Before I knew it, the sun was starting to appear in the barred window at the top of the back wall of my cell. My stomach growled louder than I had ever heard it growl before and I glanced over at the nutrient bar still sitting in the corner with my empty paper cup.

“Screw it… hunger pains suck,” I muttered under my breath as I went and grabbed the bar.

When I opened the package I cringed at the food then broke a piece off and stuck it in my mouth, instantly gagging up a storm at the horrible taste. I stared at the rest of the bar in disgust as I forced myself to swallow the first bite before taking another. Slowly I finished the horrible tasting food, getting rid of the growling and hunger pains. I heard rustling in Xander’s cell followed by a deep sigh.

“So it wasn’t a dream after all,” Xander’s face had appeared in the bars above my toilet, he smiled slightly at me, “I thought it might have been my brain playing tricks on me since I’ve been in here alone for so long and I haven’t eaten or drank anything for two days now.”

“Nope, me being here is very real, you’re not going crazy yet.”

“Oh I’m way beyond crazy, but at least I’m not imagining things,” he chuckled quietly and smirked mischievously.

The day went by excruciatingly slowly. Several people came and went, Sophia brought another person in and tossed her into the cell across from me but the new guest wasn’t a very big talker. Soon after she had been put in the cell another kid I hadn’t seen before came by and went in the cell… the sounds of what was definitely torture that I heard made me cringe in pain even though I wasn’t the one being tortured.

“Is that… normal?” I hesitantly glanced between Xander’s face in the window and the cell where the torture was happening.

“It’s not exactly normal, but not all that unusual either.”

I shuddered in fear and disgust at what was happening in this building.

“Have you ever… you know… done that?”

“I’ve been on both ends of it,” he unconsciously touched the scar on his face as he answered my question.

I chose not to continue that conversation out of fear for what I would learn.

“So how long have you been a… what did you call it yesterday? A Phantom?”

“I was taken by Chronos when I was fourteen, had a year of training and torment then ‘graduated’ and became a Phantom,” he dropped his hand away from his scar as he spoke, “Chronos used to only take really young kids to become Phantoms, but for the past few years they’ve been taking anyone they can get ahold of… Aidan is the only living Phantom I know of who’s been here more than a few years, kids generally don’t make it more than three or four years in the program.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well they either die in training, get killed or captured while out on jobs, or end up like me because they mess up a job but are unfortunate enough to make it back here alive.”

I stared at him in shock and horror at the information that seemed to only get darker and more horrifying the more I learned about this place and these people.

“I wish I was lying to you.”

I just continued to stare at him, I had no words to express how angry, scared, and disgusted I was by this organization that I had discovered.

“Sorry… maybe I shouldn’t have gone into as much detail.”

The loud sound of a cell door opening caught my attention and I glanced over to the cell where the painful sounds had been coming from. The kid who had gone in after the girl was left there was walking away from the cell, as the door closed and automatically locked behind them I noticed the body of the girl laying in the middle of the floor completely still. Whether she was alive or not I couldn’t tell. The person who had left was wiping their bloodstained hands with a rag that looked like it had been soaked in blood. I looked away and barely kept myself from throwing up as I heard the kid leave. My vision was blurry and I could feel myself wobbling. I tried to hold myself steady against the wall while also trying to focus on the boy across from me through my blurry vision.

“Ryker… are you ok?”

“Not really. I’ve never been great with blood, and that was a lot of blood.”

“You look like you’re about to fall over,” he said as he reached through the bars and held my shoulders, “just breathe, you’ll be ok.”

After a few moments of unsteadily standing on the toilet with Xander’s hands on my shoulders I started to feel better. My vision cleared and I was no longer wobbling. The boy across from me slowly removed his hands from my shoulders and pulled them back through the bars.

“Better?”

“Yeah… thanks.”

He nodded in response as he frowned slightly. He didn’t look totally convinced that I was better but must have chosen not to say anything about it.

“Do you always react to blood that way?”

“Pretty much… if I’m conscious enough to realize it’s blood then I get woozy and feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“Well then I ho-“

“Xander Carric, Maria wants to have a word with you.”

I glanced over to the hall and saw a person that looked like a soldier standing in the middle of the path in front of Xander’s cell. The soldier was holding an assault rifle of some kind in front of them. I heard the lock in Xander’s cell door click and looked back at him through the window. He looked like he’d gone about a dozen shades paler in a matter of seconds.

“What about?”

“She didn’t say, but it doesn’t matter, you’ve got to come with me.”

I watched as he hesitantly stepped down and walked towards the soldier. I lost sight of him until he passed my cell with the soldier behind him. He glanced over at me and I saw absolute terror in his face as he slowly walked down the hall. I went to the front of my cell and watched the two of them head towards the exit. The soldier pushed him forward to make him walk faster until they reached the door, a loud buzz echoed through the cell block as the door swung open. Soon Xander and the soldier disappeared behind the large metal door that swung shut behind them.