"Cass."

My eyes begin to flutter open but there is something strange happening inside my body. I hear my name being called, but it's faint and distorted, as though the voice is far across the room.

"Cass!"

This time I feel hands on my shoulders, shocking me into instinctual awareness. I blink at the face of Lotan, who stares into my eyes with worry and eagerness.

I yawn gently, my arms beginning to stretch out as I adjust to consciousness. "What time is it?" I say.

The moment I say it, my eyes widen in horror as I realize I shouldn't be waking up. I never went to bed, I can't remember falling asleep. Lotan and I were sitting on the couch, we were watching a movie, but I can't remember the ending.

The sudden sound of a piercing cry makes my head jolt up. I stare across the room to see a child crying out in fear as a woman cradles him. Only then do I see where I am and what I'm lying on. I'm not lying on a couch--I'm lying on a wet, cold floor of a small dark chamber surrounded by strangers that all glance around in terror. Some are grown men, some are young women, and there is a girl that looks no older than thirteen who is sat in the corner with her eyes closed as she rocks.

"Lotan," I whisper. "Where are we?"

"I don't know." His hand falls to my arm and we both rise from the floor together, he tightens me to his side to balance me.

"Help!" a girl's scream fills the chamber. "He's not waking up!"

I look towards a young woman with blonde hair who is shaking an elderly man fiercely against one of the walls. Lotan and I stay where we are while a few of the others crowd the man on the floor.

"Move out of the way," a man says to her.

The woman backs up with her hands clasped around her mouth as the man falls to the ground and checks the elderly man's pulse. My hand squeezes around Lotan's, my heart taking off at the speed of light as I keep blinking to ensure this is real.

"He's breathing," the man declares. "It's faint."

"Are you a doctor?" the woman questions.

"Yes," he says. "Well, I was. What's his name?"

"Eddie," she says. "He's my Grandfather."

The man puts his hand to Eddie's face and slaps it gently. "Eddie, can you hear me? My name is Brendon, I'm a doctor. Can you open your eyes?"

Eddie's eyes suddenly open in a panic, his hands clutching to his chest as he stares at the stranger staring back at him.

The woman gasps in relief and runs to him, they share an odd moment on the floor, which becomes a blur in the background as everyone else is suddenly beginning to become too afraid to keep quiet.

"Where are we?" a young blonde girl whimpers from the other side of the chamber. She wears a low crop-top shirt and a revealing skirt which shows off her tanned, long legs. Beside her, is a girl that looks exactly like her, only she wears a sweater and jeans.

"I wish I knew," Brendon says as he walks over to the rocking girl in the corner and crouches down to talk to her.

"We need to find a way out of here," says a man that stands next to a teenage boy. "Is there a door? Can anyone see a way out?"

I start to look around with Lotan, inspecting every spec of the wall next to us, but there's nothing.

"There has to be a way out," I say to Lotan. "Otherwise, how did we get in?"

"Someone put us here," he whispers. "They wouldn't go to all that effort to just let us walk out."

"What do you mean? This makes no sense."

Lotan falls back to the wall and crosses his arms. "You've only just woken up, I've been awake a while. Trust me, there isn't a way out. There's speakers though, in that corner, and that corner." He points to the ceiling, showing me the small speakers that are attached to the chamber's roof.

"Do you think there's cameras?"

"Possibly."

I push my fingers into the bass of my throat. "What do they want with us? There's kids here."

"Not just that," he whispers. "Take a look around, what do you see?"

I glance around the chamber again, trying to see what he sees. Lotan is a marine, so he's been trained to spot chains, links and simple things that others may not pick up on straight away. The first thing I see is Eddie and his granddaughter whispering on the floor, and then my eyes move to the two blondes that resemble each other, then to the boy that is still crying and the woman that is comforting him. No, not a woman, his mother. And the man sticks close to the teenage boy's side as they bang against the walls frantically. Father and son.

"Pairs," I say.

"There's twelve of us," Lotan says. "Six pairs."

The man stops banging and screaming and turns to the rest of us. "Are you all just going to stand there? Or are you going to help us!"

"It's useless," Lotan shouts. "I've already tried, we're trapped."

"Trapped?" one of the blonde girls breathes out.

All at once, voices begin to rise in panic. Cries can be heard, screams can be heard, banging on walls can be heard. Their cries for help are met in vein, because whoever put us here didn't design for these walls to be heard through. I place my hand to the wall behind me, feeling the vibrations of the voices echo through it.

"Cass?" Lotan whispers.

I place my ear to the wall, my fingernail pricking at the stone, I watch as pieces of debris begin to peel off the wall.

"I was wrong," I say, mainly to myself. "It's not soundproof."

"It's not?"

"No, it's not designed. It's connected to another room, like the underground of a castle."

"You got all that from touching a wall?"

I meet his gaze and I frown. "Even if we could leave this room, I don't think we'd get very far."

Suddenly, a high-pitched muffled squeaking fills the room with terrifying noises that transforms our panic into silence. The speakers turn on, and a computerized voice speaks through it.

"Are you ready to play a game?"