THE ROARING OF THUNDER AND WIND WOKE TOMAS UP. For a wonderful, blissful moment, that and the pouring rain outside was all he was aware of. But, that moment's bliss ended the moment the first hammer pounded into the back of his skull.

   A yell erupted from Tomas as he suddenly sat up and lifted a hand up to touch the part of his head where the pain had come from. When he touched the softer-than-normal skin and a sharper pain flared up in his head, Tomas let out a small whimper and quickly dropped his hand.

   Dimly, through the pain and murkiness that had settled over his mind, Tomas could hear voices around him. There might have even been a laugh, but it was hard for him to tell.

   "Wow, the kid's already awake!" a male voice cried out, the loudness and nearness of it hurting Tomas's head. There were traces of amusement and surprise in it. "Hey, can you hear me?"

   "Ah, who cares? He's doomed to the same fate as the rest of us," a woman's voice droned.

   "Or worse." another male voice added grimly. It was lower than the first.

   "Aaaand, that's exactly my point. Kid, you okay?"

   Tomas shook his head softly, trying to clear it of its fog, but he quickly stopped that attempt as it hurt his head more. Now, the invisible hammer kept hammering at his skull to a beat, every hit bringing another sharp pain and making it harder and harder for him to think. Despite it, though, Tomas tried to latch onto the voices, the pitter-patter of the rain, the roaring of the wind, and the constant boom of thunder. After a moment, Tomas's mind finally managed to decipher the words spoken.

   "Y-yeah, I'm okay. A-and I can hear you... obviously." he said softly, finally opening his eyes as he spoke. His vision was blurred, something that sent a wave of fear through his heart, for it caused reality to finally crash onto him--metaphorically, though, or Tomas would've truly suffered if he had to endure another blow.

   Tomas squinted his eyes as he tried to see through the blurriness. Through the blur, Tomas could make out other people sitting in the room he sat in. If it's even a room that we're in, Tomas thought, despair filling him with it. He tried to count the other people, taking a bit to do so because of the awkward state his mind was in. One, two, three... four.

   The closest blur moved toward him and waved a hand in front of Tomas's face, making him flinch back. Tomas regretted the flinch immediately, for it sent a lightning bolt of pain and a wave of nausea through his head. He had to swallow the bile that filled his mouth.

   "Oh, gods, you're lucky," the first male voice began, coming from the man in front of him, but the other male voice, the deeper one, interrupted it.

   "Lucky!? He got caught like the rest of us and got a knock over the head to accompany it! How can you call him lucky!?" the voice interrupted, sounding incredulous. A sound that was halfway between a cough and a laugh came from the same place as the voice after it finished.

   "Caught like the rest of us?" Tomas wondered, but the man in front of him beat him to speaking.

   "Because he managed to wake up pretty quickly and can hear just fine. I was the only one in here when he was brought in. It looked pretty bad and was bleeding quite a bit. He's either lucky or blessed by the gods, take your pick." he said. "Anyway, kid, can you see my hand?"

   Bleeding? Tomas thought, horrified, but he nodded ever-so-slightly at the question. "I can. It's kinda blurry, but I can," he answered. Tomas squinted after he spoke, trying to make out the face of the man as he saw it shift. Though he was able to see, the blurriness of his vision terrified Tomas . He was so used to seeing, so used to using it to survive, that the lack of being able to see the details around him terrified him. What if he, or someone else in here, held a knife, or are looking at me like they want to kill me, and I can't see it?

   Another gruff laugh had erupted from the other man even as Tomas had spoken. "Blessed by the gods!? Oh, that's rich. We're all in a situation like this and you want to call him blessed by the gods? Which god is it, ey? Orir!?" he asked incredulously. When he finished, he laughed at his own joke about the god of death, though even Tomas could hear that it was slightly hysterical.

   Though the man laughed at his own joke about Orir, what little blood that remained in Tomas's face drained from it as he heard the joke. Seeming to notice this, the man closer to Tomas turned away from him, turning instead to the man sitting in a corner.

   "That wasn't funny," he said. His tone sounded like a warning.

   "Oh, who cares? Let's not be starting up fights in here, I'm sure those two won't be happy with us if we do." the woman who'd spoken earlier said. Though her tone sounded casual and calm, there was a darkness under all of that. Tomas shuddered slightly as the entire room fell silent again and thunder boomed in the silence.

   "'Those two'? Who? And where are we? How did we get in here?" Tomas asked suddenly, taking advantage of the silence. Now, Tomas noticed that the blurriness of his vision was sharper than it had been when he'd first opened his eyes--he could see the details of the peoples' faces as they all looked at him. It was slightly relieving for Tomas to see the worry spelled across the face of the man that had approached him. However, that relief quickly faded as he saw the fourth other person in the room, the one he hadn't been certain of whether or not they were a person. They were slumped against a wall not too far from the woman across from him and were covered in burns. The worst of them were on his right arm.

   "You want to know how we all got here?" the woman asked before anyone else could speak. Though the circumstances were dark ones, she had a wide, almost malicious grin on her lips. Now that his vision was sharpening, Tomas could see the same look mirrored in her dark brown eyes. As ashamed as he'd be to admit it later, the look she had terrified him.

   Schooling his expression into a calm one, Tomas gave a soft nod. He ignored the sharper, more pronounced throb that flared up in the back of his head as he did.

   "Apparently, someone snitched to someone up high about the Snatch, what it meant to us, and of the Gathering. The person who'd caught me told me about it--they were rubbing it in, the bastard. So, they said that it was kept all hush-hush, not told to the public, you know? They planned to send in people to stop this year's Gathering, to arrest whomever they could and all. The Rues must've been involved, because there are a good few Caliendos here--I was caught by one of them. He'd told me that I better not give a fight, or he'd quickly put an end to it, and took my dagger. I'm guessing that you put up a fight?" her tone raised slightly with her last words, making it sound like a question.

   Tomas's eyes widened as the woman mentioned the Rues, but they grew so wide that they almost look like they'd fall from their sockets when she said that some of the Caliendos were sent. The royal family got involved in something so trivial as thieves and smugglers and sent their protectors to take care of them!? he wondered, shocked. As he thought about the Caliendos, the electricity-manipulators, Tomas listened to the sounds of the storm outside of the wagon they all sat in. Was the storm their doing?

   At the woman's question, Tomas frowned and closed his eyes, thinking. Put up a fight? I don't think I would put up a--oh, Tomas thought, his blood running cold as he remembered the woman that had followed him. The throbbing in his head grew more noticeable as he remembered her last words. Numbly and through the nausea that rose in Tomas again, he shook his head softly. Him shaking his head didn't help the pain and nausea, but Tomas tried not to focus on it.

   "I didn't put up a fight, actually. They just decided to knock me out, I guess," Tomas said softly, lowering his eyes to the ground as he finished. He couldn't understand why the woman had singled him out, much less why she had told her friend, Hugo, to knock him out. "Try not to hurt him too bad, Hugo," she'd said. But why? Tomas wondered. He winced as the next invisible hammer hit the back of his head more painfully than the other times.

   "Really? Huh. Can't see why, you don't exactly look threatening." she said carelessly.

   The man who sat in the corner laughed at her words, seeming to be in agreement with her.

   Tomas looked up to the woman as she spoke, trying to block out the pain again. Exactly, Tomas thought, but all he did was give her an awkward, sheepish smile and shrug his shoulders.

   "Anyways, you asked where we are?" she asked suddenly. "Well, you'll probably be just ecstatic to know that none of us actually know anything besides the fact that we've been stuffed in a wagon. They were smart and blindfolded us as they took us here. This guy," the woman inclined her head toward the unconscious man beside her, "figured that nobody was watching us and decided to leave. Apparently, he tried to fight the people watching over us all, and, of course, he decided to challenge the Caliendo. She shocked him badly enough to knock him out, but I think she didn't want to kill him, because he's still breathing and she dropped him back in here. She and the friend she's got out there are the two I was talking about."

   Tomas had to force his expression to remain neutral as the woman spoke about the Caliendo outside, but his heart felt like it was being squeezed in his chest as she did. "She", Tomas thought. The Caliendo outside is a she, didn't want to kill someone, and has a friend with her. Tomas had a bad feeling about who the Caliendo was.

   Silence fell once again in the wagon as the woman finished, shrugged, and looked at the flaps covering the way out of the wagon and keeping the rain from reaching them.

   I can't stay here, Tomas realized as he looked toward the flaps himself. Pierce was right, I've ruined my life before it's even started. But they still don't know my name. They probably don't have pictures of my face. All they'll have is a memory of what I look like. If I really wanted, if I try, I can escape from here and be completely forgotten. Tomas shuffled where he stood, subtly brushing his foot against the wall beside him. Despite the pounding pain in his head and the knowledge that an attempt at escape would likely be suicide, Tomas relaxed as he felt the hard object in his shoe.

   I still have my pocketknife if things get too bad. I'll just have to hope we're still in Vadera, or at least near it, and run home. That's it. That's all I have to worry about. Everything will be fine. Tomas told himself, repeating the last line to himself as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

   As though he could hear Tomas's thoughts, as though he knew that Tomas planned to try to escape, the friendly man who'd said he was blessed by the gods placed a hand on his shoulder. "So, how's your head doing?" he asked.

   Tomas tensed as he felt the man's hand land on his shoulder, fear and dread filling his heart despite how he'd been trying to calm himself. However, Tomas didn't make the mistake of flinching away this time. Instead, he brushed the man's hand off of his shoulder. "Better," he said softly, "I can see more clearly now." He avoided meeting the man's eyes.

   The man seemed to notice how he avoided meeting his gaze. Though Tomas wouldn't meet his eyes, he could see the suspicion on the man's face out of the corner of his eye. He let Tomas brush his hand off of his shoulder anyways. "That's good. You'll want to try not to move your head around too quickly. Physical activity is also a terrible idea," he said.

   Tomas almost wanted to laugh at the man's words, at how obvious he was making it.

   The woman spoke before Tomas even could. "If the kid wants to risk his life, let him." she said in a bored voice. She rested her elbow on her hand and her cheek on her other hand as she spoke.

   The man's expression twisted in anger as he turned to face her. "You're just going to let him throw away his life!?" he demanded.

   "I never had one to begin with," Tomas said before the woman could reply to him. He saw the man freeze and tense as he heard his words, but, before he could try to stop him, Tomas quickly turned on his heel and dashed toward the flaps of the wagon. He felt the man's hand grab at his wrist, but Tomas used his momentum to pull his wrist away and leapt through the flaps, going out into the storm.