Love In The Dungeon

.INSIDE THE DUNGEON

Oliver woke up to the sound of the whistle from the guards.

Another day to go training. He sluggishly woke up from the bed and began putting on his training clothes.

A second whistle came in, this time louder than the first.
He began speeding up in dressing. He knew if the third whistle came in, the commanders would troop in with their whips.

Oliver quickly dressed up and opened the door. He saw other children running haphazardly towards the training field. He joined them.
The children went into queues as they had always been told to do

They arranged themselves according to their code names.


***He was used to this kind of life now.
Kidnapped sometime back, He woke up in this place without any knowledge of his whereabouts. He had lost count of the days. There were no days nor nights. They trained until the commanders felt it was enough and would order them to go to bed.

They were not recognized by their own names.
The code names consisted of the abbreviations of their names and a number.

Oliver's code was OB6: meaning Oliver Banks number six. A tag with their code was clipped firmly to their breast pockets.
If a child was called by his or her code name and he or she refused to respond to the name, that child was sure to enjoy a series of whips from an angry commander.

The commanders had heavily built bodies and mean faces. Nobody dared question their authority. All the children were entitled to only two phrases so long as they remained there.

‘ Yes, sir ’ and ‘ no sir ’
Such rules were laid down there.***

All the children quickly paraded themselves at the training grounds.

The chief commander stood in front of them and addressed them in a hoarse voice.

“ You all listen to me carefully. You all are done with the first part of the training successfully. Therefore, we will be moving you to the second part. In that accord, we will be moving you to new rooms and a new training field. So you are going to take your last training for the first section today.

Group yourself into your training groups and wait for your commanders. Do you understand? ” The commander asked..

“ Yes sir ” the children chorused.

One little girl shouted at the top of her voice
“ I want to go home. Take me home. I want to go back to my mother” she shouted and began crying .
Immediately, one of the commanders removed a gun from the side of his pocket and shot the little girl. She fell instantly. Dead.

The other children screamed in horror.
The commander shot his gun in the air twice, and the whole place became as quiet as a cemetery.

Some children began urinating on themselves.
Others began to sob silently.

The gunshot sent a chill down Oliver's spine. He closed his eyes on seeing the girl murdered in cold blood. The second gunshots sent him frozen. He controlled himself from crying.

The chief commanders came again

“ As I said earlier, nobody disobeys any of the rules here. If you disobey, you will end up like that little girl. Understood ”

“ Yes sir” the children replied in a very meek voice.

The attendants around quickly carried the body of the girl away.

After the body was carried out, the commanders asked the children to group themselves for their training.

That day, any child that failed any of the tests would be shot dead. Oliver counted the gunshots he heard. About forty gunshots counted, and he stopped counting after he narrowly saved himself from being shot because he was not concentrating.

The children witnessed bloodshed that day


After the training that day, all the children were given new rooms from the other side of the wall.

Oliver was given a room, too. When he got inside the room. He noticed that there were two beds inside. He stood at the door and scrutinized the room a bit and finally settled on one of the beds.

Oliver laid his bed and sat on it, thinking about his new life. He wondered how his parents would react to his loss. He thought of escaping the whole place a bit, then he realized that he did not even know where he was and there were mean guards everywhere. Any mistake, and he would be killed.

He was still pondering when the door opened.
Thinking it was the commander, he quickly stood up.

His instincts got him wrong as a young girl entered the rooms.

Oliver stared at her with a mean face and gave her a questioning look as if to say ‘ Why do you want? ’

The girl stared at him for a moment and began walking towards the other bed.

“ This is my room. What do you want here? ”
Oliver shouted at her.

The girl stopped in her tracks, turned around, and replied “ Sorry, this is now our room ”

She looked unmoved about Oliver's shouts
‘ She looks so full of herself ’ Oliver thought.

“ Our room? Did you say our room? This is my room. I was brought here first, so this is my room. Better go back and find your way to your own room ” Oliver shouted.

“ Well, the commander said we will be staying two in a room. So I am going nowhere, I am going to share this room with you here”
The girl said.

Before Oliver could say anything, a commander barged in and stood at attention in front of the children .

“ This is going to be your new room for both of you. OB6 and OJ5. This is where you are going to stay for the period of the test.
You will be allocated a new trainer each.
There is no dullness around here. If you act dull, you are out, and you know what that means… ”

He paused, looked at their faces, and grinned happily and loudly.

“…. Brace yourself for the task ahead of you.
Your dinner will be served soon. understood? ”
He asked in conclusion.

“ Yes sir," Oliver and the girl replied in unison.

2.THE KIDNAP

The commander left the room, and the little girl gave Oliver an ‘ I told you so’ look.

“ Okay Fine” Oliver gave up “what's your name?” Oliver asked.

“ Jane Owens ” she replied.
“ Then why is your tag not JO5 but OJ5? ” Oliver asked Jane.

“ Well, my father had told me to always write my name, beginning with my surname. So when those bad guys asked my name, I said Owens Jane. I guess that was why they abbreviated it to OJ instead of JO. ” Jane explained
Oliver's mood changed suddenly.
He sat down on the bed with a sad countenance. His mind flashed back to the very fateful day he was kidnapped

****************

Oliver was still in bed enjoying his sleep when his alarm rang. He quickly pressed it, and it went silent. He rolled over and covered himself well with the blanket. But his joy of sleeping more was short-lived as his mother entered the room and shouted as she pulled the blanket off him.