noticed us, they all droped whatever it was they were doing and just…stared at us, in complete silence,their faces depicting a combination of fear, suprise and confusion.

We looked at one cell in particular.

“It’s…it’s those Italian kids!” I said.

“Hey guys…how are you doing?” Jack said to them as they just stared at us with suprised faces like everyone else, they had clearly recognized us,though, and were probably wondering what the hell were we doing there.

We could also identify the kids that we had seen being dragged away by the men the night prior. A girl looked at Chris, she gasped.

“It’s my roommate!”

“Hi…” Chris said as both girls held hands with a line of prison bars separating them.

“So,um…Does anybody speak english? Trying to communicate with you is starting to feel a bit awkward…”

“I do” said a tall girl with long dark brown hair sitting alone in a cell after a few seconds of silence. She looked a bit older than us, arround 13 or 14 years old at most.

“Great! I’m Peter and these are Jack and Christine, nice to meet you!”

“Judith, nice to meet you. Why are you here? Did they catch you as well? But you’re not in a prison cell…”

“Nah, we entered the cave ourselves, by choice. “

“WHAT ? WHO WOULD BE SO STUPID TO DO SUCH A THING?” she replied

“My thoughts exactly!” Jack added

“You’ve made a terrible decision, trust me, I’ve been trapped in here for…actually, I’ve lost count, but I think It’s been at least a week since they came to my bungalow and brought me here, it’s where we all end up eventually.”

“That’s horrible! Did you manage to learn more stuff about our captors or something?” Chris asked

“Not much…But I do know they eventually take you out of your prison cell,and bring you…somwhere, to another room of the cave maybe, I don’t know, they haven’t taken me yet. Oh, and just like how they kidnap kids from all over the world, the men also come from all sorts of countries themselves, for example, I’m from Barcelona,Spain, and the kid who lured me here was also Spanish. It’s like an international secret cult.”

“Wow, you’re very fluent in english for not being a native speaker!”

“Thank you! That’s because my father’s from England, he moved to Barcelona to work as an english teacher,then he met my mother and…”

Then I remembered that little girl from when I first discovered the cave:Paula. I remembered both her and the monster.

“Excuse me, does the name Paula ring any bells to you? A little girl,maybe?”

“Paula!? You’ve seen Paula!?”

“Seen isn’t the word I’d use, but…yeah, something like that. You know her?”

“Yes, we came from the same bus! They also put her in a prison cell, but they didn’t lock it correctly and she escaped, it’s not common but some kids have managed to do that.”

“We talked to each other, kinda, we spoke different languages, so we couldn’t understand what the other was saying. Then she…ran away. I guess she was speaking spanish,then?”

“No…We do speak it, but we live in Catalonia, we primarily speak catalan. That’s what she was most likely speaking.”

Catalan,huh… That would’ve been good to know the day before, it made me wish I could’ve understood Paula, maybe some of her words contained useful information, oh well…. Actually, I did pick up a certain word…

“Judith, I heard her repeat the word monstre a lot. That translates to monster, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does. But…that’s wierd. I haven’t seen anything a little kid might describe as a monster, the cultists,maybe? I haven’t got a clue.”

I hadn’t seen it either, but I was certain Paula hadn’t made it up, because I had heard it, I was positive I did.

What sounded like a loud laughter in the distance startled us all. It didn’t sound like it came from an adult,though…

“Should we hide?” Chris suggested

“I don’t hear anyone approaching… Wanna go investigate?” I said

“I knew you’d say that!” Jack replied

After walking through the cave system’s humid corridors, we arrived at the room where the voices were coming from. We crouched and leaned against a wall to avoid being seen. Dozens of kids populated the room, but these were having a much better time than the ones in the prison cells : playing videogames, chatting,eating in an all-you-can-eat buffet… None had horns, but they were all wearing a white shirt featuring the cult’s red logo, a faceless silhouette of a head with horns. It was clear those were the kids the cult used to lure horned children like us to the island, and James was among them.

A drop of water coming from a stalactite above me fell onto my neck, sending a chill down my spine. All three of us knew what was about to happen, I tried to prevent it, but to no avail.

“A…A…Achoo!” I sneezed

“Oh,crap…” Jack replied

“DEMON KIDS ALERT! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!” a hornless kid said

“I know those three!”I heard Jame’s familiar voice say as they all stared at us

We immediately started running as fast as we could, hoping to lose them in the natural maze that was the cavern.

“Don’t just stand there doing nothing! Someone go after them,idiots!”

“Too late, call the adults!”

I looked back and saw a few cult kids were chasing us, but they were pretty far behind, so they weren’t really much of a threat, something they most likely realised as they gave up shortly after. What was a threat, however, was the trio of masked men running towards us with what looked like batons and whips. And what was worse, we were starting to feel tired and they weren’t slowing down.

“Mates, over here!” Chris said as she pointed out a very small tunnel, so much so we had to crawl through it one after the other. It wasn’t the most comfortable experience, pretty claustrophobic, but the adults couldn’t fit through there, so it was definitely worth it.

“Ugh…” said Chris while putting a hand on her head.

“Are you okay? Claustrophobia?”

“No…it’s wierd, I feel as if something inside my head was trying to tell me something…”

“What do you mean?” I replied

“I hate to interrupt,guys, but do you realise we can’t go back? If this tunnel’s a dead end we’re basically stuck here, just sayin’ ” Jack said

“It’s not.” Chris firmly replied

“What? How do you know? Have you been here before or what?”

“No, but I just know it’s not.”

And she was somehow right. We ended up in another tunnel, but this one was much more spacious, it felt good to be able to stand up again after having crawled for minutes. My happiness didn’t last long,however…

“Mates, we have to hide, or run, or something! I feel it!”

“Feel what? I don’t see or hear anything! I think this whole thing has affected you,Chris! You need a doctor!” Jack sarcastically responded

“It’s coming!” Chris said ignoring Jack’s words

I didn’t see or hear anything either, at first. But a few seconds later, the memories of a little Catalan girl flodded my mind.

First, the loud footsteps, then, the heavy breathing…